Design and validation of an integrated governance, quality maturity and architecture–economics framework for sustainable large-scale agile and ERP systems

Abstract

Large-scale Agile and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems have become critical infrastructure for modern organizations, yet their sustainability remains threatened by fragmented governance, weak quality maturity practices, and the absence of economic visibility in architectural decision-making. Empirical evidence shows that traditional Waterfall approaches impose excessive rigidity, while pure Agile methods lack accountability and control over compliance, leading to coordination failures, stakeholder misalignment, and high implementation risk in distributed and multi-module environments. Simultaneously, software architecture decisions significantly influence long-term cost, scalability, and organizational performance, but these effects are rarely evaluated using measurable financial indicators such as ROI and Total Cost of Ownership. Distributed Agile teams further suffer from inconsistent documentation, weak traceability, and governance gaps that reduce transparency and delivery efficiency. This thesis addresses these challenges by proposing an integrated framework that unifies Governance, Quality Maturity, and Architecture–Economics perspectives into a sustainable software engineering strategy for large-scale Agile and ERP ecosystems. The research adopts a multidisciplinary systems-engineering approach, arguing that long-term project success depends not solely on development methodology or architecture alone but on the coordinated interaction of governance mechanisms, process maturity, and economically aligned technical decisions