Agile systems, like the kanban and scrum frameworks, are built on assumptions of sustainability and stability, however, there is little empirical evidence on whether such systems are stable in practice or not. Therefore, in this study we aim to inspect the stability of Agile systems by leveraging the concept of stability described in Queueing Theory. We define a novel metric, the Stability Metric, as a way of assessing queueing systems, especially Agile systems. We inspect 926 Jira projects in 14 organizations with over 1.6 million product back-log items using this metric. The analysis showed that 74% of these Jira projects were not stable and stable systems, on average, had product backlog sizes 10 times smaller than unstable ones. These results suggest that while the goal of Agile is to create a sustainable, stable way of working, this is not guaranteed, and a better understanding of systems and queues may be required to help de-sign, create, coach, and maintain optimal Agile systems.
Piet Heinkade 179
Amsterdam 1019 HC
Netherlands
Queueing Theory
Stability
Jira
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