Using Scrum in Global Software Development: A Systematic Literature Review

There is a growing interest in applying agile practices in Global Software Development (GSD) projects. The literature on using Scrum, one of the most popular agile approaches, in distributed development projects has steadily been growing. However, there has not been any effort to systematically select, review, and synthesize the literature on this topic. We have conducted a systematic literature review of the primary studies that report using Scrum practices in GSD projects. Our search strategy identified 366 papers, of which 20 were identified as primary papers relevant to our research. We extracted data from these papers to identify various challenges of using Scrum in GSD. Current strategies to deal with the identified challenges have also been extracted. This paper presents the review’s findings that are expected to help researchers and practitioners to understand the challenges involved in using Scrum for GSD projects and the strategies available to deal with them.