Start Date

11-8-2016

Description

Organizations wanting to adopt agile software development methodologies often face resistance from development team members with structured development backgrounds. While project management best practices would advocate the need to stifle opposition, recent research suggests resistance may have value in enabling project leaders to respond effectively. Using a qualitative multi-site case study approach, this study elaborates on how scrum masters perceive, interpret, and act upon resistance to enable agile adoption in a waterfall organization. We find that scrum masters need to be more socially intelligent in order to sense the resistance and develop appropriate actions and interventions to enable agile adoption.

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Aug 11th, 12:00 AM

Making Sense of Resistance to Agile Adoption in Waterfall Organizations: Social Intelligence and Leadership

Organizations wanting to adopt agile software development methodologies often face resistance from development team members with structured development backgrounds. While project management best practices would advocate the need to stifle opposition, recent research suggests resistance may have value in enabling project leaders to respond effectively. Using a qualitative multi-site case study approach, this study elaborates on how scrum masters perceive, interpret, and act upon resistance to enable agile adoption in a waterfall organization. We find that scrum masters need to be more socially intelligent in order to sense the resistance and develop appropriate actions and interventions to enable agile adoption.