Tomas Jansson

Agile Project Management : Is Motivation Theory the Missing Link?

Agile project methods are said to encourage flexibility and efficiency in Information Systems Developmentprojects. The questions of how, why, and in what contexts agile practices work remain to a large extentunanswered by research. The authors argue that contemporary theory on human motivation and creativework, such as the Self-Determination framework (Deci & Ryan, 1985) and the Progress Principle(Amabile & Kramer, 2011), should be applied in such research. Using the Progress Principle as theprimary theoretical lens, the authors present an evaluation of one of the popular agile methods, namelyScrum (Schwaber, 2004). Findings from an ongoing research project on agile praxis indicate that theimplementation of agile practices may be instrumental in fostering a motivational culture conducive to aheuristic as well as creative performance. This analytical approach contributes to a better understandingof the aspects of the agile practices that are critical to a useful implementation.