Understanding lack of trust in distributed agile teams: a grounded theory study

Abstract

Background: Trust fuels team performance and contributes to build an effective and cohesive team. The self-organizing and collaborative nature of Agile teams increases the importance of trust in software development teams. Trust is, however, affected in distributed teams. Aim: Through a Grounded Theory study we investigate the impact of trust in distributed Agile teams. Method: We interviewed 45 Agile practitioners from 28 different software companies in the USA, India and Australia, over a period of 3 years, using semi-structured open-ended questions. Results: In this paper, we present the reasons for lack of trust and its adverse effects in distributed Agile teams that emerged from the analysis, using the causal-consequences theoretical model. Conclusion: Understanding the causes and consequences of lack of trust can develop awareness of the importance of trust in distributed teams and pave ways for effectively building trust in project-oriented contexts.

Knowledge Management in Distributed Agile Software Development

“…We presented several other findings from this study in different papers [22,23,24,25,26,27]. In this paper, we aimed to investigate the question described in section 1, which is "How do Agile teams gather, store, share, and use knowledge in distributed software development?"…”

“…Lack of non-verbal cues such as facial expression or hand gestures in technology-mediated communication reduces the richness of the information exchanged between the distributed team members [26].…”

Adopting Test Automation on Agile Development Projects: A Grounded Theory Study of Indian Software Organizations

“…Thirdly, GT focuses on theory generation rather than extending or verifying existing theories [14]. Finally, GT is being liberally used to study the agile teams [11,[15][16][17][18]. Following Glaser's guidelines, the study started with a general area of interest -Agile project management -rather than beginning with a specific research problem.…”

The Impact of Team Climate on Failure and Success of Scrum Adoption

“…Lack of trust between the involved people is another critical issue that results is problems and challenges in Scrum adoption [12,17]. In fact, in such a people-oriented framework, lack of trust between team members is a serious barrier for effective communication, collaboration, and team performance.…”