Don’t Forget to Breathe: A Controlled Trial of Mindfulness Practices in Agile Project Teams

In a world led by ‘volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity’, depending solely on automatic pilots can have disastrous effects on human life [1]. Present-day organizations are facing the same problem as they are operating in a highly unpredictable and stressful environment to which they daily need to respond adequately. It is difficult for organizations to adapt to changing circumstances and demands in a highly volatile world. Carefully crafted plans, that should work like business or project auto-pilots, are met by a stubborn reality that does not fit the envisioned strategy. Such an increase in speed and uncertainty leads to an increase in stress for teams and management [2, 3]. As a consequence people fall back on autopilot behavior with suboptimal results.

This is a problem because organizations that do not possess the agility to reply to the present and its changed demands, run a great risk of becoming obsolete or at least lose some of their striking power within the market that they operate. Big corporations like Atari, Kodak, DeLorean, Polaroid, Pan Am and Compaq, once cutting edge businesses, have failed to meet these changing demands and showed no signs of agility, which eventually led to their demise. Their business auto-pilot was focused on a fixed point and failed to prevent them from crashing into new competitors, new technologies, new demands and waning public interest at the next junction. Companies that cannot alter their course because they cannot recognize the changes in the market, will fail or decline. Their employees will likely have to deal with stress levels that keep on building up in their system with a great chance of burnout and demoralization.

Mindfulness, a concept increasingly popular in practice, promises relief to some of those symptoms. Mindfulness deals with a certain attitude towards reality in which the practitioner approaches the here-and-now in ‘the fullest attention to whatever the moment presents’ [4]. Mindfulness provides tools to increase attention and aims to create habits of mind that lead to stress reduction [5]. While there is a firm evidence base of mindfulness in clinical psychology, research on the application of these practices in the context of professional organizations such as agile teams, is still in its infancy.

In this report we present the first empirical perspective on the application of a very concrete mindfulness practice in agile teams: the three minute breathing exercise. While previous studies predominantly conducted in the field of clinical psychology only revealed results after several weeks, our findings point at an immediate effect of the exercise in a subsequent meeting. Based on our experiences we draw out an agenda for further research. Our findings provide a strong base for further exploration relevant for both research and practice.

While the debate on the definition of mindfulness is ongoing, it’s roots can be traced to Buddhist psychology where it has been practiced for several millennia [6]. The concept has then been introduced in the field of contemporary psychology by Jon Kabat-Zinn in the mid-1980s, as ‘paying attention in a particular way, on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally’ [7, 8]. Since then mindfulness has been applied in many fields such as education [9], law [10], “prison programs” [11], “IT” [12], and “business” [13] to stimulate more positive responses and better-decision making. While there is a growing base of evidence that specific mindfulness practices can have a positive effect on human behaviour, little is known on its impact in professional organizations such as agile teams.

In the following subsections we will discuss existing evidence of mindfulness practices applied in clinical psychology, organizational psychology, information systems, management research, and lastly in agile teams.

Mindfulness in Clinical Psychology. Several therapies and trainings have been developed to execute mindfulness based interventions. Kabat-Zinn for example introduced Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR). This treatment was originally designed to “treat patients with chronic pain” [8]. Eighteen known studies have been undertaken toward fathoming the consequences of MBSR on different groups of participants [14]. All of the research indicates that there is a positive correlation between MBSR and psychological well-being. Shapiro, Schwarz and Bonner for example have conducted a study among medical students, wanting to find out if the students would be able to cope better with stress after they had gone through an official MBSR program [5]. The results indicate that participation in a mindfulness-based stress reduction intervention can effectively (1) reduce self-reports of overall psychological distress including depression, (2) reduce self-reported state and trait anxiety and (3) increase scores on overall empathy levels [5]. Studies have shown that mindfulness has a general positive impact on one’s psychological health [7]. Mindfulness has been correlated to a myriad of positive effects on people with psychological issues. Good results have been shown in the areas of “self-esteem” [15], “self-efficacy” [16], “clarity” [17], “self-compassion and empathy” [18]. The correlation of mindfulness has also been associated with the reduction of “depression” [19] and “stress” [20].

Mindfulness in Organizational Psychology, Information Systems and Management Research. Several randomized controlled trials have been undertaken to prove the effectiveness of mindfulness in a business setting. In an integrative review Good et al. [21] integrate the impact of mindfulness into five areas of basic functioning (attention, cognition, emotion, behavior, and physiology) and into three clusters of workplace outcomes (performance, relationships, and well-being).

Reb et al. [22] for example examined the effect of “leader’s mindfulness on employee well-being and performance”. The study showed that the higher the supervisor’s mindfulness: (1) the higher the employees’ psychological need satisfaction, (2) the higher the job satisfaction of the employee, (3) the more favorable overall job performance ratings, (4) the higher the in-role performance, and (5) the higher the engagement with organizational citizenship behaviors. Other randomized controlled trials in this area have also shown a positive correlation between the trait mindfulness and psychological well-being, better decision-making and better handling of stress [23].

Hafenbrack et al. [23] discuss the association with a mindfulness condition towards (1) positive emotions, (2) focus on the present, and (3) better decision-making. Mindfulness practices are associated with an augmentation of a positive emotional state of being, since mindfulness “increases the willingness to tolerate uncomfortable emotions and sensations” [24] which indirectly increases the quality of decision making [25]. There is a significant direct correlation between the mindfulness state and decision making [23]. Lastly mindfulness has a focus on the present [8, 23] which indirectly increases the value of decision making.

Mindfulness, Agility and Agile Teams: Initial work on agile teams and wellbeing indicates that teams that feel more empowered experience less stress [26]. However, while the popularity of agile methods is continuously rising, establishing the right team atmosphere and leadership approach remains a challenge [27, 28]. Especially in situations of increased speed and competition, agile teams are experimenting with practices to counter the loss of focus [29].

Mindfulness, while promising relief to some of the aforementioned symptoms, has so far received little attention in the context of agile methods. In existing literature the concept has been explored in two main directions in relation to agility: (1) Mindfulness as an organizational condition and a theoretical concept that supports agility through attention to detail and reliability of systems (compare [30]), and (2) Mindfulness practices as a set of tools to achieve it.

Mindfulness as a theoretical concept to support agility in organizations has been explored by McAvoy et al. [30] to compare ‘Doing’ Agile vs. ‘Being’ Agile - thus understanding the effectiveness of agile practices in organizational contexts. Nagle et al. [31] utilize a mindfulness measure to understand how an organization can achieve flexibility and reliability in the context of Global Software Development (GSD).

The interaction of concrete mindfulness practices and agile practices is far less well understood. Agile practices such as stand-up meetings for team coordination [32], Iteration Reviews for continuous customer feedback, or Retrospectives for teams to reflect and improve their ways of working, are concrete routines that help teams to deliver their products and improve. Mindfulness practices, similarly to agile practices, provide very specific patterns of action and reproducible protocols, routines that can help build mindful behaviour in organizations [33]. For example, Bernárdez et al. [12] conducted an experiment comparing groups of students conducting a mindfulness exercise to a control group practicing public speaking, with the former being more efficient in developing conceptual models.

Following evidence across various fields we know that mindfulness exercise can have a positive impact on decision-making, the ability to focus and psychological well-being. However, until now little is known on the impact of those exercises in business settings, especially in agile project teams. The three minute breathing space exercise [34], for example, is a concise mindfulness exercise that can be applied relatively easy in teams with little investment. The participant approaches the short exercise with an attitude of alertness and curiosity throughout its three stages of ‘becoming aware’, ‘focusing attention on breathing’ and ‘extending the attention’ [34]. Similarly to meeting routines in agile teams, such as stand-up meetings, it provides a concrete and convenient protocol. As such, the two practices, stand-up meeting and the breathing exercise, can be combined into an experiment.

Based on the literature reviewed above we thus pose the following question: What is the effect of the three minute breathing space exercise on the quality of meetings in an agile project team?

Protocol: The trial was divided into three phases, a (1) preparatory phase from April until May 2016, three organizations were asked to join and facilitators were instructed, (2) collection of a baseline measurement in the beginning of June 2016, and (3) the actual trial period lasting from mid-June until mid-July 2016.

In order to reduce bias, we designed a controlled trial including a placebo as well as a natural history control group to compare the effect of the mindfulness exercise. To do so, we created a trial protocol including three groups, (1) an active group with teams executing the breathing exercise before their meetings, (2) a placebo group, which would listen to classical music by composer Igor Stravinsky, and (3) a control group. In order to distract attention from the actual mindfulness exercise, the study was strictly framed as an “experiment to increase effectiveness in Scrum Meetings” across participants and supporting facilitators. The placebo¹ group was added to compare the impact to a non-meditative form of relaxation, which could have an impact on the team, and to further remove attention from the mindfulness exercise. All data collection was kept strictly anonymous and we repeatedly asked the teams to give honest opinions.

We chose stand-up meetings as the agile practice the trial was aligned to, also referred to as “Daily Scrum”. We chose that specific meeting type due to frequency, commonly accepted format and contribution to decision-making within the team [32]. The meetings are short in nature and strictly time limited. The team members address the three questions “What have I done? What will be done? What obstacles are in my way?” and make operational decisions [32].

The interventions for the three trial groups were designed as depicted in Table 1. For the active and placebo groups a guided 5-minute exercise was given just before the start of the stand-up meeting, the natural history control group had no exercise whatsoever. The mindfulness breathing exercises (for a protocol compare [34]) as well as the Stravinsky² placebo exercise were both guided by experienced mindfulness instructors to give the best results. The breathing exercise was chosen due to its short nature, accessibility and prior exploration in the context of software teams [12].

Organizations, Teams and Participants: Between April 2016 and May 2016 we reached out to organizations with software development departments in the Netherlands. The selection criteria was to find organizations with at least three software development teams applying Scrum for a period of at least three years. This ensures that these teams are working with short cyclical iterations in which working software is completed after each sprint, and applying stand-up meetings. Out of the 10 inquired organizations, three organizations and a total of 8 teams agreed to participate. After gaining the commitment of the teams, we assigned them to one of the three trial groups as depicted in Table 2. Organisation Gamma originally included a placebo team as well, however, the team dropped out due to internal deadlines before the trail execution. At last there were 8 teams included in the trial and respective analysis. Furthermore, seven facilitators were instructed to conduct the respective exercises and collect the data on-site.

Questionnaire Design and Data Collection: Following our literature study we compiled a questionnaire based on two dimensions: mindfulness and effectiveness. The questions can be found in Table 3. The questions addressing mindfulness (Q03, Q05, Q07, Q08, Q09, Q10) have been selected based on the dimensions mindfulness has been reported to have an impact on, such as: improved decision-making, better emotional responses, focus on the present [23]. In addition to that we added questions on effectiveness of the meeting (Q01, Q02, Q04, Q06). The questions have been administered with a 7-point Likert scale: 1 = Never, 2 = Rarely, 3 = Sometimes but infrequently, 4 = Neutral, 5 = Sometimes, 6 = Usually, 7 = Always

Before the actual trial we conducted a baseline measurement which would later serve as a base for comparison. The baseline measurement was collected at the beginning of June 2016, the actual trial followed in mid-June 2016. During the trial team members were asked to fill out the questionnaire directly after the meeting and respective intervention (compare Table 1). In order to have sufficient time between the measurements, the exercises were conducted and data was collected once per week across the participating teams. After each allocated meeting, being three stand-up meetings per team, the stated items were graded by each team participant and were handed over to the facilitators. The time frame in which these measurements took place is from May 30th until July 25th of the year 2016. The facilitators made sure that the forms were then forwarded to the researcher.

Data Analysis: The data generated was analyzed by question and by preparation type, i.e. the baseline of each question of each preparation type was aggregated and compared to the figures that were the result of the actual measurements that were taken after the experiments had been conducted. With that aggregation level a t-test was executed on the difference between the baseline and the experiment per preparation type, finding the difference in average scores on all questions and the significance value (the p.value) of all these differences indicating if the difference could be explained through the intervention itself. The significance value we sought was a p-value < 0,05.

Besides the differences in average per question given the preparation type, we also took an average on the aggregated sum of the questions per team and tried to identify the maturity of the team. Furthermore the variance of all questions per team was measured to ensure the homogeneity of the given answers per team. To control for any unexpected influences T-values were measured.

This section presents the results of the experiment. Table 2 depicts the participating teams, the respective team size, the number of measurement points, as well as the number of completed questionnaires. Every team consisted of approximately eight members. Each team, with the exception of the control groups, had four measurement moments. Those consisted of one baseline to measure the effectiveness and culture of the team before any intervention was provided and three guided measuring moments.

The main query of this paper is whether a short mindfulness intervention has an impact on the effectiveness and culture in stand-up meetings of agile development teams. In the following subsections we will discuss (1) the perceptions of the teams with respect to our research question, (2) the embedding of the exercise in a broader organizational setting and barriers to its adoption, and (3) directions for future research.

The goal of this study was to explore the impact of a short mindfulness exercise on the quality and effectiveness of meetings in agile project teams. A controlled trial was designed to observe effects associated with mindfulness in the context of eight Scrum teams in three organizations.

The participants perceived the practice as useful, and statistically significant improvement was reported on some of the dimensions in the groups performing the exercise (listening, decision-making, meeting effectiveness, interaction, emotional responses). The teams in our case organizations will not continue with the exercise in their particular setting. Nonetheless, the result is quite remarkable as the trial shows an instant effect while other studies had a preparation phase of several weeks or more. Further research needs to be done in order to understand the circumstances under which its effects are perceived more or less. If there is more collaboration and more pressure in future business settings to keep our organizations healthy, sustainable and effective, the use of mindfulness might be more essential. To do so we provide concrete ideas for a research agenda to explore the effects further.

The conclusion that we can draw is that mindfulness in the form of breathing exercises indeed enhances the quality of meetings in an agile team. Research indicates the increasing importance of emotional intelligence and empathy to be for future workforce next to analytical skills. Practices such as the here discussed exercise could help build up some of those skills in the future.