© Springer International Publishing AG 2017. Global software development has become the norm rather than the exception for even the smallest companies. However, global software development is known to lead to numerous negative effects among distributed teams. This paper focuses on the effect of global software development on motivation. Specifically we ask: ¿Does increased autonomy, through the introduction of scrum, result in higher motivation among distributed developers?¿ We studied two distributed software development teams within one company headquartered in Ireland. Teams employ the scrum approach to software development which emphasizes, among other things, autonomy. We observed the teams during their scrum ceremonies, interviewed each team member and administered a motivation survey. We found that the difference in motivation levels before and after the introduction of scrum was slight and not statistically significant. Instead, there was a significant difference in the motivation levels of experienced team members, which were lower than less experienced members.