Personality Traits of Scrum Roles in Agile Software Development Teams - A Qualitative Analysis

Software development teams must be able to react rapidly to changing customer requirements. Therefore, agile software development methodologies have evolved in the last decades. Interpersonal and social skills, which are influenced by personality traits, are of fundamental importance for a successful agile software development. While the significance of the human factor is widely acknowledged, scant studies investigate the impact of personality factors on software development success and those few studies report contradictory results. Hence, we conducted interviews with eleven Scrum team members from seven different companies to investigate which personal characteristics are important for agile software development success. We use the five-factor model as a theoretical basis for our investigation, more specifically, we have applied the facets developed by Costa and McCrae. This more detailed approach enables us to give an explanation of the conflicting outcomes of prior investigations. Our study contributes to existing research by suggesting that the most important facets for single Developers are altruism, compliance, tender-mindedness, dutifulness and openness to values. The Scrum Master needs tender-mindedness, assertiveness, dutifulness, achievement striving and stability. In contrast, straightforwardness, compliance, modesty, order and assertiveness are important for the Product Owner

More than Code: Contributions in Scrum Software Engineering Teams

Motivated and competent team members are a vital part of Agile Software development and make or break any project's success. Motivation is fostered by continuous progress and recognition of efforts. These concepts are founding pillars of the Scrum methodology, which focuses on self-organizing teams. The types of contributions Scrum development team members make to a project's progress are not only technical. However, a comprehensive model comprising the varied contributions in modern software engineering teams is not yet established. We propose a model that incorporates contributions of all Scrum roles, explicitly including those which are not directly related to project artifacts. It improves the visibility of performed tasks, acts as a starting point for team retrospection, and serves as a foundation for discussion in the research community.Comment: Published in IEEE/ACM 42nd International Conference on Software Engineering Workshops, ACM Press, 202

Understanding Goal-Directed Emotions in Agile Software Development Teams

Agile software development is people oriented and emphasizes on teamwork. The emotional experiences of the team members may creep up and significantly influence their behaviors. Our study examines the role of emotion in agile software development using a multi-site case study of two agile project teams. We develop a framework that explains how the project and individual goals trigger emotions and how the emotions influence behaviors and the project outcome. Our research highlights that agile project goals are interconnected with the individual goal and the misalignment between them bring about negative emotion when team members appraise the goal achievement situations

Understanding the relationship between emotional intelligence and team effectiveness in global, high-technology engineering teams

This research focused on engineers in the high technology industry as a distinct population that remains understudied in research on workplace emotional intelligence (EI). A mixed-method field study was used to examine the relationship between emotional intelligence and team effectiveness in engineering teams in a global high-tech organization. The study population was 27 self-directed, global software development engineering teams whose work was structured using Agile / Scrum methodology. Team member EI was measured through use of the short form Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire. Group emotional intelligence was measured through use of the Team EI Survey, which assesses team norms that support group-level emotional intelligence. Team effectiveness was measured via surveys completed by both team members and their managers. Findings revealed the study population of engineers had significantly higher mean levels of individual trait EI and their teams had significantly higher group-level EI scores than the overall populations in the survey databases for both instruments. Individual trait EI and group-level EI were found to be significantly positively correlated with one another at the overall mean level and among many of their dimensions. Team member ratings of team effectiveness were shown to have a significant positive correlation with group-level EI, while manager ratings of team effectiveness showed an inverse, negative (although not significant) relationship. Qualitative responses from both managers and team members stated a strong valuing of emotionally-intelligent behaviors and norms as enablers of successful team performance. Consistent with the data, comments also suggested a strong connection between the practices of the Agile / Scrum methodology and the development and reinforcement of individual trait EI and group-level EI norms. Implications for practice include establishing a common definition of team effectiveness across managers and team members. Findings also support the development and use of group-level emotional intelligence norms for engineering teams. Further research is recommended to explore the relationship between use of the Agile/Scrum methodology and individual and group emotional intelligence. This study contributes to the literature on emotional intelligence and team effectiveness, particularly for self-directed engineering teams using the Agile / Scrum methodology

Personality Traits and Ambidextrous Work Environments in IT Organizations – A Person-Job Fit Perspective

Driven by dynamic competitive conditions, companies’ information technology (IT) functions adopt agile practices and build ambidextrous organizational structures, which, in turn, affect the work environment of individual IT employees. Based on the fundamental assumption of person-environment fit theory that people seek out environments which allow them to behaviorally manifest their traits, this research aims to shift the focus in organizational design choices towards an individual-level perspective. We study whether and how personality traits and work environment characteristics, measured at the individual level of ambidexterity, relate and impact person-job fit (P-J fit). The results of a survey of 279 IT workers show that personality traits (operationalized by the Five Factor Model) significantly differ across exploitative and explorative work environments. Furthermore, the data suggests that the relationship between extraversion, conscientiousness and openness to experience on P-J fit is moderated by the level of ambidexterity

Agile or Fragile? - The Depleting Effects of Agile Methodologies for Software Developers

Despite the increasing diffusion of agile software development methodologies (ASDM) in firms, aca-demic studies in this field – though rising in number – are largely missing out on the implications for the individual software developer. The application of agile methodologies in software development projects has significant impact on the individual developer’s way of working. While some empirical research evaluated the advantages of ASDM for individuals, potential negative consequences for de-velopers, who have to cope with multiple draining demands in their daily work, remains largely unex-plored. Using resource depletion theory as a lens, we develop a research model to examine how the use of ASDM potentially decreases individual job satisfaction and increases turnover intention. We suggest that the effect is mediated by developers’ level of depletion expressed by psychological strain. In addition, we aim to determine who is more or less affected by depletion in an agile context intro-ducing the capacity for self-control as a moderator. To test our model, we plan to conduct a cross-sectional field survey among software developers working in agile teams. Drawing attention to under-represented negative implications on an individual level, we want to contribute to a more balanced picture of ASDM use in theory and practice

Human Psychology Factors Influencing Agile Team Autonomy in Post-Pandemic Remote Software Organizations

Agile project management methods are gaining in popularity in the software industry as software development teams are being asked to be adaptive to market needs and resilient to change and uncertainty. With increasing market uncertainty, global competition, and time-to-market pressure, it is becoming a challenge to develop an innovative product and deliver it on-time without the opportunity that comes from team autonomy to experiment and learn from failures in a remote workplace. To resolve this challenge, it is critical to understand the myriad human psychological factors in play that influence Agile team autonomy in a remote work environment. The role of human psychological factors on Agile project delivery success has been largely neglected or superficially covered in extant literature. The purpose of this research study was to study the influence of key human psychological factors on emergence of Agile team autonomy that leads to Agile project success in software organizations. The findings will help Information Systems researchers and practitioners in proactively identifying and addressing human psychology factors challenges to achieve successful delivery of innovative products using Agile Scrum methodology. Using an online survey instrument, the study sampled 137 software professionals from US software companies with experience in the Agile Scrum role of Team Member. The quantitative data generated was analyzed using multiple linear regression. The relationship between the independent variables – the human psychology factors pertaining to Leadership Style, Organization Structure, HR Practices and Stakeholder Engagement and the dependent variable - Agile team autonomy is explained through multiple linear regression. As multiple items are linked to variables, the statistical analysis was performed using the median scores for each variable. One-way ANOVA and Pearson’s correlation coefficient were used to demonstrate the existence (or nonexistence) of relationships between variables. Finally, an empirical model relating the human psychology factor variables and the dependent variable of Agile team autonomy was constructed for the population