AGILE & DISTRIBUTED PROJECT MANAGEMENT: A CASE STUDY REVEALING WHY SCRUM IS USEFUL

Scrum has gained surprising momentum as an agile IS project management approach. An obvious question is why Scrum is so useful? To answer that question we carried out a longitudinal study of a distributed project using Scrum. We analyzed the data using coding and categorisation and three carefully selected theoretical frameworks. Our conclusion in this paper is that Scrum is so useful because it provides effective communication in the form of boundary objects and boundary spanners, it provides effective social integration by building up social team capital, and it provides much needed control and coordination mechanisms by allowing both local and global articulation of work in the project. That is why Scrum is especially useful for distributed IS project management and teamwork

When to use what? – Selecting systems development method in a Bank

Since the very first systems development method was defined it has been discussed how and when to select which method(s). Several books and consultants have claimed to have found the philosophers stone, but never the less it seems that there is no single method that will ever work for (nearly) all development situations. The question then arises: When to use what? And how can one help a concrete organization decide on systems development method(s)? To answer this question we undertook an action research study in ScandiBank that employs 1700 IS developers. The action research took place in three learning cycles. The first cycle started in 2001, the latter ended in 2005. We report from the three learning cycles emphasizing and explaining the learning that took place in each cycle. The result – our answer to the research question on when to use what? – is a framework focusing on the final product, with a few well-chosen trails through the “maze” of possibilities, and some rules for election of method parts

Smart(er) Research

This is an answer and an elaboration to Carsten Sørensens’ “The Curse of the Smart Machine?”. My answer disagrees with the postulate of a mainframe focus within the IS field. Instead I suggest that it is a struggle between old and new science. The answer then agrees with the notion that we need new and more agile publication mechanisms and I elaborate that

HOW AGILE IT PROJECT MANAGEMENT WAS PROFESSIONALIZED

This paper first explains how IT project management became a profession by first being included in project management in general through organizations such as PMI and IPMA and later by developing as a scientific community within AIS in its own right. Second, the paper describes how agility and the agile methods developed and took over much of the IT project arena. However, IT project management had to respond to the “big wave†of agile, and we explain how they did that through the professional communities IPMA and PMI that developed agile versions of their recommendations and certifications. In parallel with this development, agile was professionalized in its own right by organizations such as the Agile Alliance and scrum.org. We conclude by discussing whether agile and the organizations trying to make it into a profession have achieved enough autonomy to professionalize agile

Information Systems Development @ Internet Speed: A New Paradigm in the Making!

Two studies from 2000-2001 – in U.S. and Denmark – have revealed that the nature of IS development has changed with the coming of Internet Speed. It may not be a revolution, but it is definitely and distinctively different. The new kind of methodology implements amethodical emergent systems development as a new package of practices. Systems are continually growing to adapt to emergent organizations where requirements are fluid, architecture and components are key, and maintenance never rises as a concern

Aligning Customer Relationship and Product Strategy at Internet Speed

The Internet has changed the way many software developing companies have to work – They have to reconsider their IT strategy. Theory on IT strategy suggests a close intimate relationship between supplier and customer. Theory also suggests a job shop or a batch job organization of the software production. In 2002 we set out to study a number of Danish Internet software companies. Through careful interviewing and analysis we found that the theory actually fitted well with our empirical findings. But we also found an emphasis on building trust in customer-supplier relationships that were not well-developed in the theory we studied. In the paper we give an account of our findings and we characterise the element of trust building in internet customer-supplier relationships

THREE BARRIERS FOR CONTINUING USE OF COMPUTER-BASED TOOLS IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT: A grounded theory approach

Qualitative information systems research such as field studies and interviews generates large numbers of unstructured and complex data. This paper describes the use of a grounded theory approach to the analysis and structuring of interviews from nine Danish firms concerning the use of computer-based tools in information systems development. The following grounded theory was discovered: Before a software developer starts using a computer-based tool continuously three barriers have to be overcome. Firstly the information on the tool, whether verbal or in writing must be evaluated positively. Secondly the proper situation for putting the tool into use must have arrived. And thirdly, when the tool has been put into use, it must fit when used to remain in continuing use. Throughout the paper emphasis is placed on the ability of grounded theory to facilitate the movement from initial unstructured interview transcripts through coding-memos and concepts to a theory and its implied hierarchy of categories