Self-Organizing Agile Teams: A Grounded Theory

Self-organizing teams are a hallmark of Agile software development, directly affecting team effectiveness and project success. Agile software development, and in particular the Scrum method, emphasizes self-organizing teams but does not provide clear guidelines on how teams should become and remain self-organizing. Based on Grounded Theory research involving 58 Agile practitioners from 23 different software organizations in New Zealand and India, this thesis presents a grounded theory of self-organizing Agile teams. The theory of self-organizing Agile teams explains how software development teams take on informal, implicit, transient, and spontaneous roles and perform balanced practices while facing critical environmental factors, in order to become self-organizing. The roles are: Mentor, Co-ordinator, Translator, Champion, Promoter, and Terminator. The practices involve balancing freedom and responsibility, cross-functionality and specialization, and continuous learning and iteration pressure. The factors are senior management support and level of customer involvement. This thesis will help teams and their coaches better understand their roles and responsibilities as a self-organizing Agile team. This thesis will also serve to educate senior management and customers about the importance of supporting these teams.