University of Twente Student Theses
Implementing Agile teams : a qualitative study on the adoption of Scrum teams in SMEs
Eliya, Y. (2022) Implementing Agile teams : a qualitative study on the adoption of Scrum teams in SMEs.
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| Abstract: | Recently, many organizations have started noticing the ease and efficiency that Agile provides for managing projects. Thanks to its benefits, many organizations are currently adopting Agile and, more specifically, the Scrum framework. Whitin this framework, employees are divided in small teams, usually fewer than nine people. The team members work together on delivering a usable product in every timeslot. The duration of each timeslot inside the Scrum framework is on average between one to four weeks. Although the popularity of Scrum made it the most used framework around the world in large organizations, Scrum adoption in SMEs received little scholarly attention, which is peculiar given that Scrum was developed in teams within smaller organizations. To address and fill this gap in the literature, the first step of this thesis was a literature study to point out the enablers and inhibitors of Scrum adoption in large organizations. Then, through purposive sampling, 12 interviews were conducted with employees from three divisions of one SME from the IT sector. The sample of the employees included owners, managers, consultants, and developers. The collected data were analyzed using thematic analysis, hand in hand with Gioia’s methodology. Based on the data, a comparison was made between the enablers and inhibitors of large organizations found in the literature and the ones of SMEs collected from the interviews. Based on the result of this comparison, this thesis added several enablers and inhibitors to the literature on Scrum adoption in SMEs. Among the enablers are: Being familiar with working according to defined roles, having periodic feedback sessions, having the right tools, motivating employees, and being less flexible towards customers. Regarding the inhibitors, the following were found: Different role expectations, the implementation should not be done by a new person, SMEs are too small for Scrum and SMEs are more flexible than Scrum. In addition to enriching the literature on Scrum adoption in SMEs, this thesis provided some practical implications for SMEs’ managers which can help them implementing Scrum in a more effective way. |
| Item Type: | Essay (Master) |
| Faculty: | BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences |
| Programme: | Business Administration MSc (60644) |
| Link to this item: | https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/89332 |
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