Empirical Analysis of Features for Scaling Agile Practices in Globally Distributed Software Development: A SWOT-AHP Approach

Globally Distributed Software Development (GDSD) organizations often encounter considerable challenges when attempting to adopt agile methodologies due to the geographic dispersion of their teams, which operate under temporal, cultural, and geographical distances. This study investigates the key features that impact the scaling of agile methods in GDSD environment. Furthermore, the identified features are categorized using the SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) framework. To determine their relative importance, the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is employed for their prioritization. The results highlighted that the “Strengths” category emerged as the most significant category, while “Weaknesses” is found to be the least significant category of the features for scaling agile methods. Similarly, incremental delivery, optimal project documentation, strong client–vendor relationships, etc., are found to be the most significant features for scaling agile in GDSD projects. Based on the results and the proposed framework, we can conclude that the identified features and their respective SWOT categories can provide a knowledge base for agile and GDSD practitioners to successfully scale agile methods in the GDSD environment.