What Makes IT Personnel Adopt Scrum? A Framework of Drivers and Inhibitors to Developer Acceptance

In recent years, the agile Scrum methodology has become a popular software development approach. It significantly differs from traditional approaches as it promotes communication, self-organization, flexibility, and innovation instead of extensive planning and codified processes. While such a paradigm shift promises to better support the timely delivery of high-quality software in turbulent business environments, its success considerably depends on the willingness of developers to adopt the agile methodology. In this paper, we present a framework with drivers and inhibitors to the developer acceptance of Scrum. It combines analytical with empirical findings and can be used as a theoretical basis to empirically evaluate the actual support of Scrum in concrete scenarios. The introduced framework is based on the extended Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), which has been proven to be also applicable to describe the intention of developers to use a methodology. Building upon results from qualitative in-depth interviews with six experienced Scrum experts of a German DAX-30 company, we refine the general determinants of adoption contained in the TAM with several observed factors that influence the willingness of developers to use Scrum in practice.