Agile practices: the impact on trust in software project teams

People are core to any software development effort, but they’re particularly important in an agile team. The Agile Manifesto places great emphasis on the team, encouraging autonomy and giving individuals the environment and support they need to get the job done.1 Leadership is shared, and the agile team has substantially more control, which dramatically changes the project manager’s role.2 Managers must have greater trust that their team will make the right decisions and complete tasks in a timely manner. An environment where stakeholders trust and respect each other is both a prerequisite for and a consequence of using agile methods. For example, practices such as collective code ownership and pair programming require developers to trust each other,2 while other agile practices such as iteration planning, daily stand-ups, and retrospectives help foster that trust. Agile methods have been the subject of much research, as has trust, but the impact of trust on agile teams has not.3 To address this gap, we explore how to develop and nurture trust among team members through agile practices.