The Use of SCRUM in Global Software Development – An Empirical Study

Abstract: The trend for global software development is increasing day by day. Global software development takes into account, the development of software globally by bringing knowledge about the market. There are several challenges that have an impact in developing software globally. In this study we investigate several management challenges faced in globally distributed projects and scrum practices that are being implemented by the organization. We also study the benefits in implementing scrum. For our research, we have performed literature review to find out the various challenges in managing globally distributed software projects and various scrum practices that are discussed. We conducted industrial case studies to find out the challenges being faced by them in globally distributed projects and the various scrum practices that are followed by them to overcome those challenges and also to know the benefits of implementing scrum in GSD. In order to provide quantitative support of management challenges and scrum practices discussed in the literature review, surveys have been conducted. We used grounded theory for analyzing the data gathered during the study. There are several challenges that are being faced by the organizations while developing software globally. There are also several scrum practices that have been found from the interviews. There are few challenges that need to be addressed in future research.