Agility as a Matter of Degree: An Empirical Study of the Determinants of Agility in Projects

Agile project management (APM) is supposed to facilitate the response to rapid changes in complex and dynamic environments by applying an iterative planning approach, close customer involvement, and self-organizing teams. The literature has often considered the choice between APM and traditional project management (TPM) as binary and equated the use of APM methods with the desired outcome, i.e. project agility. In this paper, we challenge the assumption of binarity of APM and TPM and focus on project agility as an outcome. We argue that project agility is a matter of degree and is influenced by internal and external determinants. Building on Qumer and Henderson-Sellers’ (2008) four-dimensional analysis tool (4-DAT) framework, we develop a set of hypotheses of the determinants of project agility that are tested empirically using a cross-industry sample of project managers in Nordic countries. In line with the existing literature, we find customer involvement, organizational culture, and less upfront project planning to be positively related to the degree of agility in projects. However, we do not find significant effects of team size and complexity of the environment.