Context: Social aspects are of high importance for being successful using agile methods in software development. People are influenced by their cultural imprint, as the underlying cultural values are guiding us in how we think and act. Thus, one may assume that in multicultural agile software development teams, cultural characteristics influence the result in terms of quality of the team work and consequently, the product to be delivered. Objective: We aim to identify barriers and potentials that may arise in multicultural agile software development teams to provide valuable strategies for both researchers and practitioners faced with barriers or unrealized potentials of cultural diversity. Method: The study is designed as a single-case study with two units of analysis using a mixed-method design consisting quantitative and qualitative methods. Results: First, our results suggest that the cultural characteristics at the team level need to be analyzed individually in intercultural teams, Second, we identified key potentials regarding cultural characteristics providing key potentials such as a individual team subculture that fits agile values like open communication. Third, we derived strategies supporting the potentials of cultural diversity in agile software development teams. Conclusion: Our findings show, that a deeper understanding of cultural influences in multicultural agile software development teams is needed. Based on the results, we already prepare future work to validate the results in other industries.

翻译：背景：社会因素对于在软件开发中成功运用敏捷方法至关重要。文化印记深刻影响着人们，因为潜在的文化价值观指引着我们的思维与行为方式。因此可以假设，在多元文化敏捷软件开发团队中，文化特征会通过影响团队协作质量，进而影响最终交付产品的成果。目的：我们旨在识别多元文化敏捷软件开发团队中可能出现的障碍与潜力，为面临文化多样性障碍或未能实现多样化的研究人员及从业者提供有价值的策略。方法：本研究采用单案例研究设计，包含两个分析单元，并运用定量与定性相结合的混合研究方法。结果：首先，结果表明跨文化团队中需单独分析团队层面的文化特征；其次，我们识别出文化特征的关键潜力，例如符合敏捷价值观（如开放沟通）的个体团队亚文化；第三，我们推导出支持敏捷软件开发团队中文化多样性潜力的策略。结论：研究发现在多元文化敏捷软件开发团队中，需要更深入地理解文化影响。基于现有成果，我们已着手准备未来研究，以在其他行业中验证这些发现。