Using Scrum in Global Software Development: A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

Abstract-There is a growing interest in applying agile practices in Global Software Development (GSD) projects. The literature on using Scrum, one of the most popular agile approaches, in distributed development projects has steadily been growing. However, there has not been any effort to systematically select, review, and synthesize the literature on this topic. We have conducted a systematic literature review of the primary studies that report using Scrum practices in GSD projects. Our search strategy identified 366 papers, of which 20 were identified as primary papers relevant to our research. We extracted data from these papers to identify various challenges of using Scrum in GSD. Current strategies to deal with the identified challenges have also been extracted. This paper presents the review's findings that are expected to help researchers and practitioners to understand the challenges involved in using Scrum for GSD projects and the strategies available to deal with them.

Large-scale agile transformation at Ericsson: a case study

“…According to (Leffingwell 2007), scaling involves many challenges, including coordination between several agile teams, lack of up-front architecture, lack of requirements analysis, as well as all the challenges of distributed projects, as many large organizations are distributed. Despite these challenges, many large companies have chosen to adopt agile methods, even though research on how to scale agile methods to large-scale projects (Hossain et al 2009), and on successfully conducting agile transformations in large organizations is largely missing (Dikert et al 2016).…”

“…Even though agile software development methods were originally designed for single, small teams, during recent years, large organizations have increasingly adopted them (Hossain et al 2009;Larman and Vodde 2010;Leffingwell 2007). A recent systematic literature review (Dikert et al 2016) revealed the lack of systematically conducted studies on large software development organizations adopting agile methods.…”

Effort Estimation in Agile Global Software Development Context

“…Hossain et al [5] performed a systematic literature review that identified challenges and risk factors related to the use of Scrum practices in globally distributed projects. Strategies and practices to deal with the identified challenges and risk factors were also investigated.…”

Risk Identification and Mitigation Processes for Using Scrum in Global Software Development: A Conceptual Framework

“…The framework graphically presents the key risks due to GSD project contextual factors, and current strategies to deal with these risks while using Scrum practices. For identifying the risks and related strategies, we identified primary papers that discuss the use of Scrum in GSD based on a previous Systematic Literature Review (SLR) [6][7]. Our SLR, which followed the guidelines reported in [8], identified 20 primary papers (from 366 papers) that discuss the use of Scrum in GSD projects.…”

“…Our SLR, which followed the guidelines reported in [8], identified 20 primary papers (from 366 papers) that discuss the use of Scrum in GSD projects. We chose "Scrum", as GSD project managers have shown interest in using Scrum practices in their day-to-day project management [7].…”