Identifying Problems or Shifting the Paradigm?

Often, our actions are guided by trends that can be seen as lighter cultural norms or behavioral guidelines from our environment. Deviating from trends is not strictly forbidden but at least raises eyebrows and requires explanations. Over time, a trend can become a paradigm, a fundamental framework or set of beliefs and practices that shape how we understand and approach a particular field (see Kuhn 1970).

Agile information system development trending

Trends do not emerge from nowhere. Even if the phenomenon behind a new trend is coincidental, trends are often linked to money, making trend creation and management a significant business opportunity. Trends have been studied in social media environments (see e.g. Zhang, Zhao & Xu 2016) and in management (see e.g. Abrahamson 1996; Madsen & Stenheim 2013). Typically, trends have some setters or significant advocates: in the social media world influencers, and in management concepts consulting firms, management gurus, publications, and educational institutions (Abrahamson 1996; Zhang et al. 2016). For example, outsourcing application development became a very popular management trend in the 1990s. Outsourcing was applied as broadly as possible, however, subsequently it was discovered that it did not suit all situations (Madsen 2017).

Similarly, today agile information system development can be seen as a trend used quite uncritically, yet it has become the dominant paradigm, replacing the previous paradigm of waterfall development in information system development. Agile development has solved several serious problems related to waterfall development, and thus has emerged as a better approach to information system development. This has happened regardless of the fact, that agile development has not proven to be without problems either (Hastie & Wojewoda 2015).

The current challenges differ from the previous ones

However, it seems that even if we still fail, it happens for different reasons than before. Agile development has its own challenges, which are clearly different from the challenges of waterfall-like development (Lagstedt et al. 2022; Lagstedt 2024). As Kuhn (1970) points out, in paradigms, different terms are used, and the meaning of words alter. It seems that in agile development, problems mean different things than in waterfall development. Therefore, challenges of agile development can be partly unrecognizable against the background concepts of traditional waterfall-like development. This kind of agile-origin challenges should be studied and handled with different concepts and terms than in waterfall development.

Why is there so little discussion about the different nature of agile challenges? Well, to be honest, there is some, and the discussion has been going on for a long time (see e.g. Behutiye et al. 2017; Cho 2008; Holvitie et al. 2018; Itkonen, Rautiainen & Lassenius 2005; Moe, Aurum & Dybå 2012). However, the debate has not had much impact, and it has not affected the mainstream, at least not significantly. One possible reason is that the issues are perceived as sufficiently minor, or that there is not yet fatigue from repeatedly encountering the same problems. Maybe not enough time has passed yet: As Kuhn (1970) argues, ‘paradigm-testing occurs only after persistent failure to solve a noteworthy puzzle has given rise to crisis’.

We are not in a crisis yet, but that may be coming; the Standish Group predicted in 2020 that the ‘Agile era’ will end soon (Portman 2021). To avoid the crisis, it would be beneficial to study agile development-specific problems and their backgrounds extensively, create terminology and concepts corresponding to them, and try to understand what the alternatives to the currently prevailing paradigm could be in different situations. Another option is that the sense of crisis evokes an alternative candidate for the prevailing paradigm (Kuhn 1970).

Picture: Shutterstock