Onboarding: How Newcomers Integrate into an Agile Project Team

Abstract

Although a stable team is deemed optimal for agile project success, new team members need to join ongoing agile projects. Newcomers must rapidly assimilate into the organisational and project environment while learning how to contribute effectively to the project and integrate into the team without seriously interrupting project progress. This paper addresses how newcomers integrate into an established agile project team and the challenges newcomers and the team face during this process. This paper is a single case study of a co-located agile project team in a large IT department who regularly onboard inexperienced newcomers. We found a mixture of traditional onboarding practices and specific agile practices contribute to the onboarding process. Onboarding challenges include empowerment and mindset change, accommodating part-timers, conveying agile principles, and adjusting to changes in team composition.

An onboarding model for integrating newcomers into agile project teams

“…We also found adjustments that had to be made by newcomers and the workplace to support integration, some of which were particularly related to an agile context. This paper extends a previous publication (Gregory et al, 2020) by adding more detail about the study, specifically the literature, research method, and participants. It also contains a more detailed presentation and discussion of the findings which leads to a new model of onboarding not previously presented.…”

Retaining Healthcare Workers: A Systematic Review of Strategies for Sustaining Power in the Workplace

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