An Industrial Case Study for Scrum Adoption

Abstract

Agile software development methods and techniques have been demonstrated to improve employee morale, enhance end-product quality, and achieve customer satisfaction. Agile adoption always comes with special challenges and thus fundamental organizational changes are necessary for successful outcome. In this paper we present an in-depth case study for adopting Scrum in a multi-team and multi-project situation to a government entity in the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E). While there are many successful stories for adopting Scrum in large and small organizations, there is little known about adoption stories in a multi-project/multi-team environments. In this paper we present a case study for an unsuccessful adoption of Scrum in a government entity in the U.A.E. The government entity under study have used the traditional waterfall approach for many years and decided to move to Agile software development method. This study highlights the challenges faced during the adoption of Scrum method with recommendations to address them. Each organization has its unique properties and one case study is not enough to draw conclusions for the U.A.E environment. However, the results obtained from this paper help software engineers to better understand the development environment and context factors for software projects in the U.A.E and many lessons may be learned for future Agile adoption.