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- Berglind Söderqvist, Johannes, 1986
(författare)
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A new managerial perspective on self-organization in product development
- 2021
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Licentiatavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Technological changes and faster information flows motivate managers and management scholars to explore new forms of product development organizing, departing from the managerial hierarchy and building increasingly on self-organization. With few exceptions such explorations and experimental efforts have proven challenging to sustain over time. From the contrasting point of view from inside product developers' practice, scholars studying communities of practice, temporary organizations, and self-managing groups have found selforganization prevalent, not least in contexts such as product development, even in organizations characterized by a managerial hierarchy. From the managers' point of view self-organization of product development work seems promising in effect but challenging to attain and sustain, but from the point of view of product developers' practice it is to be considered modus operandi. How can this ambiguity of self-organization in product development be explained? In the present thesis the author explores this question conceptually and proposes that a better understanding of self-organization in product development is a matter of perspective rather than new concepts or elaborate organizational forms. Theoretical as well as practical managerial implications of this are outlined and discussed drawing on empirical fieldwork in large organizations engaged in complex product development.
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| 3. |
- Berglind Söderqvist, Johannes, 1986, et al.
(författare)
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Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water - Agile transformation from the trenches
- 2019
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Ingår i: Agile Processes in Software Engineering and Extreme Programming – Workshops.
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Large scale agile transformations are based on the premise that agile on an organizational level (i.e. “large-scale agile”) is rooted in the same underlying assumptions as agile on a team-level. This premise however, proves to be problematic according to Rolland, Dingsoyr et al. (2016) who calls for a re-conceptualization of agile at scale. We join this standpoint and aim to contribute to this re-conceptualization by addressing agility beyond transformational enforcement. We study the agile transformation of a large R&D organization of a manufacturer in the automotive industry. We study it from the bottom-up perspective, meaning we follow closely a group of mechanical integration engineers (MIE) and how they are affected by the corporate transformation initiative. This allows us to capture an important aspect of agility – the relation between formality and informality. We find that the group of MIE’s work in line with fundamental agile principles, and have done so since long before the transformation. Interestingly, these ways of working are not formally recognized as agile and are therefore not legitimate in light of the transformation. In light of our empirical findings, we underline the somewhat paradoxical nature of the idea that agile as a self-organizing, post-bureaucratic approach is imposed top-down in a manner insensitive to present ways of working that may be well aligned with the explicit purpose of the very transformation. We suggest using the idea of critical performativity (Spicer, Alvesson et al. 2016) which includes identifying ‘present potentialities’ rather than “faddishly replicating reforms carried out elsewhere” (Spicer, Alvesson et al. 2016 p. 236), as a productive way of conceptualizing ‘agile at scale’ that incorporates the informality of agile practices. Rolland, K., et al. (2016). Problematizing agile in the large: alternative assumptions for large-scale agile development. 39th International Conference on Information Systems, Association for Information Systems (AIS). Spicer, A., et al. (2016). "Extending critical performativity." Human Relations 69(2): 225-249.
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| 4. |
- Berglind Söderqvist, Johannes, 1986, et al.
(författare)
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How to enable leadership among self-organizing developers
- 2019
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This paper addresses leadership in relation to self-organization and coordination both within and between groups. We draw on the work of Crevani et al. (2010) who conceptualize leadership as emergent from relations in terms of co-orientation and action-spacing and study two comparable cases in two different product development organizations. Both cases concern individuals who assume the responsibility of enabling leadership in groups rather than being the leaders themselves. One of the cases concerns groups of representatives that gather temporarily to coordinate specific inter-group dependencies and the other case concerns self-organizing work groups that are stable over time. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews, patterns of practice are identified that are used to enable co-orientation and action-spacing both in intra- and inter-group coordination.
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| 5. |
- Berglind Söderqvist, Johannes, 1986, et al.
(författare)
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Inter-team coordination in agile development: Learning from non-software contexts
- 2019
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Ingår i: Proceedings - 2019 IEEE/ACM 12th International Workshop on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering, CHASE 2019. ; May 2019, s. 69-70
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- LAYERED MUTUAL ADJUSTMENT When agile development is introduced in large-scale product development such as that of cars in organizations that previously employed a plan-driven approach there is reason to assume that mutual adjustment has already been employed as a coordination mechanism. Given the scale of such projects, mutual adjustment among work groups through representatives, i.e. layered mutual adjustment, is likely to have occurred in some form. ONGOING RESEARCH AND FINDINGS We currently conduct an ethnographic field study in the product development organization of Volvo Cars that until recently employed a plan-driven approach to product development. We study the Mechanical architecture & integration department (MAI) and their ways of working. At MAI, a hundred mechanical integration engineers (MIE) have the responsibility for continuously ensuring the proper integration of the digital representation of hardware in all the ongoing car projects each of which involves several hundred developers. Starting from project plans and product architecture, they ensure that the product stays consistent across sub-systems and that any technical issues where different sub-systems conflict, are handled and integration of the product ensured. The work carried out at MAI embraces conflict as a part of work, it employs collaborative methods to seek solutions, encourages exploration and creativity and allows design and implementation to be inseparable in the work process. In other words, much of what characterizes a fertile ground for agile work practices. In a given car project, an MIE monitors the integration of parts within a specific ‘chunk’ of the car and identifies present and potential integration issues among sub-systems involved in the ‘chunk’ that are under development by different work groups in the project. She prioritizes among the different issues that need to be solved. Her role has no formal authority attributed to it apart from that yielded by her exclusive overall perspective on the product, one which people working on the different sub-system cannot afford to maintain themselves. She also identifies the people in the organization that need to participate in solving the integration, i.e. representatives of the concerned work groups. She also acts as a facilitator when the work group is gathered, therein playing a mediating role in this form of layered mutual adjustment. CONCLUSION There is potential for advancing the research on inter-team coordination in large-scale agile software development by learning from large-scale product development beyond software. This could generate new ideas and approaches to handle the inter-team coordination challenges entailed by scaling agile development. One such approach that can be drawn from the example provided here is the use of a mediating role in the use of layered mutual adjustment. Moreover, our findings also suggest that the informal practices ongoing in formally plan-driven hardware development may constitute an untapped resource in agile transformation efforts.
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- Berglind Söderqvist, Johannes, 1986, et al.
(författare)
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Self-organization of the product and organization relationship – A processual perspective on the mirroring hypothesis
- 2018
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper builds on several studies of the mirroring hypothesis and specifically develops the idea of an emergent mirroring hypothesis, being the processual mirroring leading towards a one-to-one relationship between the product system and the organization. By assuming that operative product development organizations have an inherent self-organizing capability, we develop a hypothesis of an emergent mirroring process. A process where uncertainty arising from misalignment between the product system and the organization sparks the self-organizing creation of both organizational order and product definition leading to new alignment between the two. Through a participative case study, we provide an illustrative example of how this process is enacted to solve a hardware integration issue spanning across intra-organizational borders and suggest conditions that need to be provided for developers to self-organize the development of product and organizational order.
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| 7. |
- Berglind Söderqvist, Johannes, 1986, et al.
(författare)
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The blind leading the mute - Formal leaders’ potential to facilitate institutionalization of the agile myth
- 2019
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- More and more firms are moving from a plan-driven to an agile approach to new product development, a transition that entails significant challenges not least for managers and formal leaders. In this context we draw on institutional theory and conceptualize agile development as a myth. By considering the adoption of the agile myth in previously plan-driven product development we illustrate a paradox whereby agile development constrains the existing agility embedded in informal structures. To illustrate this, we provide an example from an ongoing ethnographic study of a product development unit currently undergoing a transition from plan-driven to agile development. We further synthesize our theoretical argument with empirical observations by presenting two distinct personas, The Blind representing the formal structure, and The Mute representing the informal structure, and draw potential from this illustration for how formal leaders can act to overcome the paradox.
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