A survey on agile practices and challenges of a global software development team

TL;DR

This paper explores the challenges and practices of global software development teams using Agile, highlighting communication issues and the importance of knowledge transfer to improve team confidence and effectiveness.

Contribution

It provides an empirical analysis of agile practices and communication challenges in GSD environments using survey data, focusing on the use of SAFe framework.

Findings

Communication is a major challenge in GSD environments.

Phone calls are considered the most effective communication method.

Knowledge transfer can enhance team members' confidence in agile practices.

Abstract

The Agile Manifesto describes that the most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is through face-to-face conversation. However that is not always possible when teams are working in a Global Software Development (GSD) environment. Based on this scenario, this study presents an exploratory data analysis using survey results to explore agile practices and challenges of a global software development team that uses ScaledAgile Framework (SAFe), which is designed for the need of larger organizations. The goal of this study is to understand the team's level of knowledge in some agile practices and which types of communication are usually prioritized. As in GSD environments team members are geographically spread across multiple regions and time zones, we aim to identify challenges this environment can present. As a result of this exploratory analysis, it has been identified that communication is one of main challenges in GSD environment and that phone calls are considered to be the most efficient type of communication. Additionally, we have also identified that professionals have different levels of confidence in Agile practices and concluded that knowledge transfers among the professionals could help those team members that are not confident in some agile practices to increase their overall confidence and knowledge.