Problem reports and team maturity in agile automotive software development

TL;DR

This study investigates how team maturity impacts issue resolution speed in agile automotive software development, highlighting that more mature teams resolve problems faster, especially in early maturity stages.

Contribution

It provides initial empirical evidence linking team maturity levels to problem resolution efficiency in automotive agile teams.

Findings

More mature teams resolve issues faster.

Early maturity stages show significant improvement in issue resolution.

Team dynamics may influence productivity in automotive software development.

Abstract

Background: Volvo Cars is pioneering an agile transformation on a large scale in the automotive industry. Social psychological aspects of automotive software development are an under-researched area in general. Few studies on team maturity or group dynamics can be found specifically in the automotive software engineering domain. Objective: This study is intended as an initial step to fill that gap by investigating the connection between issues and problem reports and team maturity. Method: We conducted a quantitative study with 84 participants from 14 teams and qualitatively validated the result with the Release Train Engineer having an overview of all the participating teams. Results: We find that the more mature a team is, the faster they seem to resolve issues as provided through external feedback, at least in the two initial team maturity stages. Conclusion: This study suggests that working on team dynamics might increase productivity in modern automotive software development departments, but this needs further investigation.