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Adapting funding processes for agile IT projects: an empirical investigation

  • Research Article
  • Published:
European Journal of Information Systems

Abstract

Agile software development that provides software development organizations, the ability to respond to changes in turbulent business environments, has been gaining wide adoption. Agile software development projects are characterized by ‘just enough’ planning and lack of upfront commitment to scope, cost, and schedule. These characteristics pose conflicting demands on managers responsible for making funding decisions, because traditional approaches to funding IT projects are often based on well-defined scope, cost, and schedule. These conflicts demand the adaptation of traditional funding processes to suit to agile projects. We draw from Adaptive Structuration Theory to understand the nature of conflicts between traditional IT project funding processes and the dynamic nature of agile projects, and how these conflicts are addressed by practices that are appropriated in the process of social interaction between funding decision makers and development teams. On the basis of a multisite case study, we present a framework that explains how organizations adapt traditional IT funding approaches to accommodate the unique characteristics of agile IT projects.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Business and Public Administration, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, U.S.A.

    Lan Cao

  2. Baruch College, New York, U.S.A.

    Kannan Mohan

  3. J. Mack Robinson College of Business, Georgia State University, Atlanta, U.S.A.

    Balasubramaniam Ramesh & Sumantra Sarkar

Authors
  1. Lan Cao
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  2. Kannan Mohan
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  3. Balasubramaniam Ramesh
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  4. Sumantra Sarkar
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Cao, L., Mohan, K., Ramesh, B. et al. Adapting funding processes for agile IT projects: an empirical investigation. Eur J Inf Syst 22, 191–205 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1057/ejis.2012.9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/ejis.2012.9

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