upward trend for teams without SM. This data could
suggest a higher ability to learn and improve in teams
with SM compared to non SM, but would require a
more qualitative analysis for validation.
Finally, when comparing the velocity between the
two groups, we note that it can be difficult to make
clear interpretations. It is more difficult compared to
the other metrics, since velocity is related to the num-
ber of teams and people, and therefore can potentially
be faulty expressed in ”more people - more features”.
However, in the time period for the collected data, ap-
proximately the same amount of individuals (around
200) for both groups were included. We chose to take
a more cautions stand towards this metric since it is
fairly easy to ”game” the data by teams that want to
please a stakeholder by closing the desired number
of features that is expected, although all tasks are not
completed (Levison, 2022).
4.2 Discussion
We have collected and analyzed data which can be
used to resolve the RQ. Our concluding analysis is
the following: considering the pre-defined team suc-
cess criteria and comparing how teams with a SM
have performed, versus teams without a SM, the
major significant difference is in the FLT indicator,
where teams with a SM deliver significantly faster
than teams without a SM. Therefore, it shows a higher
degree of team success when measured against FLT;
teams with a SM thus succeed in the company de-
fined ambition of delivering enough amount of fea-
tures within one PI. Nonetheless, the data does not
offer insights into the effectiveness of an SM’s role
execution. Consequently, a more detailed examina-
tion of SM performance could potentially yield a finer
and more precise analysis. Moreover, the threshold of
defining a team in G
SM
as a team with a SM at least
50% of the time would also affect the analysis if con-
sidering the SM performance as well, hence we leave
that type of analysis as proposed future work.
Predictability seem to be related between the two
groups and both groups also succeed most of the
time with the ambition of delivering in the range of
80 − 100% of committed features. However, team
success in terms of predictability seems to not be re-
lated to the SM role. For the defect leakage crite-
ria, there seemed to be a stronger relation for teams
with a SM to perform more successfully, but the dif-
ference was statistically non-significant. Again, team
success seems to not be related to the SM role. How-
ever, looking at the total amount of defects, the data
may suggest that the SM role enhance the teams abil-
ity to learn (by fixing defects) in terms of decreasing
defects, which leads to better results in defect leakage
particularly. We hypothesize that this metric also im-
ply a higher level of product quality and other positive
downstream effects.
To summarize, G
SM
have clearly a benefit in terms
of FLT as a success criteria and should therefore be
considered when building and developing agile soft-
ware development teams. Moreover, we have identi-
fied further areas to be investigated using qualitative
research, such as the ability to learn from previous de-
fect fixing and what factors that hinders or incubates
the learning. From the perspective of data-driven de-
cision making, our findings offer valuable informa-
tion on how decision makers in the delivery organi-
zation, such as project- and management levels, can
gather and utilize the analyzed indicators.
5 CONCLUSION
In our study the role of a SM had a significant impact
on the team success in terms of delivering features, at
the target company. We also see indications of what
could be the increased ability of learning for develop-
ing software with higher quality in teams who were
facilitated by the role of a dedicated SM, however,
to validate this further, a qualitative study is neces-
sary. Despite no strong correlation was found for pre-
dictability and defect leakage, with having a SM or
not in the team, these metrics are still valid and im-
portant metrics to consider since they provide insights
to progress and development of the team. We thereby
conclude that a SM is still a key component of a team,
and that all investigated success factors give valuable
insights of teams’ performance, but FLT is the most
important to consider in terms of success criteria.
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