MOTIVATION¶

Knowing the motives¶

The employees' motives are as different as their professional qualifications [87]. In an agile project, success is essentially dependent on a properly performing team; in Scrum, for example, this is the Developers, who must be able to cooperate smoothly with each other [88][89]. Incentives are a prerequisite for goal-oriented and motivated teamwork. Team members must actually believe in the project and must be sure that their involvement will provide them with personal benefits.

These benefits can include job security (because the project will help the company to remain in business), knowledge building, career advancement, a financial bonus, honest praise in the presence of the entire team or a personal tribute from you, the project manager. It is always best if a project team member can derive personal satisfaction or personal benefits from the success of a project.

However, opinions differ regarding the genuine motivating effect of incentives provided by the management. It's doubted whether incentive systems (e.g. bonuses) have a lasting positive effect on the long-term attitudes of employees to their work. Accordingly, sophisticated motivation techniques can mean that the incentives have to be continually increased in order to have a motivating effect on employees, who gradually become more and more immune to them. Other possible side effects of individual incentives are interpersonal problems such as resentment or envy. Ideally, the staff should be personally motivated and the managers should encourage this process.

Within the Scrum framework, the Scrum Master is in charge. Since he has no disciplinary influence on the Developers, he can basically only use positive motivators. For motivators that have a negative effect (threats, warnings, etc.), only the line managers are responsible.

To identify the different motivators for project staff, a motivation matrix [90] can be used. In general, there are intrinsic and extrinsic influencing factors on people, which can be positive or negative in turn.