The role of project management in ineffective decision making within agile software development projects

European Journal of Information Systems

Volumn 18, Issue 4, 2009, Pages 372-383

  McAvoy, John ^a   Butler, Tom ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY COLLEGE CORK   (Ireland)

Author keywords

Agile; Decision making; Devil's advocate; Empowerment; Project management

Indexed keywords

EID: 70249130932     PISSN: 0960085X     EISSN: 14769344     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1057/ejis.2009.22     Document Type: Article

References (68)

1. ABRAHAMSSON P, SALO O, RONKAINEN J and WARSTA J (2002) Agile software development methods Review and analysis VTT Publications, Finland.
2. ARGYRIS C (1976) Single-loop and double-loop models in research on decision making. Administrative Science Quarterly 21(3), 363-375.
3. ARGYRIS C (1998) Empowerment: the emperor?s new clothes. Harvard Business Review 76(3), 98-105.
4. AUER K, MEADE E and REEVES G (2003) The rules of the game. In Extreme Programming and Agile Methods - Xp/Agile Universe 2003 (MAURER F and WELLS D, Eds), pp 35-42, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Germany.
5. AUGUSTINE S (2005) Managing Agile Projects. Prentice Hall, USA.
6. BALTHAZARD P, POTTER R and WARREN J (2004) Expertise, extraversion and group interaction styles as performance indicators in virtual teams. The Database for Advances in Information Systems 35(1), 41-64. (Pubitemid 44775646)
7. BASADUR M (1997) Managing creativity: a Japanese model. In The Human Side of Managing Technological Innovation (KATZ R, Ed), pp 68-79, Oxford University Press, NY, USA.
8. BEAL D, COHEN R, BURGE M and MCLENDON C (2003) Cohesion and performance in groups: a meta-analytic clarification of construct relations. Journal of Applied Psychology 88(6), 989-1004.
9. BøDKER K and PEDERSEN J (1991) Workplace cultures: looking at artifacts, symbols and practices. In Design at Work: Collaborative Design of Computer Systems (GREENBAUM J and KING M, Eds), pp 121-136, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, NJ, USA.
10. BOEHM B and TURNER R (2003) Rebalancing your organizations agility and discipline. In Extreme Programming and Agile Methods - Xp/Agile Universe 2003 (MAURER F and WELLS D, Eds), pp 1-8, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Germany.
11. BOEHM B and TURNER R (2004) Balancing Agility and Discipline. Pearson Education, MA, USA.
12. CARTWRIGHT D and ZANDER A (1968) Pressures to uniformity in groups. In Group Dynamics (CARTWRIGHT D and ZANDER A, Eds), pp 139-151, Harper & Row Publishers, NY, USA.
13. CARTWRIGHT R (2002) Mastering Team Leadership. Palgrave Macmillan, Wales.
14. CHIN G (2003) Agile Project Management: How to Succeed in the Face of Changing Project Requirements. AMACOM, NY.
15. COHN M (2004) User Stories Applied for Agile Software Development. Addison-Wesley, MA, USA.
16. COSIER R (1981) Dialectical inquiry is strategic planning: a case of premature acceptance? The Academy of Management Review 6(4), 643-648.
17. EHN P (1988) Work-Oriented Design of Computer Artefacts. Arbetslivscen-trum, Stockholm, Sweden.
18. ERICKSON J, LYYTINEN K and SIAU K (2005) Agile modelling, Agile software development, and Extreme Programming: the state of research. Journal of Database Management 16(4), 88-100.
19. EZEY P (2003) Integration and its challenges in participant observation. Qualitative Research 3(2), 191-205.
20. EUCHNER J, SACHS P and The Nynex Panel (1993) The benefits of internal tension. Communications of the ACM 36(4), 53.
21. GOETZ J and LECOMPTE M (1984) Ethnography and Qualitative Design in Educational Research. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, NY, USA.
22. GOLEMAN DP (1996) Vital Lies Simple Truths: The Psychology of Self-Deception. Simon and Schuster Books, NY, USA.
23. GOWDA R and CHAND D (1993) An exploration of the impact of individual and group factors on programmer productivity. ACM conference on Computer Science 338-345, ACM Press, Indianapolis, USA.
24. HARE A (1994) Individual versus group. In Small Group Research: A Handbook (HARE A, BLUMBERG H, DAVIES M and KENT M, Eds), pp 261-270, Ablex Publishing, NJ, USA.
25. HARVEY J (1974) The Abilene paradox: the management of agreement. Organizational Dynamics 3(1), 63-80.
26. HARVEY J (2001) Abilene revisited: An epilogue. Organizational Dynamics 17(2), 35-37.
27. HAZZAN O and TOMAYKO J (2003) The reflective practitioner perspective in Extreme Programming. In Extreme Programming and Agile Methods - Xp/Agile Universe 2003 (MAURER F and WELLS D, Eds), pp 51-61, Springer-Verlag Berlin, Germany.
28. HERBERT T and ESTES R (1977) Improving executive decisions by formalizing dissent: the corporate devil?s advocate. The Academy of Management Review 2(4), 662-667.
29. HIGHSMITH J (2004) Agile Project Management. Pearson Education, MA, USA.
30. HOGG M and HAINS S (1998) Friendship and group identification: a new look at the role of cohesiveness in groupthink. European Journal of Social Psychology 28(3), 323-341. (Pubitemid 128362936)
31. HUCZYNSKI A and BUCHANAN D (1991) Organizational Behaviour. An Introductory Text 2nd edn Prentice Hall, NY.
32. JANIS I (1972) Victims of Groupthink. Houghton Mifflin Company, MA, USA.
33. JORGENSEN D (1989) Participant Observation: A Methodology for Human Studies. Sage Publications, CA, USA.
34. KANTER R (2001) An Abilene defense: commentary one. Organizational Dynamics 17(2), 37-40.
35. KIM Y (2001) A comparative study of the ?Abilene paradox? and groupthink. Public Administration Quarterly 25(2), 168-187.
36. LANDY F and CONTE J (2004) Work in the 21st Century. McGraw-Hill, NY, USA.
37. LANGFRED C (2004) Too much of a good thing? Negative effects of high trust and individual autonomy in self managed teams. Academy of Management Journal 47(3), 385-399.
38. LEVINE J and MORELAND R (1990) Progress in small group research. Annual Review Of Psychology 41(1), 585-634.
39. MACDOUGALL C and BAUM F (1997) The devil?s advocate: a strategy to avoid groupthink and stimulate discussion in focus groups. Qualitative Health Research 7(4), 532-541.
40. MANZ C and NECK N (1995) Teamthink: beyond the groupthink syndrome in self-managing work teams. Journal of Managerial Psychology 10(1), 7-15.
41. MANZ C and SIMS H (1987) Leading workers to lead themselves: the external leadership of self-managing work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly 32(1), 106-128.
42. MCAVOY J and SAMMON D (2006) Towards the development of a simple tool to assist in agile methodology adoption decisions: Agile adoption matrix. In The Proceedings of the European Conference of Information Systems 2006 (LJUNGBERG J and ANDERSSON M, Eds) pp 2101-2110, Gothenburg, Sweden.
43. MCBREEN P (2002) Questioning Extreme Programming. Pearson Education, NJ, USA.
44. MCGRATH J (1984) Groups, Interaction, and Performance. Prentice-Hall, NJ, USA.
45. MCGREGOR D (1960) Theory X and theory Y. In Organization Theory (PUGH D, Ed), 3rd edn, pp 358-374, Penguin Books, London, UK.
46. MINTZBERG H, RAISINGHANI D and THéORêT A (1976) The structure of ?unstructured? decision processes. Administrative Science Quarterly 21(2), 246-275.
47. NECK C (1996) Letterman or leno: a groupthink analysis of successive decisions made by the national broadcasting company. Journal of Managerial Psychology 11(8), 3-17.
48. NEMETH C and GONCALO J (2004) Influence and persuasion in small groups. In Persuasion: Psychological Insights and Perspectives (SHAVITT S and BROCK TC, Eds), pp 171-194, Allyn and Bacon, MA, USA.
49. NEMETH C, BROWN K and ROGERS J (2001) Devil?s advocacy versus authentic dissent: stimulating quantity and quality. European Journal of Social Psychology 31(6), 707-720.
50. OTTAVIANI M and SORENSEN P (2001) Information aggregation in debate: who should speak first. Journal of Public Economics 81(3), 393-421.
51. PATCHING K (1999) Management and Organisational Development. Macmillian Business, London, UK.
52. PATTON M (1990) Qualitative Evaluation and Research Methods. Sage Publications Ltd, London, UK.
53. ROBBINS H and FINLEY M (1998) Why Teams Don?t Work. Orion Publishing, London, England.
54. ROBEY D, SMITH LA and VIJAYASARATHY LR (1993) Perceptions of conflict and success in information systems development projects. Journal of Management Information Systems 10(1), 123-139.
55. ROBINSON H and SHARP H (2005) The social side of technical practices. Proceedings of 6th Processes in Software Engineering 5th International Conference (BAUMEISTER H, ECKSTEIN J and HOLCOMBE M, Eds), pp 100-108, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Germany.
56. ROOCK S and WOLF H (2004) Agile project controlling. In Extreme Programming and Agile Processes in Software Engineering 5th International Conference (ECKSTEIN J, BAUMEISTER H and HANSEN R, Eds), pp 202-209, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Germany.
57. SALO O, KOLEHMAINEN K, KYLLONEN P, LOTHMAN J, SALMIJARVI S and ABRAHAMSSON P (2004) Self-adaptability of agile software processes: a case study on post-iteration workshops. In Extreme Programming and Agile Processes in Software Engineering 5th International Conference (ECKSTEIN J, BAUMEISTER H and HANSEN R, Eds), pp 184-193, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Germany. (Pubitemid 38846783)
58. SAMBAMURTHY V and POOLE MS (1992) The effects of variations in capabilities of GDSS designs on management of cognitive conflict groups. Information Systems Research 3(3), 224-251.
59. SCHUH P (2004) Integrating Agile Development in the Real World. Delmar Thomson Learning, NY, USA.
60. SCHWEIGER D, SANDBERG W and RECHNER P (1989) Experiential effects of dialectical inquiry, devil?s advocacy, and consensus approaches to strategic decision making. Academy of Management Journal 32(4), 745-772.
61. SCHWENK C (1998) Effects of devil?s advocacy on escalating commitment. Human Relations 41(10), 769-782.
62. SPRADLEY J (1980) Participant Observation. Holt, Rinehard, and Winston, NY, USA.
63. STATT D (2004) Psychology and the World of Work. Palgrave Macmillan, Hampshire, UK.
64. STEPHENS M and ROSENBERG D (2003) Extreme Programming Refactored: The Case Against XP. Springer-Verlag, Heidleberg, Germany.
65. THAMHAIN H and WILEMON D (1997) Building high performance engineering project teams. In The Human Side of Managing Technological Innovation (KATZ R, Ed), pp 125-136, Oxford University Press, NY, USA.
66. THOMAS F (1990) Leadership, the development cycle, maturity & power. Proceedings of the 18th Annual ACM SIGUCCS Conference on User Services (SARRI S, Ed), pp 399-402, ACM Press, NY, USA.
67. VON BERGEN C and KIRK R (1978) Groupthink: when too many heads spoil the decision. Management Review 67(3), 44-49.
68. YIN RK (2003) Case Study Research: Design and Method. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA.