A case study on decoding human factors and socio-technical debt in large scale agile project

This study investigate influence of human factors on socio-technical debt in large-scale agile projects. Existing research acknowledges technical debt but it lacks investigation into how human factors influence debt accumulation and mitigation in large-scale agile projects. We conducted a case study with inductive analysis and identified three primary categories of human factors: personal essence and growth, collaborative perseverance, and organizational dynamics. We maps these factors to specific debt categories. Personal essence and growth factors predominantly inhibit people debt, while collaborative perseverance factors primarily mitigate social debt and organizational dynamic factors significantly contribute to organizational debt. Notably, all human factors influence process debt. These findings provide insights into how human factors modulate socio-technical debt in large-scale agile environments, offering valuable practical and research implications.