Investigating the impact of agile methods on learning and innovation

In a turbulent environment, increased flexibility and efficiency are essential for most firms to survive. Many organizations have responded to the need for greater efficiency and productivity by building more Agile structures and shifting to the implementation of Agile software (SW) methodologies. Although the adoption of Agile methodologies is becoming widespread, robust empirical evidence on their effectiveness is lacking as is evidence of the improvements brought by Agile compared to other methods. This chapter provides empirical evidence on the impact of Agile on organizational product and process innovation and learning. Authors investigate the following research question: How does use of Agile methods impact on product and process related innovation and learning in teams? While the relationship between the investment in knowledge and innovation output has been studied extensively, little work focuses on the role of Agile in growing the organization’s knowledge base through team learning. The data collected include traditional R&D innovation indicators and also in-depth measures of organizational performance and overall team outcomes, which allow us to study not only the extent to which Agile impacts on the firm’s innovation and learning performance but also the dynamic team learning process.