Decision Making in Agile Development: A Focus Group Study of Decisions and Obstacles

The process and effectiveness of decision making in agile development is critical yet poorly understood. This research examines decisions made across the four stages of the sprint cycle: Sprint Planning, Sprint Execution, Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective. A focus group was conducted with 43 agile developers and managers to determine what decisions were made at different points of the sprint cycle. The results indicate that Sprint Planning includes decisions about planning the work for the subsequent sprint, Sprint Execution includes tactical implementation and development decisions, Sprint Review includes decisions about whether the product satisfies the customer and whether future sprints should continue, and Sprint Retrospective includes decisions for improving the sprint process in future sprints. Additionally, six key obstacles to decision making were identified. This research contributes to the literature on agile software development by advancing our understanding of how these teams function by analyzing the decisions made during different points of the sprint cycle and the obstacles to these decisions.