Agile practices are intended to improve software development efficiency, yet many developers struggle with their implementation due to excessive or insufficient use within teams. Understanding how these mismatches affect developer well-being is crucial for organizations aiming to sustain productivity, job satisfaction, and retention in agile work environments.

This study challenges the assumption that more agile practices are always beneficial. Instead, the findings underscore the importance of aligning team-enacted agile practices with individual developer needs to optimize well-being. For organizations, this means fostering adaptive agile environments that account for individual preferences rather than enforcing a one-size-fits-all approach. The paper also highlights the paradox of feedback-seeking, where highly engaged developers may suffer greater well-being losses when agile practices are misaligned.

For more details on our study, you can find the preprint here: www.researchgate.net/