In the modern era organizations are experiencing significant and growing levels of change and uncertainty. The agile movement is a rapidly growing grass-roots movement responding to this , founded in humanistic values, such as valuing individuals and interactions over processes tools, and emphasizing self-determination, pro-social behavior and personal growth (Abbas et al., 2008; “Manifesto for Agile Software Development,” 2018).
Team flow, a form of optimal team experience, represents an interesting example of how concepts from positive psychology can apply to and enhance agile practices. Focusing on a systematic review by Van den Hout, Davis and Weggeman, 2018 of the team flow literature, we will discuss: i) the opportunity that the agile movement presents for bringing positive psychology to organisations; ii) specific ways that team flow pre-requisites and characteristics can be used to inform and enhance agile practices; iii) explore the use of participatory design, for example use of a Participatory Action Research framework to create a situation-appropriate and continuously improving application of the literature to practice.