Agile Frameworks for IT Service Management Organizations: An exploratory multi-case study

Abstract

The revolution that agility has brought to the software development sector has not yet taken place in the IT service management sector. Since most of the known agile frameworks and techniques emerged in software development and are widely used there, IT service management organizations struggle to make use of these frameworks and techniques. This fact raises the questions on what agile techniques are mostly used, how they can be adapted in IT service management organizations and how they influence the flexibility of these organizations. The literature review shows that there is a need for agility in IT service management and that certain authors started applying the values and principles of agility to IT service management, but no specific framework or guideline for adaption has been denied. In an exploratory multi-case study with three cases relying on interviews it is proven that it is not only possible to adapt existing frameworks and techniques, but, because of the openness of most frameworks, simply make use of them. The analysis of the cases show three factors that not exclusively but remarkably benet the success of the adaption or usage. These are paying respect to self-organizing teams and the change in the traditional supervising role, implementing an organization-wide framework rather than individual team solutions and paying respect to the agile values and principles. To further simplify the adaption, the agile values and principles are rewritten in order to be applicable in IT service management context.