Burnout in agile teams: The role of mindful software development

IF 3.8 2区计算机科学 Q2 COMPUTER SCIENCE, INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Information and Software Technology Pub Date : 2025-07-22 DOI:10.1016/j.infsof.2025.107852

Hamed Jafarzadeh , Hossein Mosafer , Jalal Sarabadani

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Context

Agile project management methods are widely adopted in software development, offering flexibility and efficiency. However, the dynamic and fast-paced nature of agile environments can subject team members—such as developers, business analysts, and project managers—to stress, potentially leading to work exhaustion and burnout.

Objectives

This study aims to investigate the role of mindfulness as a dynamic personality trait in reducing burnout in agile software development environments. It focuses on how mindfulness influences the use of problem-focused and emotion-focused coping strategies to mitigate burnout. We examine whether mindful agile practitioners are more likely to adopt problem-focused rather than emotion-focused coping strategies, and whether these strategies help alleviate burnout.

Methods

The research draws on the theoretical foundations of mindfulness and the transactional model of stress and coping (TMSC) to develop a model for understanding the relationships between mindfulness, coping behaviors, and burnout. The proposed model was tested through a survey of 319 IT and software development professionals who use agile methods in their work. Finally, path analysis was conducted using SmartPLS to assess the hypothesized relationships.

Results

The findings of this research suggest that individuals with higher levels of mindfulness in agile software development are more likely to adopt problem-focused coping behaviors, which in turn reduces burnout. In addition, the results show that mindful agile team members also use coping strategies to gain emotional stability (e.g., venting to their colleagues) although it may increase their level of burnout.

Conclusion

Contextualizing the notion of mindful engagement with agile software development methods (or agile mindfulness), this paper concludes that agile mindfulness, as a dynamic resource, can be helpful in identifying solutions to reduce the stress and burnout of team members via promoting problem-solving coping behaviours. From the practical perspective, this research helps organizations and agile teams with practical recommendations to leverage mindfulness, and introduces coping behaviors that help them manage and even prevent burnout in agile environments.

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敏捷团队中的倦怠：正念软件开发的作用

敏捷项目管理方法在软件开发中被广泛采用，它提供了灵活性和效率。然而，敏捷环境的动态和快节奏特性可能会使团队成员（如开发人员、业务分析师和项目经理）承受压力，从而可能导致工作疲惫和倦怠。目的探讨正念作为一种动态人格特质在减少敏捷软件开发环境中工作倦怠中的作用。它关注的是正念如何影响以问题为中心和以情绪为中心的应对策略的使用，以减轻倦怠。我们研究了正念敏捷实践者是否更有可能采用以问题为中心而不是以情绪为中心的应对策略，以及这些策略是否有助于缓解倦怠。方法利用正念的理论基础和压力与应对的交易模型（transactional model of stress and coping， TMSC），建立正念、应对行为和倦怠之间的关系模型。通过对319名在工作中使用敏捷方法的IT和软件开发专业人员的调查，对所提出的模型进行了测试。最后，使用SmartPLS进行通径分析以评估假设的关系。结果在敏捷软件开发中，正念水平越高的个体更有可能采取以问题为中心的应对行为，从而减少倦怠。此外，结果表明，正念敏捷团队成员也使用应对策略来获得情绪稳定（例如，向同事发泄），尽管这可能会增加他们的倦怠程度。本文将正念参与的概念与敏捷软件开发方法（或敏捷正念）结合起来，得出结论：敏捷正念作为一种动态资源，可以通过促进解决问题的应对行为，帮助找到减轻团队成员压力和倦怠的解决方案。从实践的角度来看，本研究为组织和敏捷团队提供了实用的建议，以利用正念，并介绍了应对行为，帮助他们管理甚至防止敏捷环境中的倦怠。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Information and Software Technology 工程技术-计算机：软件工程

CiteScore

9.10

自引率

7.70%

发文量

164

审稿时长

9.6 weeks

期刊介绍： Information and Software Technology is the international archival journal focusing on research and experience that contributes to the improvement of software development practices. The journal''s scope includes methods and techniques to better engineer software and manage its development. Articles submitted for review should have a clear component of software engineering or address ways to improve the engineering and management of software development. Areas covered by the journal include: • Software management, quality and metrics, • Software processes, • Software architecture, modelling, specification, design and programming • Functional and non-functional software requirements • Software testing and verification & validation • Empirical studies of all aspects of engineering and managing software development Short Communications is a new section dedicated to short papers addressing new ideas, controversial opinions, "Negative" results and much more. Read the Guide for authors for more information. The journal encourages and welcomes submissions of systematic literature studies (reviews and maps) within the scope of the journal. Information and Software Technology is the premiere outlet for systematic literature studies in software engineering.