Alignment between social and technical capability in software development teams

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to highlight the importance of alignment at the team level. Because teams are important in software development projects, the paper focuses on studying the influence of alignment between the social and technical capabilities on software development team performance. Drawing on socio‐technical theory and software product development literature, the paper aims to identify social and technical capabilities for software development teams.Design/methodology/approachEmpirical data from 192 software development teams were analyzed. The profile deviation approach was used to calculate alignment.FindingsThe findings suggest that misalignment between capabilities negatively impacts product and process performance.Research limitations/implicationsThe study provides an intellectually coherent view in studying software development team performance. The study contributes to the literature by assessing alignment needs at the team level.Practical implicationsThe study provides a holistic view for studying team capabilities and guides software development team leaders and managers to consider both the social and technical aspects in assessing team performance.Originality/valueAlignment or misalignment is mostly studied in the literature from a macro level/organizational perspective. There exists a gap in the literature for studying alignment at more granular levels such as between various business sub‐units or within teams. The study addresses the gap by studying alignment within teams.