  Background: Volvo Cars is pioneering an agile transformation on a large scale
in the automotive industry. Social psychological aspects of automotive software
development are an under-researched area in general. Few studies on team
maturity or group dynamics can be found specifically in the automotive software
engineering domain. Objective: This study is intended as an initial step to
fill that gap by investigating the connection between issues and problem
reports and team maturity. Method: We conducted a quantitative study with 84
participants from 14 teams and qualitatively validated the result with the
Release Train Engineer having an overview of all the participating teams.
Results: We find that the more mature a team is, the faster they seem to
resolve issues as provided through external feedback, at least in the two
initial team maturity stages. Conclusion: This study suggests that working on
team dynamics might increase productivity in modern automotive software
development departments, but this needs further investigation.
