Scrum – a project management standard to improve psycho-social working environment?

Abstract

The article examines how agile project management and leadership affect the psycho-social working environment of the IT sector. Scrum, a specific form of agile project management, is a procedural standard using a sequential project planning with an elevated degree of project member participation. The understanding of Scrum as a non-bureaucratic project organization lends itself well to the assumption that Scrum can assist in improving the psycho-social working environment by facilitating a better balance between job demands and resources, granting team members more influence, more predictability and creating a more pronounced collegiality across the project organisation. The assumption is investigated through the study of two comparable cases. Both cases are development departments in large IT companies providing custom-made IS/IT solutions to businesses and organisations. Both companies use the Scrum procedural standard. Initially the article accounts for distinctive features of IT development work and the challenges this poses for the psycho-social working environment. The concept of Scrum is then accounted for by opposing it to a more traditional management of IT development projects. This is followed by theoretical reflections on the introduction of a standard as Scrum into an organizational setting. Subsequently the two cases are presented. We examine how Scrum affects the psycho-social working environment as expressed in five parameters: 1) influence, 2) learning opportunities and professional development, 3) work load, 4) predictability, and 5) collegiality. The practical application of Scrum varies greatly between the two cases, and the consequences on the psycho-social working environment are correspondingly different. One case shows a company where the agile standard contributes to a positive psycho-social working environment, whereas in the other case Scrum contributes to psycho-social strain.. It is concluded that agile procedural standards have the potential to improve the psycho-social working environment, but also that the realization of the positive potential depends on the process of implementation of the agile standard, as well as the interplay with other standards in the organisation.