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11 – 20 of over 11000Maja Due Kadenic and Torben Tambo
Agile project management methods are on the rise compared to linear approaches. The demand for the demonstrable resilience of enterprise processes is likewise strongly increasing…
Abstract
Purpose
Agile project management methods are on the rise compared to linear approaches. The demand for the demonstrable resilience of enterprise processes is likewise strongly increasing in many domains. This paper explores the potential contribution of agility within the domain of agile project management to the resilience of the operating model of an organization.
Design/methodology/approach
The article builds upon case studies and semi-structured interviews at selected larger Danish enterprises.
Findings
Responding to disruptions favors adaptive and flexible approaches, which are more achievable with agile methods. By exploring the patterns of agility and resilience throughout case studies, the authors derive at a 7-step approach for considering the potentials of agility to ensure the resilience of the operating model from the top level of leadership to the foundational level of technology.
Research limitations/implications
This article seeks to contribute to a more profound understanding of the impact, potential and actionability of agile project management in the light of operational resilience.
Practical implications
It is demonstrated that agile methods are attractive for ensuring the constitutive elements of the resilience of the operating model in terms of conscious contingencies and choices involving (rapid) changes.
Social implications
During the COVID-19 period, agility has been a key instrument in ensuring business survival, e.g. by switching markets, products or sales channels.
Originality/value
Agility has the potential to build a strategic dimension of resilience, a synergistic relationship, which is linked to the responsiveness of an organization to change promptly, with a view toward renewal and transformation.
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“Agile management” refers to a set of management goals, principles, values and practices that emerged to speed up software. Now its tools and culture are spreading to all kinds of…
Abstract
Purpose
“Agile management” refers to a set of management goals, principles, values and practices that emerged to speed up software. Now its tools and culture are spreading to all kinds of organizations throughout the world—from R&D to top management teams. As some corporations race to become “agile” they can lose sight of the essential ideas and practices of Agile methodology
Design/methodology/approach
In September 2016, a group of large firms came together in New York to see whether they could agree on what Agile stood for in their own organizations. They aspired to create workplaces that draw on everyone’s creative talents and kindle everyone’s potential in workplaces that respect individuals and are highly productive and profitable. The firms involved were members of the SD Learning Consortium (SDLC)—a non-profit corporation.
Findings
As it is being adopted in a wide variety of corporate settings since 2001, the core concept of Agile has evolved.
Practical implications
To be fully entrepreneurial, the whole organization needs to embrace the Agile mindset and function as an interactive network, not a top-down bureaucracy with just a few teams implementing Agile tools and processes.
Originality/value
As Agile is being increasingly adopted by all corporate functions and levels of management it is essential to focus the whole organization on creating value for the customer.
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Elena Zavyalova, Dmitri Sokolov and Antonina Lisovskaya
Agile project management methods gain increasing attention of practitioners while they often remain neglected by scholarly research. Specifically, there is little known about how…
Abstract
Purpose
Agile project management methods gain increasing attention of practitioners while they often remain neglected by scholarly research. Specifically, there is little known about how performance factors of agile firms differ from those of traditional firms. Scholars argue that these factors often relate to a firm’s human resource management (HRM). This study aims to analyze and compare the HRM architectures in agile and traditional project-based organizations that lead to high firm performance.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors apply fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis on data of 154 project-based organizations of diverse professional service industries in Russia.
Findings
This study’s findings suggest that HRM architectures of high-performance agile firms imply a broad use of ability-, motivation- and opportunity-enhancing practices and a high degree of HRM process centralization, while traditional firms adopt more diverse HRM architectures.
Originality/value
Based on this study’s results, the authors stress the importance of ensuring a good fit between a company’s project management approach and HRM architecture. The revealed configurations may also provide guidance for practitioners on designing effective HRM architectures in project-based organizations.
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Agile is the new popular management change method and agile has lots of momentum. Management consulting firms are promoting agile via articles and newsletters. While history does…
Abstract
Purpose
Agile is the new popular management change method and agile has lots of momentum. Management consulting firms are promoting agile via articles and newsletters. While history does not repeat itself, it often rhymes, and thus agile will probably be a successful change effort in some organizations. On the other hand, there is a high probability that agile will not deliver the expected results for most organizations. History reveals that about two-thirds of the change efforts are deemed unsuccessful – regardless of the actual change method. In this paper, we present the results of a systematic literature review on agile and we compare and contrast it with other similar organizational change methods. The purpose of this paper is to explore what one may learn from the history of the earlier change methods in terms of how organizations may succeed in their agile efforts.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is based on a structured literature review of the agile concept – including agile transformation, and with a specific focus on critical success factors.
Findings
In addition to presenting the state of the art on agile in general, we identify, structure and categorize critical success factors (CSF) for agile. From the 13 categories, we form three clusters, which constitute a 3P framework (purpose, process and people). We also compare and contrast the CSF literature regarding agile with CSFs for organizational change in general. history indicates that most organizational change efforts are not successful. Based on the framework and the discussion, we provide recommendations to hopefully increase the probability of successful agile implementations.
Originality/value
Given the relative novelty or at least the renewed interest in agile, a structured literature review of the current status of this “new” method provides value as it may help organizations and managers to not repeat old mistakes – once again.
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Małgorzata Zakrzewska, Szymon Jarosz, Katarzyna Piwowar-Sulej and Mariusz Sołtysik
The aim of the article is to define the way of understanding of agile in enterprises, to verify the factors limiting agility implementation, as well as to understand what the…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of the article is to define the way of understanding of agile in enterprises, to verify the factors limiting agility implementation, as well as to understand what the expectations of enterprise management towards agile implementation are.
Design/methodology/approach
The article uses both literature studies and empirical research. The research was conducted in 2019 in 152 companies located in Luxemburg, Croatia and Poland, which have implemented an agile approach to management.
Findings
In most of the surveyed organisations, agile is understood as a methodology for creating projects or applications. The most common barriers to implementing agile in the surveyed enterprises are culture too deeply rooted in traditional methodologies and the lack of funds to introduce transformations. Growth in productivity and competitiveness and reducing delivery time stand out among the most common expectations of the management of the surveyed enterprises.
Originality/value
The article is in line with the idea of analysing the key factors of a successful agile implementation, which can be a guideline for an enterprise to manage the adoption of agility. The article utilises original research tools, provides comparisons between countries and presents implications for practitioners and researchers.
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This study aims to create a better understanding of how practitioners implement and work Agile while balancing the tensions arising between stability and change.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to create a better understanding of how practitioners implement and work Agile while balancing the tensions arising between stability and change.
Design/methodology/approach
A grounded theory approach was used to explore what happens in practice when software development teams implement and work Agile. The empirical data consists of twenty semi-structured interviews with practitioners working in fourteen different organizations and in six different Agile roles.
Findings
As a result, a substantive theory was presented of continuously balancing between stability and change in Agile teams. In addition, the study also proposes three guidelines that can help organizations about to change their way of working to Agile.
Research limitations/implications
The inherent limitation of a grounded theory study is that a substantial theory can only explain the specific contexts explored in that study. Thus, this study's contribution is a substantial theory that needs to be further developed and improved.
Practical implications
The proposed guidelines can help organizations about to change their way of working to Agile. They can also assist organizations in switching from “doing Agile” to “being Agile”, thus becoming more successful.
Originality/value
The new perspective that this study contributes is the fact that our discovered categories show that several inherent processes are ongoing at the same time in order to balance the need to have both stability and change.
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By learning how to overcome implementation challenges, the Agile methodology can enable organizations to cope with the 21st Century marketplace and deliver what customers expect…
Abstract
Purpose
By learning how to overcome implementation challenges, the Agile methodology can enable organizations to cope with the 21st Century marketplace and deliver what customers expect and demand: easy, quick, convenient, personalized responsiveness at scale.”
Design/methodology/approach
The 10 major implementation challenges are addressed.
Findings
Agile offers a methodology that can improve the chances of building a new product or service that people will actually buy, use and like.
Practical implications
A key Agile principle – doing work in small iterative cycles with customer feedback at the end of each cycle – is a transformative idea.
Originality/value
The author has recently made on-site visits to leading corporations that have adopted Agile. The “Agile” managers he met recognize that the future of their firm depends on inspiring those doing the work to accelerate innovation and add genuine value to customer, that enhancing that capacity depends on giving autonomy to self-organizing teams within broad parameters of control.
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Ewa Sońta-Drączkowska and Agnieszka Krogulec
This study seeks to illuminate the managerial tensions inherent in implementing scaled agile (on the organizational, top management, middle management and team levels) and to…
Abstract
Purpose
This study seeks to illuminate the managerial tensions inherent in implementing scaled agile (on the organizational, top management, middle management and team levels) and to frame these challenges within the broader context of project management.
Design/methodology/approach
The study adopts a grounded theory approach and delves into a qualitative dataset sourced from 34 interviews with subject matter experts actively engaged in scaling agile initiatives within large organizations spanning various industries. Additionally, the data have been enriched through a comprehensive literature review of the existing body of knowledge on scaling agile.
Findings
As a result of our investigation, we propose a framework of managerial tensions in scaling agile in large corporate settings and a series of research propositions and questions that may contribute significantly to the body of knowledge surrounding the phenomenon of “deprojectification” and propose agenda for the future studies in the field of project management.
Research limitations/implications
The study also carries significant managerial implications. Firstly, based on the insights from the practice of scaling agile in large corporate setting, management can build awareness of the challenges inherent of transitioning to agile practices. This may help to anticipate the possible problems and proactively develop strategies how to address them. Secondly, management can be instructed about contingencies inherent in scaling agile, along with the potential disfunctions and side effects (unintended outcomes) that may emerge during the transition process. Thirdly, project management practitioners can gain insights on how scaling agile may cause shifts in the approach to managing projects, project team management and competencies that need to be developed to cope with environments where various approaches to managing projects coexist.
Practical implications
These insights can aid in the agile transition process, beginning with directing managerial attention toward contextual factors and progressing through potential challenges at the organizational, top management, middle management and team levels. Furthermore, the study highlights possible dysfunctionalities and side effects of scaling agile, shedding light on the “dark side” of agile.
Originality/value
The study contributes to the expansion of the empirical database on the implementation of agile practices in large organizational settings. It plays a role in defining and delineating the phenomenon of scaling agile within the context of project management and outlines a research agenda for future project management studies. Additionally, our study adds to the ongoing discourse surrounding the “deprojectification” effect that can occur during the scaling of agile. Lastly, it establishes connections between project management and software development literature regarding the implementation of agile at scale.
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Vasja Roblek, Vlado Dimovski, Kristjan Jovanov Oblak, Maja Meško and Judita Peterlin
This study aims to apply the Delphi method to explore the possibilities for implementing agility management concepts in Slovenian health-care organisations.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to apply the Delphi method to explore the possibilities for implementing agility management concepts in Slovenian health-care organisations.
Design/methodology/approach
The research is based on a qualitative Delphi study encompassing 15 employees in different Slovenian health-care organisations.
Findings
Slovenian health-care organisations need to be more agile currently. For this reason, it is necessary to begin with organisational changes and organisational learning concepts to educate employees about the meaning and content of agile processes. It is essential to ensure that accepting employee mistakes and offering help to employees becomes normal practice, and it is necessary to ensure the greater trust of the management towards the employees.
Originality/value
The research empowers health-care professionals with new management and leadership concepts, such as agile management, sustainable leadership and leadership development methods in health care.
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This editorial aims to introduce the theme of the special issue: “Lean vs agile from an organizational sustainability, complexity and learning perspective”.
Abstract
Purpose
This editorial aims to introduce the theme of the special issue: “Lean vs agile from an organizational sustainability, complexity and learning perspective”.
Design/methodology/approach
The methodology of the editorial is that of a survey. In the first part it presents the relevance of the theme and in the second part it presents the papers included in the special issue, including their themes, findings and novel contributions.
Findings
The individual findings by the papers present significant new contributions in a deeper insight of the “lean” and “agile” philosophies, or approaches in, and to, organizations. It could be noticed that the controversies of the issue “lean vs. agile” still remain. However, it could be said that an eventual further investigation in the phenomenology of “lean” and “agile” will be more informed after consideration of the results presented in this special issue.
Research limitations/implications
Further investigation should be undertaken on a more abstract “level” of the theories of “lean” and “agile” and their mutual relationship, such as theories about the internal processes of “lean”/“agile” users, general “lean”/“agile” theories, epistemology of “lean”/“agile”, and ontology of “lean”/“agile”, and relationship with learning organization and chaordic organization.
Practical implications
Readers, both theoreticians and practitioners, will find in this editorial a “guide” to the issues of their interest concerning the valuable explanations, ideas and tools, presented in the special issue, for both concrete applications in enterprises and organizations, and for further research and development of learning, complex and sustainable organizations, and towards new ideas and insights generation.
Originality/value
This editorial presents an analysis of the special issue on “lean vs agile”, contributing to the higher levels of the theories of “lean” and “agile” and their mutual relationship, namely to the theories about the internal processes of “lean”/“agile” users, general “lean”/“agile” theories, and epistemology of “lean”/“agile”.
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