Agile Management in the Large: An Exploratory Case Study on Large-Scale Interdisciplinary Projects

In an increasingly turbulent environment of constant change, agile methods have become increasingly popular inside and outside of information system development projects. As agile has been used in large-scale and interdisciplinary projects, new challenges arise for agile management. How exactly agile methods succeed and what this means for management is, however, largely unknown. A careful examination of implications of agile methods on management, outlining obstacles and critical success factors for agile management, while also paying attention to the special characteristics of large-scale interdisciplinary projects, is therefore warranted. By providing insights from a single case study, we derive obstacles and critical success factors for management of large-scale, interdisciplinary agile projects. This benefits practice by focusing managerial aspects of agile projects better, improving project performance and reducing failures. We further advance research by providing first steps to evaluate agile methods and to study how agile methods fit to different types of projects.