Improving team performance working on global software development projects using agile methods. A case study of team performance in GSD, Sweden

Abstract

As globally distributed software development (GSD) is rapidly growing in recent years and in the pandemic situation that has recently happened, the topic of studying team performance of team members working on GSD cannot be much more relevant. Companies and teams all over the world face new challenges by combining distributed software development and agile methodologies due to its business benefits. In order to improve team performance working on GSD using agile methods, organizations should be able to influence every team member to proactively participate in such developments which leads to the question of what are the critical factors that influence team performance working on GSD using agile methods. Our study intends to explore existing challenges by reviewing present literature and empirically explore factors related to improving team performance by looking at what they think influences team performance in their new workways, specifically in an agile environment working on GSD. In this paper we are to present findings on critical success factors by exploring present literature to investigate the identified success factors that improve team performance working on GSD using agile methods, for which we conduct qualitative and quantitative analysis. Using a mixed model approach, this study was divided into 3 stages namely: Literature review, survey, and interviews to further investigate the present scenario of teams working on GSD in Sweden. Our results indicate that success factors not limited to but include training teams to be self-organized, coaching agile practices, sharing adequate project knowledge and documents etc. play an imperative role in improving team performance working on GSD using agile methods. In addition, we propose a framework/model that is entirely built on the team's potential. As agile GSD is a trending topic in information and software technology, we hope to contribute to a better understanding of challenges and success factors of teams working on agile GSD.