A survey on agile practices and challenges of a global software development team

The Agile Manifesto describes that the most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is through face-to-face conversation. However that is not always possible when teams are working in a Global Software Development (GSD) environment. Based on this scenario, this study presents an exploratory data analysis using survey results to explore agile practices and challenges of a global software development team that uses ScaledAgile Framework (SAFe), which is designed for the need of larger organizations. The goal of this study is to understand the team's level of knowledge in some agile practices and which types of communication are usually prioritized. As in GSD environments team members are geographically spread across multiple regions and time zones, we aim to identify challenges this environment can present. As a result of this exploratory analysis, it has been identified that communication is one of main challenges in GSD environment and that phone calls are considered to be the most efficient type of communication. Additionally, we have also identified that professionals have different levels of confidence in Agile practices and concluded that knowledge transfers among the professionals could help those team members that are not confident in some agile practices to increase their overall confidence and knowledge.