Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Lebenswissen­schaftliche Fakultät - Institut für Psychologie

How can Agile Practices lead to Project Success through Teamwork Mechanisms?

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Published Paper:

 Perceptive Agile Measurement: New Instruments for Quantitative Studies in Pursuit of the Social-Psychological Effect of Agile Practices

Instruction for Agile Teams to participate in this Field Study

[Participants List]

the technical project manager/scrum master, 3+ technical team members, the customer (if possible) for each team.

Thank you!

FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)

What's in it for you?

1. You get a short scientific personality profile according to the "Big 5" of Personality Traits.
   
2. You get a summary of descriptive statistical data as soon as 60 teams have participated.
   
3. You will receive a consulting report (free of charge) of the research results in spring 2009. This report will contain first results of analysis about:
1. comparison of teamwork mechanisms' relevance
   
2. comparison of agile practices' effectivity
4. Participating companies are enlisted (in consent) as research cooperation partners of Humboldt University Berlin.

When does the study take place?

The study is still in need for more teams!

Who participates?

The survey is filled out by complete teams, comprised of:

Four technical team members (including the technical project manager or equivalent supervisor, e.g. SCRUM master)
plus the customer representative.

(The survey can be filled out by more than 4 team members, but this would not change that each team counts only as one unit.)

How do you participate?

Each particpant fills out an online questionnaire which takes appr. 25 min. Participants receive a link to this survey in an email. No further effort is required.

What about data privacy?

The data collected will be analyzed without any personal information. The results will not be traceable to individual companies, teams, persons. The questionnaire tool transmits over Secure Socket Layer (SSL).

In a nutshell, why is this research relevant?

In general, there are extemely few quantitative studies on teamwork as a decomposition of separable effects - most studies have either analyzed specific aspects of teamwork, (e.g. team cohesion, goal commitment, social support), or have operationalized teamwork as a single, heterogeneous construct. --> This research aims at disentangling teamwork into several independent causal mechanisms toward project performance.

In research of agile software development, although a number of studies on social aspects have emerged in recent years, these have been exclusively qualitative. --> This research aims to verify the qualitative findings of agile research by a quantitative approach.

Furthermore, these studies on social aspects have mostly focused on a single agile practice. --> This research analyzes over 8 agile practices in order to compare effects between a large set of common agile practices.