Do Scaling Agile Frameworks Address Global Software Development Risks? An Empirical Study

TL;DR

This study evaluates how well two scaling agile frameworks, DAD and SAFe, mitigate risks in global software development through empirical case studies, revealing strengths and persistent challenges.

Contribution

It provides an empirical assessment of DAD and SAFe frameworks' effectiveness in addressing GSD risks, highlighting areas of success and ongoing challenges.

Findings

Frameworks mitigate many traditional GSD risks, especially related to users and customers.

Persistent risks remain in the environment quadrant, such as geographic and cultural challenges.

Some risks are outside the immediate control of organizations, limiting framework effectiveness.

Abstract

Driven by the need to coordinate activities of multiple agile development teams cooperating to produce a large software product, software-intensive organizations are turning to scaling agile software development frameworks. Despite the growing adoption of various scalin g agile frameworks, there is little empirical evidence of how effective their practices are in mitigating risk, especially in global software develop ment (GSD), where project failure is a known problem. In this study, we develop a GSD Risk Catalog of 63 risks to assess the degree to which two scaling agile frameworks--Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD) and the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)--address software project risks in GSD. We examined data from two longitudinal case studies implementing each framework to identify the extent to which the framework practices address GSD risks. Scaling agile frameworks appear to help companies eliminate or mitigate many traditional risks in GSD, especially relating to users and customers. How ever, several important risks were not eliminated or mitigated. These persistent risks in the main belonged to the Environment quadrant highlighting t he inherent risk in developing software across geographic boundaries. Perhaps these frameworks (and arguably any framework), would have difficulty all eviating, issues that appear to be outside the immediate control of the organization.