Navigating Temporal Plurality in Agile Software Development: A Process Explanation

While agile software development (ASD) promises rapid, iterative delivery, agile teams often face temporal demands—such as organizational reporting schedules, quality requirements, and resource availability—that challenge their ability to meet this promise. These conflicting temporal demands create what we call temporal misfits. Based on an in-depth study of five software development projects, we found that a temporal misfit disturbs an agile team’s work by creating delays and undermining software quality every time it occurs. Because a given temporal misfit reoccurs at each sprint until resolved, work disturbance escalates over successive sprints. Teams respond in different ways. They may sacrifice the speed of delivery and comply with demands that jeopardize it. They may preserve the agile rhythm, sometimes shielding the team from external temporal requirements. Finally, they may mobilize people or tools—digital or not—to play the role of a differential gear, therefore allowing conflicting temporal demands to be met simultaneously. Our work invites ASD teams to consider both the immediate and the longer-term effects of temporal misfits and their responses, highlighting how decisions made within each agile sprint can impact the entire project.