Scalable Quality Assurance Model for Distributed Agile Software Engineering Teams

Abstract

Distributed agile software engineering enables organizations to coordinate teams across locations, but quality assurance becomes difficult when communication, ownership, testing practices, and integration responsibilities vary. This study proposes a Distributed Agile Quality Coordination Model, called DAQCM, to maintain software quality as team numbers increase. The model combines local quality cells, exposure-based assurance routes, cross-team quality clusters, shared evidence records, asynchronous handover boards, and selective product-level escalation. It was evaluated across five scaling stages involving three to fifteen distributed teams and compared with independent team QA, centralized review, and shared checklist-based assurance. DAQCM limited escaped integration defects to 7.8 per 100 stories at the fifteen-team level, compared with 19.6, 14.7, and 11.8 for the comparison approaches. It also improved evidence completeness and reduced cross-team response time. These findings show that federated quality ownership and standardized evidence can support scalable assurance without creating excessive coordination or review bottlenecks in distributed agile programmes.