Autonomous agile teams: challenges and future directions for research

Abstract

According to the principles articulated in the agile manifesto, motivated and empowered software developers---relying on technical excellence and simple designs---create business value by delivering working software to users at regular short intervals. These principles have spawned many practices. At the core of these practices is the idea of autonomous, self-managing, or self-organizing teams whose members work at a pace that sustains their creativity and productivity. This article summarizes the main challenges faced when implementing autonomous teams and the topics and research questions that future research should address.