Trading Discipline for Agility? Questioning the Unfaithful Appropriation of Agile Software Development Practices

Abstract

Agile software development practices are rapidly replacing traditional and apparently more disciplined methodologies. However, empirical evidence suggests that organizations experience varying levels of success as more structured processes are traded for more agile ones. Using an autoethnographic approach, we reflect on how the various practices of XP discipline time-space relations amongst developer, customer and code. In this new form of disciplining, we contend that each actor is located in time and space in disciplined or controlled ways. We conclude that the faithful appropriation of the entire complement of agile development practices seems to be critical to the novel disciplinary positioning that they together collectively promote.