Navigating social debt and its link with technical debt in large-scale agile software development projects
2024 (English)In: Software quality journal, ISSN 0963-9314, E-ISSN 1573-1367, Vol. 32, p. 1581-1613Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
Agile methodologies have emerged as transformative paradigms in the ever-evolving software development landscape, emphasizing iterative development, customer collaboration, and adaptability. As the scope and complexity of projects and organizations expand, applying agile principles within the context of Large-Scale Agile Development (LSAD) encounters distinctive challenges. The majority of challenges encountered in LSAD, technical and non-technical, are attributed to the accrual of social debt. However, a conspicuous gap remains in understanding and addressing social debt in LSAD. This study aims to fill this void by investigating social debt in LSAD through an in-depth industrial case study with a leading Nordic company specializing in telecommunications software and services and focusing on producing secure 5G network solutions. The study investigates the causes of LSAD's social debt and examines its impacts on secure 5G telecom software development. By addressing these objectives, this research sheds light on a critical aspect of LSAD's social debt, caused by 3C challenges(communication, coordination and collaboration), social confines challenges, community smells challenges, and organisational social challenges in the telecom sector that have been underrepresented in the existing literature.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Springer, 2024. Vol. 32, p. 1581-1613
Keywords [en]
Agile, Large-scale scale development, Scrum, Technical debt, Social debt, Non-technical debt, Telecom sector, Secure solutions, 5G, Large-scale agile development challenges, Software project management, Business support
National Category
Software Engineering Information Systems, Social aspects Information Systems
Research subject
Computer Science; Information Systems
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:kau:diva-101324DOI: 10.1007/s11219-024-09688-yISI: 001282662500001Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85200422152OAI: oai:DiVA.org:kau-101324DiVA, id: diva2:1888321
Funder
Knowledge Foundation2024-08-122024-08-122026-02-12Bibliographically approved