Impact of Scrum tailoring choices on technical debt

Date

2023-5

Author

Özkan, Özgün

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Agile software development (ASD) has increased its popularity by proposing solutions to the problems introduced by traditional methods. Among various ASD methods, Scrum is one of the most popular ones. Scrum Guide provides a detailed description of the definitions, rules, and purposes of each Scrum practice (i.e., events, roles, and artifacts). Due to various factors such as team size, team distribution, project domain, technology, and requirement stability levels, organizations prefer to adopt Scrum practices into their contexts and tailor them compared to the original definitions defined in the Scrum Guide. In this thesis study, we explored the tailoring choices made in Scrum practices in software organizations, determined the positive and negative consequences of these choices, and analyzed the impact of these choices from the technical debt perspective. To achieve these objectives, we first conducted a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) to identify existing studies in this field. Following this study, we conducted a survey study with 50 participants and subsequently conducted a follow-up interview study with 10 participants. Based on these studies, we found evidence on tailoring for all Scrum practices. The results also revealed that tailoring of Scrum practices yields more negative consequences than positive ones in software projects. Specifically, we discovered that specific Scrum tailoring choices lead to issues such as incomplete or incorrect code implementation and tests, lower product quality, and communication problems within Scrum teams, and among Scrum team members and customers.

Subject Keywords

Agile Software Development, Scrum, Scrum Tailoring, Technical Debt

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/104417

Collections

Graduate School of Informatics, Thesis