Applicability of the Scrum Methodology in Remote Work Environments and the Challenges Encountered

This study examines how Scrum teams within the Information Technology (IT) and software development sectors implement this methodology in a remote work environment and the challenges they encounter during its implementation. As a result of the widespread adoption of remote work models, investigating the adaptability of Scrum to such environments has become a necessity. Scrum is fundamentally an agile management framework widely utilized in software engineering that helps teams plan and track their work based on specific rules, principles, and values, and it is based on intra-team communication, collaboration, and regular feedback loops. Ceremonies such as Daily Scrum, Sprint Planning, Sprint Review, and Sprint Retrospective require continuous team collaboration. However, the remote work environment that rapidly spread after the pandemic has directly affected these features of Scrum. The most common problems in remote work are communication breakdowns, decreased team commitment, and meetings not being conducted as efficiently as expected. In addition, the lack of physical interaction makes it difficult to regularly track tasks, leads to an increase in communication errors, and makes it difficult for some Scrum ceremonies to fulfill their intended function. Such situations highlight the need to evaluate the extent to which the Scrum methodology is functional and sustainable in a remote work environment. The aim of this study is to identify the key factors affecting Scrum processes in remote work environments and to offer suggestions for their more efficient implementation. This study examines how problems in areas such as communication, coordination, and meeting organization affect the Scrum process in remote applications. The expected contribution of the research is to develop a practical framework demonstrating how Scrum ceremonies can be adapted to remote work conditions for distributed software development teams and to propose feasible strategies to increase team productivity. This aims to improve team performance and process success.