Understanding post-adoptive agile usage: An exploratory cross-case analysis

While past research has contributed to the understanding of how organizations adopt agile methodologies (AM), little is known about their post-adoptive usage in organizations. By integrating theories from systems development methodologies, diffusion of innovations, and agile methodology literature, this paper proposes a new model that identifies a set of critical factors pertinent to post-adoptive usage of agile practices. This model is used to inform analysis of post-adoptive usage of agile practices in two major organizations. The results indicate relative advantage, team attitude and technical competence, championing, and top management support (TMS) are the key factors determining the extent to which agile practices can be assimilated into an organization. Specifically, both findings and this model confirm that the deeper the assimilation of agile practices into the organization, the better understanding of how assimilation leads to specific improvements in its systems development outcomes.