Understanding Shared Leadership in Agile Development: A Case Study

In agile software development methods such as Scrum, software is developed in self-organizing teams. In such teams, leadership should be diffused rather than centralized; also the team-members need to affect managerial decisions for achieving the benefits of a self-managed team. When the team and team leaders share leadership, leadership is rotated to the person with the key knowledge, skills, and abilities for the particular issues facing the team at any given moment. Therefore, we argue that the team leadership in Scrum should be divided among the Product-owner, Scrummaster, and the self-organizing team. If teams are to succeed at implementing shared leadership in Scrum, not only do the vertical (or traditional) leaders need training and development but so too do the team members themselves.

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