An Empirical Study on Leanness and Flexibility in Distributed Software Development

TL;DR

This study investigates how lean principles can enhance flexibility in distributed software development, addressing challenges of scaling agile practices across complex, geographically dispersed teams to improve efficiency.

Contribution

It provides empirical insights into applying lean principles to increase flexibility and efficiency in distributed agile software projects, filling a gap in existing research.

Findings

Lean principles facilitate flexibility in distributed teams.

Standardized practices reduce miscommunication and reinvention.

Agile strategies need tailoring for complex distributed environments.

Abstract

Nowadays, many individuals and teams involved on projects are already using agile development techniques as part of their daily work. However, we have much less experience in how to scale and manage agile practices in distributed software development. Distributed and global development- that requiring attention to many technical, organizational, and cultural issues as the teams interact to cooperatively delivery the solution. Alongside, very large team sizes, teams of teams, and more complex management structures forcing additional attention to coordination and management. At this level, there is an increasing need to standardize best practices to avoid reinvention and miscommunication across artifacts and processes. Complexity issues in enterprise software delivery can have significant impact on the adoption of agile approaches. As a consequence, agile strategies will typically need to be evaluated, tailored, and perhaps combined with traditional approaches to suit the particular context. The characteristics of software products and software development processes open up new possibilities that are different from those offered in other domains to achieve leanness and flexibility. Whilst Lean principles are universal, a further understanding of the techniques required to apply such principles from a software development angle. Thus, the aim of this research is to identify, how leanness facilitate flexibility in distributed software development to speed-up development process.