Scaling agile methods in global software projects: Is it possible with SAFe?

Abstract

Global Software Development (GSD) continues to grow substantially and it is fast becoming the norm and fundamentally different from local Software Engineering development. Withal, agile software development (ASD) have become an appealing choice for companies attempting to improve their performance although its methods were originally designed for small and individual teams. Despite it, agile practices in Global Software Development (AGSD) has become the main option to execute projects in distributed environments due to its benefits of better communication and coordination, improved productivity, and quality. However, while organizations continue to grow, the complexity and challenges arise fast, many companies are dealing with large-scale global projects and looking for how to adapt agile in those scenarios and scaling agile practices to coordinate them. The current literature does not provide a cohesive picture of how the agile practices are taken into account in the distributed nature, and also how to scale than in large-scale AGSD projects. It lacks data on how to use agile and also scale it in GSD settings, which agile and scaling agile practices work in Global Software Development (GSD) teams and who are supposed to apply them. Based on this literature gap, this study aims to highlight how ASD practices are applied in the context of GSD to develop a set of techniques that can be relevant in both research and practice. Furthermore, it also aims to highlight a set of agile practices that are used by GSD teams to scale agile and map those practices with Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe). To answer both of the research questions, first: “How agile practices are adopted in agile global software development teams?”, second: “Which practices reported in AGSD literature embrace practices from SAFe when adopting scale agile development?”. It was conducted a systematic literature review of the ASD, GSD, and AGSD literature. A synthesis of solutions found in seventy-six studies provided 48 distinct agile practices that organizations can implement in globally distributed settings. Furthermore, from those 48 agile practices, it was possible to identify 18 scaling agile practices embrace SAFe practices. These implementable practices go some way towards providing solutions to manage GSD with agility, while the linked SAFe practices provide guidelines for better scale agile in large-scale global projects.