A Case Study on the Applicability and Effectiveness of Scrum Software Development in Mission-Critical and Large-Scale Projects

Agile software development methods, including Scrum, Extreme Programming (XP), and Dynamic System Development Method (DSDM) have been mainly applied to small-scale and dynamically evolving software development projects (e.g., Internet and Web software development) with some success, due to their lighter and faster development life cycle. However, there has been very limited evidence of the effectiveness of such methods (in particular Scrum) in mission-critical and largescale software development projects. This paper will present the findings of a case study on the applicability and effectiveness of Scrum in such projects. We first briefly summarized the findings on what aspects of Scrum were both successfully and poorly adopted (applicability perspective) and what aspects of Scrum were key factors to improve or deteriorate the quality of the products in terms of bug rates, development time and costs (effectiveness perspective). Based on literature reviews of small group research, we also analyzed the effectiveness of Scrum from the perspectives of social facilitation, social loafing, and group motivational gains. In addition, we identified five core characteristics of Scrum and analyzed the relationships among them. Finally, this paper provides some suggestions to help organizations overcome obstacles expected in adopting the Scrum method as a future development tool.