Skip to main content

Agile Software Development: Practices, Self-Organization, and Satisfaction

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
The Agile Imperative

Part of the book series: Dynamics of Virtual Work ((DVW))

Abstract

This chapter deals with the Manifesto’s principle of self-organizing teams. In recent work, the authors examine the state of practice using data from a study of software professionals in Switzerland, especially addressing the issue of overall satisfaction. The chapter reveals that the most striking correlation to satisfaction is the level of adoption of self-managing teams, whereas the strongest hindrances to satisfaction are a lack of ability to change the organizational culture and lack of management support. The analysis shows that technical and collaborative practices were related to self-organization and satisfaction, but were not able to explain satisfaction by themselves. Even with strong technical and collaborative practices, however, satisfaction is not assured, demonstrating that goals of creating timely and successful products and services matter.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 109.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 139.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Agile Manifesto Signatories. (2001). Agile Manifesto. http://agilemanifesto.org. Accessed 11 Nov 2020.

  • Barker, J. R. (1993). Tightening the iron cage: Concertive control in self-managing teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 38(3), 408–437. https://doi.org/10.2307/2393374.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Beck, K. (2000). Extreme programming explained: Embrace change. Addison-Wesley Longman Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beck, K., & Andres, C. (2004). Extreme programming explained: Embrace change. Addison-Wesley Professional.

    Google Scholar 

  • Derby, E., Larsen, D., & Schwaber, K. (2006). Agile retrospectives: Making good teams great. Pragmatic Bookshelf.

    Google Scholar 

  • Digital.ai Inc. (2020). 14th Annual state of Agile report. https://stateofagile.com. Accessed 11 Nov 2020.

  • Gossage, S., Brown, J. M., & Biddle, R. (2015). Understanding digital cardwall usage. In 2015 Agile Conference (pp. 21–30). https://doi.org/10.1109/Agile.2015.16.

  • Hoda, R., Noble, J., & Marshall, S. (2012a). Developing a grounded theory to explain the practices of self-organizing Agile teams. Empirical Software Engineering, 17(6), 609–639. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10664-011-9161-0.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hoda, R., Noble, J., & Marshall, S. (2012b). Self-organizing roles on Agile software development teams. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 39(3), 422–444.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kropp, M., & Meier, A. (2012). Swiss Agile study 2012. ISSN: 2296–2476.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kropp, M., & Meier, A. (2015). Swiss Agile study 2014. ISSN: 2296–2476.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kropp, M., & Meier, A. (2017). Swiss Agile study 2016. ISSN: 2296–2476.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kropp, M., Meier, A., & Biddle, R. (2016). Agile practices, collaboration and experience: An empirical study about the effect of experience in Agile software development. In P. Abrahamsson, A. Jedlitschka, A. Nguyen Duc, M. Felderer, S. Amasaki, & T. Mikkonen (Eds.), Product-focused software process improvement: 17th international conference, Profes 2016, Trondheim, Norway, November 22–24, 2016, Proceedings 17, 416–431. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-49094-6_28.

  • Kropp, M., Meier, A., Anslow, C., & Biddle, R. (2018). Satisfaction, practices, and influences in Agile software development. In Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering (pp. 112–121).

    Google Scholar 

  • Kropp, M., Meier, A., Anslow, C., & Biddle, R. (2020). Satisfaction and its correlates in Agile software development. Journal of Systems and Software, 164. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2020.110544.

  • Martin, A., Noble, J., & Biddle, R. (2009a). XP customer practices: A grounded theory. In AGILE Conference (pp. 33–40). https://doi.org/10.1109/AGILE.2009.68.

  • Martin, A., Noble, J., & Biddle, R. (2009b). The XP customer team: A grounded theory. AGILE Conference, 57–64. https://doi.org/10.1109/AGILE.2009.70.

  • Meier, A., Kropp, M., Anslow, C., & Biddle, R. (2018). Stress in Agile software development: Practices and outcomes. In J. Garbajosa, X. Wang, & A. Aguiar (Eds.), Agile processes in software engineering and extreme programming (pp. 259–266). Springer International Publishing.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Schwaber, K., & Beedle, M. (2002). Agile software development with Scrum. Prentice Hall.

    Google Scholar 

  • VersionOne Inc. (2006). The state of Agile development. https://www.infoq.com/news/versionone-agile-survey/.

  • Whitworth, E. (2006). Agile experience: Communication and collaboration in Agile software development teams. Master’s thesis. Carleton University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Whitworth, E., & Biddle, R. (2007a). Motivation and Cohesion in Agile teams. In G. Concas, E. Damiani, M. Scotto, & G. Succi (Eds.), Agile processes in software engineering and extreme programming (pp. 62–69). Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg.

    Google Scholar 

  • Whitworth, E., & Biddle, R. (2007b). The social nature of Agile teams. In J. Eckstein, F. Maurer, R. Davies, G. Melnik, & G.Pollice (Eds.), AGILE 2007, 26–36. Los Alamitos: IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/AGILE.2007.60.

Download references

Acknowledgments

We especially thank the Swiss Agile Study participants for their most valuable responses, and the Swiss IT organizations swissICT and SWEN for supporting and funding the studies.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Robert Biddle .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Biddle, R., Kropp, M., Meier, A., Anslow, C. (2021). Agile Software Development: Practices, Self-Organization, and Satisfaction. In: Pfeiffer, S., Nicklich, M., Sauer, S. (eds) The Agile Imperative . Dynamics of Virtual Work. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73994-2_3

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73994-2_3

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-73993-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-73994-2

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics