Agile practices and their impact on organizational culture: Perceptions of it employees operating in Ireland

Authors

de Noronha, Ana Paula Vargas

Issue Date

2019

Degree

MA of Business Administration

Publisher

Dublin Business School

Rights

Items in eSource are protected by copyright. Previously published items are made available in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher/copyright holder.

Abstract

The Agile methodology was created on the premise of responding to projects uncertainties, involving a set of principles and practices to rapidly develop high-quality solutions, to encourage collaboration among team members, and to deliver greater value to customers. Ever since, Agile Practices have become widely adopted and have proven to increase the likelihood of project success in various dimensions. However, there are still several people who do not know what agile values are and how they can help to create a healthy and collaborative organizational culture. Some of them believe that the use of Agile Practices can promote an anarchy scenario, where people work in a disorderly way. This lack of knowledge about how Agile Practices may affects the workplace and people’s behavior in a business perspective is also reflected in academic studies. Research on how Agile Practices can produce changes or support the development of the organizational culture is rare. The majority of studies concerns to understand the other way around: how specific and previously established organizational culture factors can affect the use of Agile Practices. Therefore, the main purpose of the current study is to fill this research gap by exploring perceptions of IT employees on Agile Practices and their impact on Organizational Culture. It also aims to promote greater understanding about perceived benefits and obstacles in adopting Agile Practices. Study findings can be useful to support decision-making of companies that are planning to adopt agile practices and are looking for more information about the values and behaviors that Agile Practices can drive. This research explores Agile Practices and their impact on Organizational Culture through qualitative analysis. Six IT employees who are currently applying Agile Practices in their dailywork in Ireland were interviewed, providing experiences and opinions regarding the topic. After interpreting results, the main contribution of this study is providing indications that Agile Practices can produce changes on ten organizational culture factors: communication, flexibility, control, collaboration, innovation, feedback, pressure of work, visibility of the tasks, focus on client and continuous improvement.