Team-level success factors in agile organizations
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Typ
Examensarbete för masterexamen
Program
Management and economics of innovation (MPMEI), MSc
Publicerad
2022
Författare
Jonsson, August
Ran Ragnadottir, Maria
Modellbyggare
Tidskriftstitel
ISSN
Volymtitel
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Sammanfattning
The business environment of today is rapidly moving and is characterized by complexity and
uncertainty. These conditions have made numerous companies replace their traditional way of
organizing with less hierarchical forms, in attempts of adapting to the new business landscape.
In the software development sector, agile methodologies have gained a strong foothold, seeing
companies transition their architecture to a more flexible structure built around self-managing
teams. Although there is a wide array of studies treating agile methodologies and self-managing
teams, there is a scantiness of literature addressing empirical research on self-managing teams
in an agile context and what they consider as the factors making their teams successful.
Furthermore, multiple papers treat factors that mediate a team’s success, however, few of them
consider these factors’ order of importance or how they can be measured. This research departs
from previous studies on self-managing teams in agile organizations and aims to bridge the
mentioned knowledge gap.
In this study, Zenseact, a software development company in the automotive sector, is
investigated in a single-case research project. Since its birth, Zenseact has embraced the new
business environment by employing agile methodologies and the traditional company
departments have been discarded in favor of self-managing teams in a dynamic organizational
structure. With this background, Zenseact has been deemed an appropriate organization for
investigation, and to explore what makes their self-managing teams successful. Followingly,
the researchers distilled the company’s ambition down to three research questions:
- What are the team-level success factors in self-managing agile teams?
- What method(s) can be used to measure the employees’ perception of these success
factors?
- Which team-level success factors do employees regard as most important for their
team´s success?
The researchers approached the study by first constructing a conceptual framework, which
served as guidance for the data collection and the analysis. Secondly, data on the employees’
perception of success and what makes their teams successful was collected through interviews,
observations, a survey, and company documents. Thirdly, the collected data was contrasted
against literature. Finally, how the findings contribute to research and practice was elaborated
upon.
In general, the factors making teams successful at Zenseact were aligned with the factors
presented in literature, although with some deviations. The data collection resulted in 15
different success factors. Among these 15, the five that were considered the most important
were: Trust, Communication, Respect, understanding, and acceptance, Task satisfaction, and
Team morale. Furthermore, the study suggested that the success factors, through their
intangible nature, are difficult to quantify, but could be measured through reoccurring self evaluation surveys, where the direction of change in satisfaction is studied. The primary
insights from this study are that the strict interpersonal success factors (e.g., trust,
communication, and respect, understanding, and acceptance) are considered predominantly
crucial for the success of self-managing agile teams. This brings further understanding to the
field, as these factors have previously been portrayed as important for a team’s success but
without regards to their order of significance.
Beskrivning
Ämne/nyckelord
Team level success , Self-managing teams , Agile teams , Teamwork , Team-level success factors