Understanding Agile in Project Management

Abstract

Whilst agile is prevalent in project practice, little of this is grounded in evidence and theory, and there is a lack of credible academic research in contrast to other aspects of the project management domain. There is ambiguity around what is agile within the profession and lots of questions remain unanswered in terms of how is agile being used, and how effective is it particularly outside of IT and software development. Also, the limited available literature does not tend to explore the challenges and barriers encountered with implementing agile.

This report does not present a single definition of agile for the project management community. Rather, we explore existing practice in order to discover whether agile is valuable to project management, and why. We set out to explore agile practice, without first providing a definition. This research makes steps towards an enhanced understanding of the use of agile in project management. It also provides illustrative case studies of projects applying agile. Challenges are discussed in the successful adoption of agile. We also explore the motivation for agile, which includes improved project delivery through enhanced flexibility, adaptability and responsiveness in complex, uncertain and challenging circumstances.

The research team gathered data using a mixed-method approach, including a systematic literature review, interviews with 31 cross-sector project professionals, and a survey that attracted over 600 responses. Both the interviews and survey data showed that agile is overwhelmingly recognised as beneficial to successful project delivery and project team performance.

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Identifiers

ORCID for Hao Dong: orcid.org/0000-0002-3458-4986

ORCID for Nicholas Dacre: orcid.org/0000-0002-9667-9331

ORCID for David Baxter: orcid.org/0000-0003-1983-7786

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