Implementation of ‘self-organization’ in Scrum teams: easier said than done
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2025-06-26
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en
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Scrum may seem simple and practical at first, but when it comes to actually working in a self-organizing way, it often proves easier said than done. This research explores how self-organization is being implemented in Scrum teams at a large financial organization in the Netherlands. Since literature on this topic is still quite limited, an exploratory case study was done. In total, eleven employees from the department Schade & Inkomen of Nationale Nederlanden were interviewed. Sensitizing concepts were used to guide the data collection, based on different literature streams related to self-organization, structure in large organizations, and organizational change.
The findings show that introducing Scrum roles and routines alone was not enough to fully enable self-organizing behavior within the teams. Teams were still influenced by traditional ways of working, and conditions like limited coaching, unclear leadership involvement, and low psychological safety made it harder to develop autonomy. At the same time, teams showed small signs of adaptation. Some teams blocked time for retrospectives or made their own agreements with other teams or managers. These kinds of local efforts reflect a deeper wish for self-organization. This informal way of shaping the work environment connects to the idea of implicit self-design, where team members try to create space for self-organization even when the wider organization does not fully support it.
This study gives insight into what helps or hinders self-organization in Scrum teams in practice and shows that change can happen on a small scale, even when the broader organizational context stays more or less the same.
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen