Going Agile : Challenges Encountered when Embracing Agile Project Management

Abstract: Since the millennium shift agile project management has been widely adapted as a way to handle todays ever-changing business environment. Even though the number of organizations making the transition has increased, academic literature within the area still remains scarce. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is to explore what agile project management challenges are connected to making the transition from traditional project management to agile project management. In order to investigate the purpose, a single case study is conducted at ArlaFoods, who are the midst of a transition from agile project management to traditional project management. Using an ethnographic approach semi- structured interviews, field notes, and observations are carried during a one-month period on-site at ArlaFoods headquarters in Aarhus, Denmark. The findings from this case study indicate that whilst many APM challenges are explicitly connected to the use of APM, some challenges arise as a result of changing methodologies and can be attributed to the transition from traditional project management towards agile project management. Challenges encountered in this study regard, for example; changing roles, change of mindset and culture, shifts in decision-making, self-organization among teams, and co- location. This study has been able to identify a number of challenges that, contrary to previous findings, are not explicitly connected to APM, but instead, arise in conjunction with the transition from traditional to agile project management. Thus, contributing with new knowledge to the existing portfolio of research on agile project management.