A Theory of Scrum Team Effectiveness.

Scrum teams are the most important drivers to lead an Agile project to its success. Nevertheless, a theory, which is able to explain its dynamics is still missing. Therefore, we performed a seven-year-long investigation where we first induced a theoretical model through thirteen field studies. Based on such a model, we developed a customized and validated survey tool and collected data from almost 1.200 Scrum teams. Data have been subsequently analyzed with Covariance-Based Structural Equation Modeling. Results suggest a very good fit of the empirical data in our theoretical model (CFI = 0.952, RMSEA = 0.041, SRMR = 0.037). Accordingly, this research allowed us to (1) propose and validate a theory for effective Scrum teams, (2) formulate clear recommendations for how organizations can better support Scrum teams.