Teamwork quality and project success in software development: A survey of agile development teams

TLDR

Small, self‑directed teams are central to agile development. The study examines how teamwork quality influences performance, learning, and satisfaction in agile teams and compares these effects to traditional teams. The authors surveyed 477 members of 71 agile teams across 26 companies and applied structural equation modeling. Teamwork quality positively influenced performance when evaluated by team members and leaders, strongly enhanced learning and satisfaction, yet had negligible effect when judged by product owners; it was not higher than in traditional teams and only marginally improved performance relative to them.

Abstract

Small, self-directed teams are central in agile development. This article investigates the effect of teamwork quality on team performance, learning and work satisfaction in agile software teams, and whether this effect differs from that of traditional software teams. A survey was administered to 477 respondents from 71 agile software teams in 26 companies and analyzed using structural equation modeling. A positive effect of teamwork quality on team performance was found when team members and team leaders rated team performance. In contrast, a negligible effect was found when product owners rated team performance. The effect of teamwork quality on team members´ learning and work satisfaction was strongly positive, but was only rated by the team members. Despite claims of the importance of teamwork in agile teams, this study did not find teamwork quality to be higher than in a similar survey on traditional teams. The effect of teamwork quality on team performance was only marginally greater for the agile teams than for the traditional teams.