Acrobats and Safety Nets: Problematizing Large-Scale Agile Software Development

Abstract

Agile development methods have become a standard in the software industry, including in large-scale projects. These methods share a set of underlying assumptions that distinguish them from more traditional plan-driven approaches. In this paper we adopt Alvesson and Sandberg's problematization approach to challenge three key assumptions that are prevalent in the large-scale agile literature: 1) agile and plan-driven methods are mutually exclusive; 2) self-managing and hierarchically-organized teams are mutually exclusive; and 3) agile methods can scale through simple linear composition. Using a longitudinal case study of large-scale agile development, we describe a series of trigger events and episodes whereby the agile approach was tailored to address the needs of the large-scale development context, which was very much at odds with these fundamental assumptions. We develop a set of new underlying assumptions which suggest that agile and plan-driven practices are mutually enabling and necessary for coordination and scaling in large-scale agile projects. We develop nine propositions for large-scale agile projects based on these new alternative underlying assumptions. Finally, we summarize our theoretical contribution in a generic process model of continuously adjusting agile and plan-driven practices in order to accommodate process challenges in large-scale agile projects.

From transformation to normalisation: An exploratory study of a large-scale agile transformation

“…For example, Barlow et al (2011) define the term as characterised by multiple stakeholders and complex projects within large organisations. Rolland et al (2016) suggest that large-scale involves complex integration with various internal and external information systems, multiple stakeholders with different interests. A large-scale agile transformation is an attempt to scale up how development organisations move from small agile practices (e.g.…”

“…Previous research has shown that the scaling up of agile methods to a large-scale development setting presents ‘ a thorny set of issues ’ (Reifer et al, 2003), such as the weak assumption about how effective large-scale development can be achieved by simply scaling up small-scale agile methods (Rolland et al, 2016; Carroll et al, 2020). Regardless of the chosen approach of a prescribed scaled method or allowing them to evolve at a team level to implement large-scale methods, it is extremely challenging to successfully scale agile methods (Paasivaara, 2017; Conboy and Carroll, 2019; Uludag et al, 2020; Edison et al, 2021).…”

“…Regardless of the chosen approach of a prescribed scaled method or allowing them to evolve at a team level to implement large-scale methods, it is extremely challenging to successfully scale agile methods (Paasivaara, 2017; Conboy and Carroll, 2019; Uludag et al, 2020; Edison et al, 2021). The implementation of these scaled-up methods have struggled to deal with the complexities and ambiguities arising from (i) a large number of teams, roles, and personalities; (ii) an often unknown composition of participant teams and projects at the outset; (iii) abstract, knowledge-intensive, and often ill-structured work processes; (iv) diverse and often competing agendas between teams that sometimes contradict the organisation itself; and (v) abstract, complex, and often unknown final outputs and goals (Edison et al, 2021; Rolland et al, 2016; Conboy and Carroll, 2019; Paasivaara, 2017).…”

“…We have become accustomed to many weak assumptions underlying current research on large-scale agile development (Rolland et al, 2016). We need to also develop accounts as to why large-scale agile transformations fail.…”

“…Lack of theoretically driven analysis of large-scale agile transformations . It is reported that many research efforts on large-scale agile transformation have been largely built on weak assumptions (Rolland et al, 2016) around practitioner views of embedding and sustaining transformations (Carroll et al, 2020). Normalisation explicitly examines weak underlying assumptions of embedding change such as large-scale agile transformations and can identify actions leading to success or failures.…”