The amorphous nature of agile: no one size fits all
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JSIT-11-2017-0118 |
| Published date | 14 May 2018 |
| Pages | 241-260 |
| Date | 14 May 2018 |
| Author | Joey F. George,Kevin Scheibe,Anthony M. Townsend,Brian Mennecke |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Information systems,Information & communications technology |
The amorphous nature of agile:
no one size fits all
Joey F. George,Kevin Scheibe,Anthony M. Townsend and
Brian Mennecke
Department of Supply Chain and Information Systems, Ivy College of Business,
Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, USA
Abstract
Purpose –This paper aims to investigate the extent to which newly agile organizations followed 2001’s
Agile Manifesto,especially in terms of the 12 principles of the agile approach,as included in the Manifesto.
Design/methodology/approach –The authors conductedin-depth case studies of groups in threelarge
business organizationsthat had recently adopted agile. Two researchers spent one day at each site, attending
daily standupsand conducting interviews with managers, developersand customers.
Findings –Across the three organizations,developers were faithful to two agile principles:the primacy of
delivering valuable software continually and regular reflections on the process with an eye toward
improvement. The developers were uniformly unfaithful to the principle that requires face-to-face
communication. Each organization varied in their adherence to the remaining nine principles. Obstacles to
faithful adoption includedthe experience of the organization with agile, the extent to which the industrywas
regulatedand the extent to which developers and customers were physically dispersed.
Originality/value –While past research on agile development is extensive, this paper examines
perspectives on the method and its adoption through the lens of the original Agile Manifesto and its 12
principles. The principles were grouped into three broader categories –software delivery, people and
process –toprovide additional insights and to sharpen the analysis.
Keywords Systems development, Case study, Agile methodology
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Agile is dead (Kern, 2016). According to some observers, the popular approach to software
development has now been replaced with newer approaches to development, such as
DevOps and Bimodal IT. The earliest craftsman-like approaches to development were
replaced with engineering-based approaches, typically referred to as waterfall, and the
engineering focus was replaced with agile methodologies. We knew agile would also be
superseded eventually.Even the term “agile”has been so inappropriately used that, to many
observers, it has lost its originalmeaning (Conboy, 2009;Kern, 2016).
However, the demise of agile might surprisethe 94 per cent of organizations that practice
agile, as identified in a recent survey (VersionOne.com, 2017). A total of 44 per cent of the
respondents considered themselves extremely knowledgeable about agile development
practices. In total, 50 per cent of respondentsworked in organizations where the majority of
their development teams used an agile approach. Agile methods seem to be firmly
entrenched. And while 28 per cent have been using agile for five years or more, many
companies are very recent converts –15 per cent of respondents had less than one year of
experience.
What does it mean to be an agile developer now? How is the agile approach definedand
implemented in practice? The agile approach to systems development was formalized in
Nature of agile
241
Received27 November 2017
Revised1 May 2018
Accepted2 May 2018
Journalof Systems and
InformationTechnology
Vol.20 No. 2, 2018
pp. 241-260
© Emerald Publishing Limited
1328-7265
DOI 10.1108/JSIT-11-2017-0118
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/1328-7265.htm
2001’s“Agile Manifesto”(Beck et al.,2001;Fowler and Highsmith, 2001). The Manifesto
resulted from a meeting of 17 methodology visionaries, who met at the Snowbird ski resort
to discuss the “need for an alternative to documentation driven, heavyweight software
development processes (http://agilemanifesto.org/history.html).”Short and succinct, the
Manifesto consistedof four foundational statements: We value:
(1) individuals and interactions over processes and tools;
(2) working software over comprehensive documentation;
(3) customer collaboration over contract negotiation; and
(4) responding to change over following a plan.
The Manifesto also articulated 12 agile principles (Categorizing the 12 Principles of the
Agile Approach). We wanted to find out the extent to which agile is defined by the
Manifesto, its four foundationalstatements, and its 12 principles, and the extent to which its
principles are followed or altered for local use. Our goal is not to duplicate Conboy’s (2009)
work, in which he defined informationsystems development agility and created a taxonomy
of it. Instead, our goal is to investigate how practitionersdefine agile and the environmental
factors that influence how agile is shaped in the workplace.Recent research has shown that
some agile practices are routinely subverted, so much so that several agile anti-patterns –
such as extra-long sprints or team membersbeing reassigned without the input of the rest of
the team –have been identified (Eloranta et al., 2016;Scrum.org, 2018;Wolpers, 2018).
However, the literature on anti-patternsseeks to identify them and estimate their frequency.
It does not investigate how or why they came about. For our study, we formulated two
research questions:
RQ1. How is agile defined in practice?
RQ2. What environmentalfactors shape agile practices?
To address these questions, we conducted in-depth visits to three organizations with offices
in the Midwest USA. All said they practicedagile, but each had its own local perspective. To
compare and contrast these three localized versions of agile, we focus on the 12 agile
principles identified in the Manifesto consolidated into three core areas: software delivery,
people and process. We explore each organization’s story of how it came to adopt and use
agile. We then show where these companies tended to be faithful to agile and where they
tended to diverge. We endwith a summary of our findings and managerial implications.
The agile literature
Agile development methods, including Scrum (Schwaber, 1997), eXtreme Programming
(Beck, 1999) and others, have been the subject of academic inquiry since 2001 (Dingsøyr
et al.,2012). Much of that literature has been devoted to the factors that make agile
successful. For example, agile success requires strong executive support and committed
managers (Chow and Cao, 2008;Ahimbisibwe et al.,2015). Success requires managers to
shift from command-and-control to leadership-and-collaboration (Nerur et al.,2005;Conboy
et al., 2011). Where management support and understanding of agile practices have been
lacking, adoption and success have suffered(Senapathi and Srinivasan, 2012). Agile success
also depends on project champions (Conboy and Morgan, 2011;Chesbrough and Crowther,
2006) and the competence, expertise and motivation of capable teams genuinely working
together (Chow and Cao, 2008;Ahimbisibwe et al.,2015). Agile needs effective
communication (McHugh et al., 2012), even though such communication can prove
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