Using Multiteam Systems Theory and Team Work Quality to Identify Influence Factors for Measuring the Performance of Agile Teams in Large-Scale Agile Development

Motivation

Teamwork and the optimization of people is as old as the history of human cooperation. Sally Bibb, author of "The Stone Age Company" illustrates, that stone age men had to optimize their work (hunting) as opposed to the present-day man who has commitments to other people, tasks, motivation, and the desire to take risks and encourage innovation (1). The Stone Age man lacked a computer, but today's companies have two challenges in software development that have changed and is still changing the software development process and how it was developed in the last three decades.

Goal

The goal of this thesis is to answer following question: what factors have an influence on the team and program performance of a given Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) program. The focus is not on which methodology would be better, since there are already a number of studies in this area and the agile approach is currently the most widely used. Additionally, the management structures or other predetermined influences are not considered here. The goal is rather to find a model that provides an indication for how each team works together and what the expected performance is. Based on the factors it should be possible to define actions which would have a positive effect on the performance. 

Research Questions

1. Research question 1 (RQ1): What positive and negative influence factors exist on team and program level in literature and which can be mapped to an agile environment? 
2. Research question 2 (RQ2): Can the multi-team system (MTS) concept be applied for large-scale agile programs in order to adapt the existing research in this area?
3. Research question 3 (RQ3): Can the teamwork quality (TWQ) model be applied by the case study partner on the team level and are there any additional significant factors that can be added?
4. Research question 4 (RQ4): Can the TWQ model be applied from the team level to the program level?

Sources

(1) "A Question of Trust: The Crucial Nature of Trust in Business, Work and Life - And How to Build It" by Bibb, S. and Kourdi, J. (2007)