Background: It is widely accepted that systematic reviews are a vital resource to inform policy and practice to ensure efficient and effective health care. However, a systematic review is not a simple project to undertake, and given their complexity they can take anywhere from six months to two years to complete. As such, software programs have been developed to facilitate, streamline and support the review process.

Objectives: To develop software for conducting systematic reviews of various types of evidence.

Methods: An agile software development approach was taken. A widespread consultation process was undertaken to collect feature requests from an international network of systematic reviewers. These were then turned into 'user stories' and assigned points which reflected the technical requirement to complete a story. Throughout the development an international user group provided feedback on the software functionality to enable iterative changes throughout the process.

Results: The software is now available and supports the entire systematic review process for different types of systematic reviews. User feedback and testing is ongoing, and the software will continue to evolve based on the needs of systematic reviewers.

Conclusions: An agile software development approach combined with wide consultation and user testing can facilitate systematic review software design and development. A number of lessons learned throughout this process are available for other software developers in this field.