Maturing the Scrum Framework for Software Projects Portfolio Management: A Case Study-Oriented Methodology

Abstract

In the modern era, information technology-based solution providers are encountering a growing request for satisfying the versatile requirements of their customers in terms of software applications. To this end, specific approaches have been designed to streamline the way of accomplishing software projects in an efficient manner, i.e., agile-oriented frameworks. Even though previous studies have highlighted variations of such a framework, the literature has not addressed the adaptations required in response to the gradual maturity of a wide-ranging case study dealing with software applications. Following a case study-oriented methodology, this paper focuses on elaborating a set of workable maneuvers to mature the Scrum framework when applied to portfolio management. Particularly, we highlight how Scrum should be adapted from its basic setting to a vision and goal-oriented configuration or Scrumban under certain conditions. As a maturing practice, we propose a heuristic scoring technique to determine the sprint length of subprojects with different characteristics in the context of a portfolio. The study also introduces a multi-level refinement structure to enhance the monitoring of the teams’ performance under the proposed mature framework. The results obtained display a considerable spike in the realization rate of release planning in light of the actual performance.

Keywords

• Agile methodology
• project management maturity
• smart cities
• sprint length
• adaptive project portfolio management