Scaling Agile Company Wide: The Organizational Challenge of Combining Agile Scaling Frameworks and Enterprise Architecture in Service Companies

Abstract

Many organizations have introduced agile ways of working to channel diverse stakeholder requirements in projects interactively and iteratively. Embracing large-scale adoption of agile frameworks for the entire organization seems like a logical next step. However, in practice, seamlessly integrating what has been developed agilely at the project level with processes and applications at the enterprise level is complex. Can the seemingly contradictory approach of enterprise architecture counter this issue? Based on the five case studies dealing with IT-based projects in both the private and public sectors, we demonstrate that the two concepts can be combined, allowing us to reap the benefits of both.