Demystifying Agile
(2018) BUSN49 20181Department of Business Administration
- Abstract (Swedish)
- This paper aims at demystifying the agile way of working and to improve the understanding
of the concept. We do this through a case study of a large bank which initiated a transition to
agile five years ago, a transition which can be categorised as an attempt to shift from being
bureaucracy to post-bureaucracy. To reach our aim, we engaged in in-depth interviews,
observations, and document analysis all within the interpretivist tradition to capture the
employees’ sensemaking of their new way of working. In this paper we propose three
alternative meanings of agile, namely ‘agile as an envy generator’, ‘agile as standardisation’,
and ‘agile as managerial boredom’. These stand in stark contrast with the established
understanding of... (More) - This paper aims at demystifying the agile way of working and to improve the understanding
of the concept. We do this through a case study of a large bank which initiated a transition to
agile five years ago, a transition which can be categorised as an attempt to shift from being
bureaucracy to post-bureaucracy. To reach our aim, we engaged in in-depth interviews,
observations, and document analysis all within the interpretivist tradition to capture the
employees’ sensemaking of their new way of working. In this paper we propose three
alternative meanings of agile, namely ‘agile as an envy generator’, ‘agile as standardisation’,
and ‘agile as managerial boredom’. These stand in stark contrast with the established
understanding of the concept in much of the literature and the general business discourse as
‘agile as an organisational panacea’, and thus we shed new light on this fashionable way of
working. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/8948428
- author
- Kleppe Brittmark, Håvard LU and Creusen, Sanne LU
- supervisor
- organization
- alternative title
- The Case of a Fantasy Project?
- course
- BUSN49 20181
- year
- 2018
- type
- H1 - Master's Degree (One Year)
- subject
- keywords
- agile, agile methodologies, post-bureaucracy, organisational change, management fashion, sensemaking, organisational culture
- language
- English
- id
- 8948428
- date added to LUP
- 2018-06-19 11:55:09
- date last changed
- 2018-06-19 11:55:09
@misc{8948428, abstract = {{This paper aims at demystifying the agile way of working and to improve the understanding of the concept. We do this through a case study of a large bank which initiated a transition to agile five years ago, a transition which can be categorised as an attempt to shift from being bureaucracy to post-bureaucracy. To reach our aim, we engaged in in-depth interviews, observations, and document analysis all within the interpretivist tradition to capture the employees’ sensemaking of their new way of working. In this paper we propose three alternative meanings of agile, namely ‘agile as an envy generator’, ‘agile as standardisation’, and ‘agile as managerial boredom’. These stand in stark contrast with the established understanding of the concept in much of the literature and the general business discourse as ‘agile as an organisational panacea’, and thus we shed new light on this fashionable way of working.}}, author = {{Kleppe Brittmark, Håvard and Creusen, Sanne}}, language = {{eng}}, note = {{Student Paper}}, title = {{Demystifying Agile}}, year = {{2018}}, }