Agile methods and organizational culture: reflections about cultural levels

Agile methods emerge as an alternative to improve quality and performance in software development processes. However, as agile methods are essentially focused on human aspects, their application in companies depends mostly on their adequacy to the current organizational culture. This study explores the view of the organizational culture in three levels as a theoretical framework to allow early detection of problems, which could jeopardize the adoption of agile methods by a company. This article points out that many facilitators or obstacles to the adoption of an agile method can be hidden in the lower levels of the organizational culture. Additionally, the article shows that a superficial analysis of those issues can lead to a miscomprehension about the possibility of applying an agile method in a software company. This article also evidences that the interpretation of the levels of organizational culture improves the understanding of how an agile culture should be established. Copyright (C) 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.