# The links between agile practices, interpersonal conflict, and perceived productivity

## TL;DR

This study explores how different agile practices impact team productivity and interpersonal conflict in software development teams, highlighting the need for conflict resolution training to maintain effectiveness.

## Contribution

It identifies specific agile practices linked to perceived productivity and conflict, emphasizing the importance of conflict management in agile teams.

## Key findings

- Interpersonal conflict negatively correlates with Iterative Development and Customer Access.
- Iteration Planning and Iterative Development positively relate to perceived team productivity.
- Continuous Integration & Testing negatively associates with team productivity.

## Abstract

Agile processes explicitly focus more on team-work than more traditional management techniques when building software. With high velocity and responsiveness on team-level come the risk of interpersonal conflict in the agile organizations. Through a survey with 68 software developers from three large Swedish companies, I found that the presence of interpersonal conflict was negatively connected to the agile practices Iterative Development and Customer Access. The agile practices Iteration Planning and Iterative Development were positively linked to the measurement of the developers' perceived team productivity. However, Continuous Integration & Testing was negatively connected to productivity. These results show which agile practices are directly linked to team productivity, but also, and more importantly, indicate which of the agile practices that might be more prone to not work as intended, when the team struggles with interpersonal conflict. Therefore, I argue that members of agile teams need training in conflict resolution techniques in order to lower the risk of interpersonal conflict negatively affecting team productivity.