Agile Information System Development Organizations Transforming to Large-Scale Collaboration
This addresses challenges in knowledge management for agile software teams transitioning to remote work, though it is an incremental case study.
The study examined how a large agile information systems development organization adapted to distributed work during the Covid-19 pandemic, finding that digital tools increased task orientation but required relation-oriented communication to maintain sociability for effective knowledge sharing.
We report findings from a case study of a large agile information systems development (ISD) organization`s sudden transformation to distributed, digital work in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. It seeks to understand how knowledge creation and sharing changes. The findings show various forms of distance being introduced, digital tool usage, increased task orientation, and variations across teams. To analyze the findings, we use the concepts of large-scale collaborations and sociability. Large-scale collaboration offers a socio-technical perspective on tackling distributed knowledge sharing and creation in the presence of multiple, loosely coupled partners using digital tools for collaboration. We show what the digital tools afford using the concept of sociability. We discuss how distributed digital practices make teams more task-oriented and that creating and maintaining sociability, a key issue for knowledge sharing in agile ISD organizations, require relation oriented communication during practical problem solving using digital tools.