Investigating Causes of Scalability Challenges in Agile Software Development from a Design Perspective

The aim of this work is to identify and discuss causes of scalability challenges in the core of Agile software development and project management, which pertains to the Agile Manifesto in general and to the Scrum Guide in particular. First, the causes of challenges are identified with an analysis on the principles of the Agile Manifesto and the Scrum Guide, and on the results of a literature review conducted in the scope of the study. Then, the following causes of challenges are evaluated with our discussions and evidence from the literature where available: Physical dependencies, fragmentation and feudalism, short and static events, narrow focus on product, narrow focus on construction, and bottlenecks from one to many relations. The most significant contribution of this study is a thorough description of the causes of scaling challenges that are inherent in the core of Agile software development from a design perspective.