Exploring the Influence of Psychological Safety on Software Quality in Agile Teams
Abstract
As metodologias ágeis já são amplamente adotadas no desenvolvimento de software e sua utilização continua em expansão à medida que mais empresas reconhecem a importância de ambientes de trabalho que promovam confiança, colaboração e inovação. A segurança psicológica, nesse cenário, é vista como um elemento essencial para o desempenho de equipes, fomentando abertura ao diálogo, aprendizagem com erros e cooperação técnica, fatores que impactam diretamente a qualidade dos produtos desenvolvidos. Este artigo analisa de que maneira a segurança psicológica pode influenciar à qualidade de software em equipes ágeis brasileiras, por meio da replicação de um survey previamente validado. A coleta de dados foi realizada por meio de questionário estruturado contendo sete construtos-chave. No total, foram obtidas 92 respostas válidas de profissionais que atuam em equipes ágeis no Brasil, sendo 79 delas provenientes do estado de Pernambuco. Os resultados apontam que os construtos “aprender com os erros”, “colaboração” e “resolver problemas coletivamente” obtiveram os maiores níveis de concordância, refletindo práticas maduras de trabalho em equipe e melhoria contínua. Como contribuição prática, este trabalho oferece às lideranças e equipes ágeis insights sobre como fortalecer a segurança psicológica em seus times, promovendo ambientes mais seguros, colaborativos e de alto desempenho.
Keywords:
Segurança psicológica, Equipes ágeis, Qualidade de software, Survey, Replicação
References
Noura Abbas, Andrew M Gravell, and Gary B Wills. 2010. Using factor analysis to generate clusters of agile practices (a guide for agile process improvement). In 2010 Agile Conference. IEEE, 11–20.
Muhammad Ovais Ahmad. 2023. Psychological safety, leadership and nontechnical debt in large-scale agile software development. In 2023 18th Conference on Computer Science and Intelligence Systems (FedCSIS). IEEE, 327–334.
Adam Alami, Oliver Krancher, and Maria Paasivaara. 2022. The journey to technical excellence in agile software development. Information and Software Technology 150 (2022), 106959.
Adam Alami, Mansooreh Zahedi, and Oliver Krancher. 2023. Antecedents of psychological safety in agile software development teams. Information and Software Technology 162 (2023), 107267.
Adam Alami, Mansooreh Zahedi, and Oliver Krancher. 2024. The role of psychological safety in promoting software quality in agile teams. Empirical Software Engineering 29, 5 (2024), 119.
Markus Baer and Michael Frese. 2003. Innovation is not enough: Climates for initiative and psychological safety, process innovations, and firm performance. Journal of Organizational Behavior: The International Journal of Industrial, Occupational and Organizational Psychology and Behavior 24, 1 (2003), 45–68.
Kimberley Breevaart, Arnold B Bakker, Evangelia Demerouti, and Daantje Derks. 2016. Who takes the lead? A multi-source diary study on leadership, work engagement, and job performance. Journal of Organizational Behavior 37, 3 (2016), 309–325.
Marte Pettersen Buvik and Anastasiia Tkalich. 2022. Psychological safety in agile software development teams: Work design antecedents and performance consequences. In 55th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS). 10.
Rafael Camara, Annelyelthon Alves, Iury Monte, and Marcelo Marinho. 2020. Agile global software development: A systematic literature review. In Proceedings of the XXXIV Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering. 31–40.
Amadeu Silveira Campanelli, Ronaldo Darwich Camilo, and Fernando Silva Parreiras. 2018. The impact of tailoring criteria on agile practices adoption: A survey with novice agile practitioners in Brazil. Journal of Systems and Software 137 (2018), 366–379.
Abraham Carmeli and Jody Hoffer Gittell. 2009. High-quality relationships, psychological safety, and learning from failures in work organizations. Journal of Organizational Behavior: The International Journal of Industrial, Occupational and Organizational Psychology and Behavior 30, 6 (2009), 709–729.
Abraham Carmeli, Roni Reiter-Palmon, and Enbal Ziv. 2010. Inclusive leadership and employee involvement in creative tasks in the workplace: The mediating role of psychological safety. Creativity research journal 22, 3 (2010), 250–260.
Jeffrey C Carver. 2010. Towards reporting guidelines for experimental replications: A proposal. In 1st international workshop on replication in empirical software engineering, Vol. 1. 1–4.
Claudia de O. Melo, Viviane Santos, Eduardo Katayama, Hugo Corbucci, Rafael Prikladnicki, Alfredo Goldman, and Fabio Kon. 2013. The evolution of agile software development in Brazil: Education, research, and the state-of-the-practice. Journal of the Brazilian Computer Society 19 (2013), 523–552.
Kim Dikert, Maria Paasivaara, and Casper Lassenius. 2016. Challenges and success factors for large-scale agile transformations: A systematic literature review. Journal of Systems and Software 119 (2016), 87–108.
Meghann L Drury-Grogan. 2014. Performance on agile teams: Relating iteration objectives and critical decisions to project management success factors. Information and software technology 56, 5 (2014), 506–515.
Amy Edmondson. 1999. Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative science quarterly 44, 2 (1999), 350–383.
Amy C. Edmondson. 2018. The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth. Wiley (2018).
Amy C Edmondson and Zhike Lei. [n. d.]. Psychological safety: The history, renaissance, and future of an interpersonal construct. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, volume=1, number=1, pages=23–43, year=2014, publisher=Annual Reviews ( [n. d.]).
George Eleftherakis, Vanya Dimitrova, Desislava Maglova, and Vasiliki Morogianni. 2024. Exploring Success Factors of Agile Teams: The Impact of Personality Traits, Psychological Safety, and Team Reflexivity on Performance. In 2024 16th International Conference on Human System Interaction (HSI). IEEE, 1–6.
Rafaela Mantovani Fontana, Jaime Wojciechowski, Razer Anthom Nizer Rojas Montaño, Sabrina Marczak, Sheila S Reinehr, and Andreia Malucelli. 2022. A Countrywide Descriptive Survey of Agile Software Development in Brazil.. In XP. 185–202.
Claes Fornell and David F Larcker. 1981. Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error. Journal of marketing research 18, 1 (1981), 39–50.
M Lance Frazier, Stav Fainshmidt, Ryan L Klinger, Amir Pezeshkan, and Veselina Vracheva. 2017. Psychological safety: A meta-analytic review and extension. Personnel psychology 70, 1 (2017), 113–165.
Kiev Gama and Aline Lacerda. 2023. Understanding and supporting neurodiverse software developers in agile teams. In Proceedings of the XXXVII Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering. 497–502.
Fernando Vedoin Garcia, Jean Carlo Rossa Hauck, and Adriano Borgatto. 2024. How do Agile Organizations Manage Risks: An Analysis of the State of Practice in Brazil. In Simpósio Brasileiro de Engenharia de Software (SBES). SBC, 80–91.
Joseph F Hair, Rolph E Anderson, Barry J Babin, and Wiiliam C Black. 2010. Multivariate Data Analysis: A Global Perspective. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education (2010).
Phil Hennel and Christoph Rosenkranz. 2021. Investigating the “socio” in sociotechnical development: The case for psychological safety in agile information systems development. Project management journal 52, 1 (2021), 11–30.
G. Hofstede, G. J. Hofstede, and M. Minkov. 2010. Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind. McGraw-Hill Professional (2010).
Basharat Javed, Abdul Karim Khan, and Samina Quratulain. 2021. Inclusive leadership and innovative work behavior: examination of LMX perspective in small capitalized textile firms. In Leadership and Supervision. Routledge, 103–121.
Per Lenberg and Robert Feldt. 2018. Psychological safety and norm clarity in software engineering teams. In Proceedings of the 11th international workshop on cooperative and human aspects of software engineering. 79–86.
Janeth López-Martínez, Reyes Juárez-Ramírez, Carlos Huertas, Samantha Jiménez, and Cesar Guerra-García. 2016. Problems in the adoption of agile-scrum methodologies: A systematic literature review. In 2016 4th international conference in software engineering research and innovation (conisoft). IEEE, 141–148.
Marcelo Marinho, John Noll, Ita Richardson, and Sarah Beecham. 2019. Plandriven approaches are alive and kicking in agile global software development. In 2019 ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement (ESEM). IEEE, 1–11.
Claudio Saraiva Mattos, Eliezer Dutra, and Gleison Santos. 2024. An Instrument for Assessing Power Distance in Agile Organizations-Preliminary Results. In Proceedings of the XXIII Brazilian Symposium on Software Quality. 136–146.
Alexander Newman, Ross Donohue, and Nathan Eva. 2017. Psychological safety: A systematic review of the literature. Human resource management review 27, 3 (2017), 521–535.
Christopher S Reina, Kristie M Rogers, Suzanne J Peterson, Kris Byron, and PeterWHom. 2018. Quitting the boss? The role of manager influence tactics and employee emotional engagement in voluntary turnover. Journal of leadership & organizational studies 25, 1 (2018), 5–18.
Forrest Shull, Jeffrey Carver, Sira Vegas, and Natalia Juristo. 2008. The Role of Replications in Empirical Software Engineering. Empirical Software Engineering (2008).
Anastasiia Tkalich, Darja Šmite, Nina Haugland Andersen, and Nils Brede Moe. 2022. What happens to psychological safety when going remote? Ieee Software 41, 1 (2022), 113–122.
Muhammad Ovais Ahmad. 2023. Psychological safety, leadership and nontechnical debt in large-scale agile software development. In 2023 18th Conference on Computer Science and Intelligence Systems (FedCSIS). IEEE, 327–334.
Adam Alami, Oliver Krancher, and Maria Paasivaara. 2022. The journey to technical excellence in agile software development. Information and Software Technology 150 (2022), 106959.
Adam Alami, Mansooreh Zahedi, and Oliver Krancher. 2023. Antecedents of psychological safety in agile software development teams. Information and Software Technology 162 (2023), 107267.
Adam Alami, Mansooreh Zahedi, and Oliver Krancher. 2024. The role of psychological safety in promoting software quality in agile teams. Empirical Software Engineering 29, 5 (2024), 119.
Markus Baer and Michael Frese. 2003. Innovation is not enough: Climates for initiative and psychological safety, process innovations, and firm performance. Journal of Organizational Behavior: The International Journal of Industrial, Occupational and Organizational Psychology and Behavior 24, 1 (2003), 45–68.
Kimberley Breevaart, Arnold B Bakker, Evangelia Demerouti, and Daantje Derks. 2016. Who takes the lead? A multi-source diary study on leadership, work engagement, and job performance. Journal of Organizational Behavior 37, 3 (2016), 309–325.
Marte Pettersen Buvik and Anastasiia Tkalich. 2022. Psychological safety in agile software development teams: Work design antecedents and performance consequences. In 55th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS). 10.
Rafael Camara, Annelyelthon Alves, Iury Monte, and Marcelo Marinho. 2020. Agile global software development: A systematic literature review. In Proceedings of the XXXIV Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering. 31–40.
Amadeu Silveira Campanelli, Ronaldo Darwich Camilo, and Fernando Silva Parreiras. 2018. The impact of tailoring criteria on agile practices adoption: A survey with novice agile practitioners in Brazil. Journal of Systems and Software 137 (2018), 366–379.
Abraham Carmeli and Jody Hoffer Gittell. 2009. High-quality relationships, psychological safety, and learning from failures in work organizations. Journal of Organizational Behavior: The International Journal of Industrial, Occupational and Organizational Psychology and Behavior 30, 6 (2009), 709–729.
Abraham Carmeli, Roni Reiter-Palmon, and Enbal Ziv. 2010. Inclusive leadership and employee involvement in creative tasks in the workplace: The mediating role of psychological safety. Creativity research journal 22, 3 (2010), 250–260.
Jeffrey C Carver. 2010. Towards reporting guidelines for experimental replications: A proposal. In 1st international workshop on replication in empirical software engineering, Vol. 1. 1–4.
Claudia de O. Melo, Viviane Santos, Eduardo Katayama, Hugo Corbucci, Rafael Prikladnicki, Alfredo Goldman, and Fabio Kon. 2013. The evolution of agile software development in Brazil: Education, research, and the state-of-the-practice. Journal of the Brazilian Computer Society 19 (2013), 523–552.
Kim Dikert, Maria Paasivaara, and Casper Lassenius. 2016. Challenges and success factors for large-scale agile transformations: A systematic literature review. Journal of Systems and Software 119 (2016), 87–108.
Meghann L Drury-Grogan. 2014. Performance on agile teams: Relating iteration objectives and critical decisions to project management success factors. Information and software technology 56, 5 (2014), 506–515.
Amy Edmondson. 1999. Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative science quarterly 44, 2 (1999), 350–383.
Amy C. Edmondson. 2018. The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth. Wiley (2018).
Amy C Edmondson and Zhike Lei. [n. d.]. Psychological safety: The history, renaissance, and future of an interpersonal construct. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, volume=1, number=1, pages=23–43, year=2014, publisher=Annual Reviews ( [n. d.]).
George Eleftherakis, Vanya Dimitrova, Desislava Maglova, and Vasiliki Morogianni. 2024. Exploring Success Factors of Agile Teams: The Impact of Personality Traits, Psychological Safety, and Team Reflexivity on Performance. In 2024 16th International Conference on Human System Interaction (HSI). IEEE, 1–6.
Rafaela Mantovani Fontana, Jaime Wojciechowski, Razer Anthom Nizer Rojas Montaño, Sabrina Marczak, Sheila S Reinehr, and Andreia Malucelli. 2022. A Countrywide Descriptive Survey of Agile Software Development in Brazil.. In XP. 185–202.
Claes Fornell and David F Larcker. 1981. Evaluating structural equation models with unobservable variables and measurement error. Journal of marketing research 18, 1 (1981), 39–50.
M Lance Frazier, Stav Fainshmidt, Ryan L Klinger, Amir Pezeshkan, and Veselina Vracheva. 2017. Psychological safety: A meta-analytic review and extension. Personnel psychology 70, 1 (2017), 113–165.
Kiev Gama and Aline Lacerda. 2023. Understanding and supporting neurodiverse software developers in agile teams. In Proceedings of the XXXVII Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering. 497–502.
Fernando Vedoin Garcia, Jean Carlo Rossa Hauck, and Adriano Borgatto. 2024. How do Agile Organizations Manage Risks: An Analysis of the State of Practice in Brazil. In Simpósio Brasileiro de Engenharia de Software (SBES). SBC, 80–91.
Joseph F Hair, Rolph E Anderson, Barry J Babin, and Wiiliam C Black. 2010. Multivariate Data Analysis: A Global Perspective. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education (2010).
Phil Hennel and Christoph Rosenkranz. 2021. Investigating the “socio” in sociotechnical development: The case for psychological safety in agile information systems development. Project management journal 52, 1 (2021), 11–30.
G. Hofstede, G. J. Hofstede, and M. Minkov. 2010. Cultures and Organizations: Software of the Mind. McGraw-Hill Professional (2010).
Basharat Javed, Abdul Karim Khan, and Samina Quratulain. 2021. Inclusive leadership and innovative work behavior: examination of LMX perspective in small capitalized textile firms. In Leadership and Supervision. Routledge, 103–121.
Per Lenberg and Robert Feldt. 2018. Psychological safety and norm clarity in software engineering teams. In Proceedings of the 11th international workshop on cooperative and human aspects of software engineering. 79–86.
Janeth López-Martínez, Reyes Juárez-Ramírez, Carlos Huertas, Samantha Jiménez, and Cesar Guerra-García. 2016. Problems in the adoption of agile-scrum methodologies: A systematic literature review. In 2016 4th international conference in software engineering research and innovation (conisoft). IEEE, 141–148.
Marcelo Marinho, John Noll, Ita Richardson, and Sarah Beecham. 2019. Plandriven approaches are alive and kicking in agile global software development. In 2019 ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement (ESEM). IEEE, 1–11.
Claudio Saraiva Mattos, Eliezer Dutra, and Gleison Santos. 2024. An Instrument for Assessing Power Distance in Agile Organizations-Preliminary Results. In Proceedings of the XXIII Brazilian Symposium on Software Quality. 136–146.
Alexander Newman, Ross Donohue, and Nathan Eva. 2017. Psychological safety: A systematic review of the literature. Human resource management review 27, 3 (2017), 521–535.
Christopher S Reina, Kristie M Rogers, Suzanne J Peterson, Kris Byron, and PeterWHom. 2018. Quitting the boss? The role of manager influence tactics and employee emotional engagement in voluntary turnover. Journal of leadership & organizational studies 25, 1 (2018), 5–18.
Forrest Shull, Jeffrey Carver, Sira Vegas, and Natalia Juristo. 2008. The Role of Replications in Empirical Software Engineering. Empirical Software Engineering (2008).
Anastasiia Tkalich, Darja Šmite, Nina Haugland Andersen, and Nils Brede Moe. 2022. What happens to psychological safety when going remote? Ieee Software 41, 1 (2022), 113–122.
Published
2025-09-22
How to Cite
MARINHO, Marcelo; ALBUQUERQUE, Fernanda; AMORIM, Luis; SAMPAIO, Suzana.
Exploring the Influence of Psychological Safety on Software Quality in Agile Teams. In: BRAZILIAN SYMPOSIUM ON SOFTWARE ENGINEERING (SBES), 39. , 2025, Recife/PE.
Anais [...].
Porto Alegre: Sociedade Brasileira de Computação,
2025
.
p. 60-70.
ISSN 2833-0633.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5753/sbes.2025.9660.
