Cross-team Decision-making: Challenges and Improvements in Large-scale Agile Organizations
Typ
Examensarbete för masterexamen
Master's Thesis
Master's Thesis
Program
Management and economics of innovation (MPMEI), MSc
Publicerad
2024
Författare
Lastro, Tomislav
Schuster, Simon
Modellbyggare
Tidskriftstitel
ISSN
Volymtitel
Utgivare
Sammanfattning
Decision-making in large-scale agile organizations is characterized by complexity and dynamic
interactions, necessitating cross-team integration and collaboration. Agile methodologies
prioritize responsiveness and adaptability, yet the distribution of decision-making authority
across multiple teams implied by agile can result in difficulties and misalignments, a gap
insufficiently addressed in existing research. This master’s thesis aims to explore the challenges
and identify improvements associated with cross-team decision-making processes in large-
scale agile organizations. Addressing this aim, a case study has been performed at Zenseact, a
software development firm within the domain of autonomous driving, following a mixed-
methods design consisting of a self-completion survey and semi-structured interviews. The
study’s results point to challenges in three overall areas across teams, which were challenges
with information flow, collaboration and understanding, and complexities and coordination.
POs and Developers encounter such challenges most frequently, while Scrum Masters and ART
Leadership encounter them least frequently. Furthermore, the results show that improving
cross-team decision-making processes is a complex and inter-connected journey, and requires
improvements in areas of communication, responsibility clarifications, documentation,
collaboration, and maintaining a balance between adaptability and predictability. The
categorization into three main challenge areas provides a structured taxonomy for future
research. Additionally, the improvement ideas identified in this study may be relevant not only
for large-scale agile organizations but also for decision-making in complex and dynamic
organizational environments more broadly.
Beskrivning
Ämne/nyckelord
Decision-making , Cross-team decision-making , Agile , Large-scale agile , SAFe , Software development , Alignment , Collaborative decision-making , Decentralized decision-making