Date of Conferral

2-11-2025

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Management

Advisor

James Brown

Abstract

There is a high failure rate for software development projects, even those that have adopted an Agile approach, despite the United States spending more than $250 billion yearly on developing 175,000 software projects costing $2,322,000 on average. Scrum masters on software development projects with an Agile approach need to adopt more than just the process and procedures; they need to adopt the Agile culture. The purpose of this general qualitative study was to explore the implementation of the Agile culture experienced by scrum masters in the financial sector. The Scrum software development framework is the most popular variant of the Agile approach, including how scrum teams function, the roles of certain team members, and its processes, procedures, ceremonies, and artifacts. The specific role within a scrum team is the scrum master, who is seen as encouraging the adoption of the Agile culture and being integral to improving the success rate of software development projects. Nine scrum masters participated in semi structured interviews, answering questions about their experiences with the two primary documents, the Agile Manifesto and the Scrum Guide. Other questions took participants through a version of Schein’s three-tier model, Connors and Smith’s culture of accountability, and Bandura’s social cognitive learning theory. Seven themes emerged from the thematic analysis, including the importance of the Agile culture’s values and principles and what makes it easy, such as good communication, or difficult as a lack of accountability to work within the Agile culture. The implications for positive social change include the potential for the scrum masters and their scrum teams to improve the success rate of their software development projects by implementing an Agile culture in the financial sector.

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