Psychological safety is proved to strengthen Agile values and practices. Some of the practitioners
even claim that psychological safety is an essential pillar for Agile to work.
A recent empirical study confirms that psychological safety enhances the performance, efficiency,
learning, and knowledge sharing of software development teams.
Adam Alami, Mansooreh Zahedi, and Oliver Krancher demonstrated that [1]:
✅ The essentials of a psychologically safe workplace are collective decision-making within the team and the leadership ownership, while openness and no-blame culture are also important.
⛔ By contrary, aspects that weren’t found to promote psychological safety are team autonomy,
technical practices providing a safety net and slack time.
Our research also showed that psychological safety in Agile software development teams is strongly
associated with higher levels of team engagement marked by absorption, dedication, and vigor [2].
[1] Alami, A., Zahedi, M., & Krancher, O. (2023). Antecedents of psychological safety in agile software development teams. Information & Software Technology, 162, 107267. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infsof.2023.107267
[2] Godliauskas, P. (2019). The Relationship between Climate and Engagement in Agile Software Development Teams. ResearchGate. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.34889.47201