Investigation of Agile methodology adaptation & implementation at Global and National Software Industry

Abstract

Agile practices are considered as a major attraction for global software development (GSD) projects owing to its flexible nature. With every passing day, agile methodologies are gaining enough acclaim across the globe but when it comes to our national software industry, we are far behind in terms of adaptation and implementation of agile. This study has conducted a systematic literature review to find the trends and factors impacting the implementation of agile across the global level and then an extensive survey was conducted in Pakistan’s Software Industry to find the trends in the agile practices being followed here. The extensive research resulted in a research gap that highlighted that our national software industry claims to adapt agile on Global Standards but there are many challenges that hinders its progress and adaptation in industries. These challenges include incompatibility with existing working environment, lack of up front planning and timing constraints. And a customization to existing agile methodologies is required that can promote its implementation with the existing working environment. A systematic literature review (SLR) of 28 studies has been carried out to find the trends of agile in global software development and an extensive survey has been conducted among the software engineers from Pakistan to have a comparison among agile practices that are being followed by both international and national level. A variant of Scrum has been proposed on the basis of the research gap found during literature review and survey. The proposed approach targets the major challenges that are identified through our extensive research. Scrum has been tailored to accommodate the limitations of agile including lack of up front planning, specific timing constraints & progress monitoring. The proposed variant focuses on reducing the stand-by-time of resources by introducing multiple activities in parallel, bi-weekly meetings & by adding a concept of master project sprint planning as well individual sprint planning. The proposed approach has been validated through multiple case studies & feedback has been taken from practitioners to find a comparison between the proposed approach & existing approach.