Confidence

In this section trust and confidence are two terms used to explain the information obtained from the respondents. Trust referred to the belief of the product owner on the ability of the team members to complete the task in the right way. Trust also referred to the belief in the honesty and fairness of the team members and dependence on the character, strength and ability of the particular team member in completing the task. Confidence in the context of this study referred to the belief of the product owner about the competence of the team member in completing the task. In this section, both trust and confidence were used as the respondent used both terms during the information gathering. The findings from this study suggested that, generally, product owners had confidence in the teams to do their jobs. McHugh (2012) said that a product owner must trust the team (McHugh, Conboy, & Lang, 2012). This will help the product owner to establish open and frequent communication with the team, as well within the team, during the sprint/iteration retrospective. However, some respondents for this study did not believe all the team members had the same level of confidence from the product owner.

One respondent said:

“You can explain, OK, its two days to do this work roughly, two to three days, and that allows us to be faster, in designing and implementing this other, the features down the road and he will listen to that, and he’ll weigh it all up and go, ok do it.” Respondent 1

Another one said:

“With the product owner, the product owner trusts the team, he does not care how it’s done. He cares if it’s done." Respondent 6

Some of the challenges with trust in the team with Agile practices were reported in a previous study (McHugh et al., 2012; Misra et al., 2009; Moe et al., 2010). These challenges included team pressure, tension between the product owner and the team, and the team members underestimating the task (McHugh et al., 2012). However, the level of trust in the team depending on experience was not reported. This current study respondents reported that trust on the team was dependent on the experience of the team members working In the project. Product owners were found to have trust in the experienced team members who had been working on the project for a substantial period of time.

122 One respondent said:

“Our product manager trusts the people who have been working with the company for a longer time. These people obviously have more experience working in the projects.” Respondent 2

Seven respondents reported that product owners had confidence in the team. Two of the respondents reported that the product owner was involved in monitoring and observing the work of the team rather than contributing in a more practical sense. This could mean that the product owner either did not have confidence on the team or may like to know about the work team members were doing in detail to give direction to the team.

“He does not contribute much; .they are there to monitor, I should change that, they do contribute by monitoring us, so any particular show stoppers, we might have a show stoppers which, I don’t know, might be semi-serious but the business might turn around and say. ‘No, no, no that impacts say correspondence so this is huge’.” Respondent 9

Another respondent said:

“The product owner is involved in observing the work. He asks people to help each other when they have problems.” Respondent 3

Trust was an important factor in Agile software development. Having the trust in the team motivated the team members to do a better job. One Agile principle was that the project should be built around a motivated individual, who should be trusted (Cockburn & Highsmith, 2001a). There were times where the product owner had confidence in the senior people in the team. The junior people in the team have to build confidence with the product owner through their performance. This could mean that the product owner may be confident about team members once they had seen the performance of the team. McHugh (2012) found that trust in Agile teams increased communication and feedback. And the communication and feedback were two of the component in teamwork (McHugh et al., 2012). When there was trust on the team then the members may be willing to share the information within each other. Teams could be more self-organizing. Such activities will impact on the coordination, team backup and feedback within the team and could a have positive impact on the teamwork.

123 Confidence Belief on the

teams Documentation was more about what was needed and user stories did not contain

anything about how we do it cause was up to the team (R15)

Level of confidence Oh, with the product owner, the product owner does not care how it’s done (R6)

Trust Depends upon who is asking. Some people, some developers, they can say that’s not

right. They will be asked how we fix it and then let’s just do that other one, will depend on how they trust their developers (R10)

You can explain, OK, its two days to do this work [in]roughly, two to three days, and that allows us to be faster, in designing and implementing this other, the features down the road and he will listen to that, and he’ll weigh it all up and go, ok do it.” Respondent 1 Work division is based on skill (R6)

The product owner is involved in observing the work. He asks people to help each other

when they have problems.” Respondent 3

Our product manager trusts the people who have been working with the company for a longer time. These people obviously have more experience working in the projects. Respondent 2

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