Scaling Agile Company-Wide

Scaling Agile Company-Wide: The Organizational Challenge of Combining Agile-Scaling Frameworks and Enterprise Architecture in Service Companies

Van Wessel, Robert M. (Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam)
Kroon, Philip
de Vries, H.J. (TU Delft Values Technology and Innovation; TU Delft Economics of Technology and Innovation; Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam)

Values Technology and Innovation

2022

Many organizations have embraced agile methods. Studies show a trend of large-scale application of agile frameworks company-wide. Emergent architecture design as part of an agile approach is effective at the project level but causes issues when services need to interact seamlessly at the enterprise level. Enterprise architecture (EA) can provide such coherence. Combining the scaling agile methods with EA is challenging. However, such a combination could benefit from the flexibility that agile approaches offer and provide the consistency and long-term focus that EA pursues. This article uses the longitudinal case study research to explore how organizations can effectively govern Agile and EA in large-scale agile transformations. Our case analysis shows that methods for scaling Agile do not provide sufficient guidance to properly handle the transformation from existing EA practices to an Agile EA combination company-wide. We propose how EA can be applied effectively in large-scale agile transformations despite the two seemingly conflicting approaches of Agile and EA. Based on our findings, we propose a conceptual model for future research that incorporates factors that take EA into account in the governance of agile-scaling frameworks. Our findings extend current literature on coordination mechanisms between architects and agile teams in large-scale agile transformations, thereby balancing emergent and intentional architectures.

Agile methods
agile-scaling frameworks (ASFs)
collaborations in technology management
enterprise architecture (EA)
new service development
organizational change
project management
software process management

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:858f8330-0719-4de7-ac38-04b04d128c8e

https://doi.org/10.1109/TEM.2021.3128278

2023-07-01

0018-9391

IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, 69 (6), 3489-3502

Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.

Institutional Repository

journal article

© 2022 Robert M. Van Wessel, Philip Kroon, H.J. de Vries