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This chapter explores the increasing use of Scrum, a project management framework used in software development, in libraries. This conceptual piece examines the advantages and disadvantages for a library profession to obtain training and professional certification for implementing Scrum.

Beginning with a brief literature review that surveys the use of Scrum and related frameworks in libraries, this chapter then provides a brief explanation of Scrum, the role of the ScrumMaster, and the certification process. An examination of the difficulties of project management in libraries leads to a discussion of the advantages of ScrumMaster certification for the library organization and the library professional, with caveats and alternatives.

Scrum offers lightweight methods to bring project management expertise to libraries lacking formal project management training. ScrumMaster certification is a quick and easy way to learn and implement the process, while offering professional advantages.

While the library literature has case studies of library professionals using Scrum and related Agile software development methodologies, this chapter looks at the ScrumMaster role in particular, the certification process, and the advantages for the organization and the professional.

This study seeks to break the current paradigm that Scrum, as an agile framework, is only applicable for information technologies (IT) projects and to confirm the feasibility of its application in the construction sector.

The rehabilitation of a shopping mall in Piura (Peru) is used as a case study to implement Scrum in a construction project. In addition, a thorough literature review is performed to establish the state-of-the-art and practice in this field and set the foundation of the elements applied during the case study.

The results of this study show the great versatility of Scrum in the construction sector. The key findings include a reduction of the construction duration that provided value to the owner, flexibility for the inclusion of changes (induced by the client or by the complexity of the context in which the project is developed), risk control in high uncertainty scenarios and general satisfaction for all stakeholders.

The waterfall or traditional management methodologies are not always effective in construction projects, and their application depends on the features and complexity of the environment in which they are developed. This study provides a case study showing the application of Scrum in the construction industry. The positive results obtained from the application can be used by researchers and practitioners looking to incorporate Scrum (or other agile tools) to enhance the management of construction projects.

The purpose of this paper is to use translation theory to develop a framework (called FTRA) that explains how companies adopt agile methods in a discourse of fragmentation and articulation.

A qualitative multiple case study of six firms using the Scrum agile methodology. Data were collected using mixed methods and analyzed using three progressive coding cycles and analytic induction.

In practice, people translate agile methods for local settings by choosing fragments of the method and continuously re-articulating them according to the exact needs of the time and place. The authors coded the fragments as technological rules that share relationships within a framework spanning two dimensions: static-dynamic and actor-artifact.

For consistency, the six cases intentionally represent one instance of agile methodology (Scrum). This limits the confidence that the framework is suitable for other kinds of methodologies.

The FTRA framework and the technological rules are promising for use in practice as a prescriptive or even normative frame for governing methodology adaptation.

Framing agile adaption with translation theory surfaces how the discourse between translocal (global) and local practice yields the social construction of agile methods. This result contrasts the more functionalist engineering perspective and privileges changeability over performance.

The use of translation theory and the FTRA framework to explain how agile adaptation (in particular Scrum) emerges continuously in a process where method fragments are articulated and re-articulated to momentarily suit the local setting. Complete agility that rapidly and elegantly changes its own environment must, as a concomitant, rapidly and elegantly change itself. This understanding also elaborates translation theory by explaining how the articulation and re-articulation of ideas embody the means by which ideas travel in practice.

Scrum, an agile software development method, has gained major interest among software development organizations. The scrum master should be well equipped with specific leadership traits and exhibit leadership behavior to effectively manage his/her team. However, in a distributed team, which is spread across geographies, having scrum master to lead the project team at each location is not viable. Therefore, every member in the team is expected to have the capability to become one. This paper aims to explore the leadership mechanisms desired for effective functioning of distributed self-organized scrum team members, leading to project success and overall customer satisfaction.

A qualitative research methodology with an open-ended questionnaire is followed by semi-structured in-depth interviews. The unit of analysis is a scrum master.

The qualitative findings unearth the kind of leadership mechanisms required for scrum masters and the team members in a self-organizing scrum team, leading to their project success and customer satisfaction. It includes a set of leadership approaches and behaviors explicitly related to the role of scrum masters. Both inductive and deductive approaches are used to develop a leadership framework applicable for distributed self-organized scrum teams.

The proposed framework can be empirically tested with a large number of teams and more software organizations.

Organizations can use these identified specific leadership approaches and behaviors as parameters for identifying and selecting the potential scrum masters. They can be further trained on them to be an effective scrum master.

There is scant literature on the leadership mechanisms necessary for distributed scrum teams and their impact on project performance. This paper addresses this gap.

Quality management standards (e.g. ISO 9001) lead to process conformance in the realization of quality goods and services; however, they can be rather document intensive. This paper investigates documentation practices used for aligning “light-weight” Scrum methods with ISO 9001 in a leading healthcare software firm.

The authors investigated how “light-weight” Scrum approaches fit with organizational documentation practices for ISO 9001 compliance in one leading healthcare software development firm. Three investigative rounds were conducted with software professionals having different Scrum roles to understand their challenges in maintaining process documentation with Scrum methods.

ISO standards stipulate certain mandatory documentation as evidence that certain pre-defined processes are followed in the build-up of quality goods and services. However, this may result in “heavy-weight” document driven approaches that interfere with “light-weight” Scrum methods. Case study findings reveal tensions faced by software professionals in maintaining the ISO 9001 documentation. That is, while some level of documentation is considered useful, software professionals consider certain other documentation tasks to be excessive and cumbersome. Further, many operational documents were written retrospectively for administrative compliance, leading to reduced, incomplete and ambiguous descriptions.

The study provides much value for practitioners in adapting their documentation with ongoing operational processes. Further, the critique on current ISO 9001 implementations in Agile environments has implications for future documentation practice.

The empirically drawn findings showcase some of the challenges in maintaining ISO 9001 documentation within Scrum projects. The study has contributed to both theory and practice in relation to the co-existence of ISO drawn standards with Agile approaches used for software development.

Scrum is a development methodology that has been rapidly gaining popularity over the last decade particularly for software development teams. The Scrum master is sometimes viewed as a servant leader of the Scrum team. The purpose of this paper is to investigate to what extent Scrum masters actually make use of servant leadership and how this impacts on the team’s effectiveness via mediating processes.

The research followed a quantitative approach. An online questionnaire was prepared and completed by 71 Scrum team members (excluding Scrum masters) and 22 Scrum masters in more than ten organizations based in Western Cape, South Africa.

Scrum masters in this sample extensively used the servant leadership approach, but those who are also appointed as formal team leaders are seen to be considerably better servant leaders by team members. There is a moderately strong correlation between servant leadership of the Scrum master and team effectiveness. It was found that high levels of psychological safety do not necessarily translate into team performance.

Research was only performed at the unit level of analysis and not the team or organizational level. This was a cross-sectional study and variations over time were not considered.

The results confirm the importance of servant leadership skills when identifying and developing Scrum masters, appointing the formal team leader role in Scrum teams and implementing Scrum practices effectively.

As could be established, this is the first time that the role of servant leadership in Scrum teams was formally investigated.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the benefits of the agile project management (APM) framework compared to the traditional waterfall model, and understand how it can help companies add value and gain competitive advantage.

The methodology used was the exploratory qualitative research through a case study of a software project, developed with the support and application of the Scrum framework, in a pharmaceutical industry information technology project.

There were benefits found in the utilization of the agile framework, such as increased motivation and staff satisfaction, better control of requirements and especially higher quality of the delivered system, generating added value to the organization. Additionally, the project allowed the use of features from the first month of the application deployed, enabling a 75 percent reduction in development time, compared to traditional methods. The software development time was four months, 30 percent of what would be the total if the traditional methodology was adopted. Based on the results, the agile framework, especially the Scrum, proved to be a viable option as a project management approach.

Since this research is an exploratory case study, its results cannot be generalized.

The paper provides relevant practical information and experiences to managers interested in implementing APM, as well as those interested in improving the management of projects.

This paper provides a case study with practical implications of using APM, and APM’s benefits and advantages are compared with the traditional waterfall approach. Companies can use this case study to better understand about the advantages and strengths of APM over the traditional approach.

Ambidexterity has been shown to contribute to project performance. Recent studies of ambidexterity on the project level focus on multilevel knowledge resources, individual actions and structural ambidexterity. However, the role of project management methods remains unclear. This is surprising because project management methods are broadly disseminated as standards. The purpose of this paper is to theorize how project management methods affect ambidexterity on the project level.

It is demonstrated how routine theory adds to a better theoretical conceptualization and understanding of project management methods. The analysis of this paper contains, first, the reconstruction of the contribution of each action in “Scrum” to either exploitation or exploration and, second, the discussion of roles in Scrum. To conclude, a “big picture” of what ambidexterity in projects can look like is developed.

The main findings suggest that Scrum facilitates sequential and contextual ambidexterity by producing a pattern of alternating exploitation and exploration actions and by assigning specific roles.

For practitioners this leads to steps they can take to enhance ambidexterity in projects. It is suggested to staff explicitly ambidexterity-related roles like a Scrum Master and to persist on explorative actions like adaption of project goals and Customer Feedback.

First, the present paper contributes an analysis of the underlying micro-mechanisms of sequential and contextual ambidexterity in projects. Second, it informs practitioners on what aspects of project management methods they should pay attention to.

The purpose of this study is to reflect upon the feasibility of agile methodologies, Scrum in particular, to supplement the procedural design and implementation of performance measurement systems (PMS).

The study is an interventionist case study that applied agile methodologies in the PMS development. Researchers actively participated in the PMS development, e.g. researchers designed some of the performance measurement prototypes in order to facilitate the agile development.

The study outlines an agile approach suitable for PMS development. The paper answers the topical needs for adaptability and agility in management accounting, by applying agile methodologies into PMS development. PMS development does not take place only as a project or process that systematically progresses from the measure selection to measure implementation. Instead, as the requirements for the PMS change during the development project, management may reject some measures and new measures emerge as the understanding about changing situations increase. Agile methodologies are a methodological way to respond to the inevitable change and to enhance management accounting adaptability.

This study contributes to the PMS literature by proposing that agile development methodologies can advance organizational features that increase management accounting adaptability. As a result, the study proposes a new approach for PMS development to supplement existing ones. Agile methodologies are especially suitable for extending the PMS in new, yet relatively immature areas of performance measurement. The new approach applies Scrum principles in PMS development. By drawing from the theories of performance measurement (system) development and enabling PMS, the paper furthers academic understanding about agile development of accounting information systems.

Companies can use the proposed approach in PMS development, particularly after the initial system implementation in redesigning the system. The approach may increase the PMS impact in organizations and prevent PMS implementation failures.

The paper identifies the potential of using agile methodologies to enhance PMS adaptability and provides preliminary evidence of the potential of such approach in supplementing processual PMS development frameworks.

Once executives understand how Agile and Scrum can manage the extraordinary complexities of software development, they will realize they can use the same management expertise to manage the mounting complexity of the rest of their business.

The author explains that although the ideology of Agile puts emphasis on collaboration and teams, particularly self-organizing teams, managers should not confuse Agile teams with the generally unsuccessful efforts throughout the 20th Century to make teams a central and permanent aspect of management.

In effect, Agile and Scrum represent a major management discovery, a scalable system to produce continuous customer-focused innovation in a dynamic business environment.

Agile and Scrum can deal directly with current business issues by giving an authoritative voice to the customer and giving business and technical competence a preeminent role over authority.

Agile/Scrum is enjoying added attention from managers in collaborative work arrangements such as networks and ecosystems. These arrangements can be scaled without sclerosis and seemingly without limit.