Management Practice Insights
DOI: 10.59571/mpi.v3i2.4
Year: 2025, Volume: 3, Issue: 2, Pages: 64-69
Original Article
Jyoti Jagasiai*, Rhea Bhutala
iS.P. Jain Institute of Management & Research
* Corresponding author: [email protected]
Received Date:16 December 2024, Accepted Date:10 October 2025, Published Date:15 October 2025
A large proportion of Information Technology (IT) projects worldwide use agile techniques to improve speed and delivery quality, yet they often fail. Among the principal reasons is the prevalence of inflexible management styles, which clashes with the flexibility required by agile-oriented IT development. Project managers often default to traditional control structures, which leads to misalignments between teams and strategic goals. Agile frameworks for developing information systems encourage innovation and quick responsiveness but can be prone to inefficiencies, if based on the wrong managerial control. If managers promote excessive autonomy within their teams, it could breed goal divergence, while exerting too much control suppresses imagination and team participation. So, how to strike a balance between control and autonomy? Recent research by Peter Virag, Edward Bernroider and Ulrich Remus suggests the answer lies in dynamically choosing between four management styles: Landscaper, Buddy, Detective and Commander.1 We illustrate how project managers can switch between control and autonomy based on context and specific project needs, thus improving IT project outcomes such as time, budget and quality. Such evidence is especially of value to IT leaders, CIOs and project managers, leading transformational & intense industries, wherein both execution excellence and innovation remain critical2
1 Peter Virag et al., 'Agile Project Management Styles and Control Ambidexterity in Agile Information Systems Development Projects: An Exploratory Case Study', Journal of the Association for Information Systems 25, no. 5 (2024): 1274–302, https://doi.org/10.17705/1jais.00880.
2 Rhea Bhutala et al., Dynamic Agile Management Styles for Balancing Innovation and Control (S. P. Jain Institute of Management & Research, n.d.), SPJIMR Learning Management System.
3 pmi, PMI Pulse of the Profession 2021: The Rise of Gymnastic Enterprises (2021), https://www.studocu.com/enus/document/the-project-management-institute/projectmanagement-professional-pmp/pmi-pulse-2021/105396279.
4 Artem Gurnov, What Is Agile Methodology in Project Management?, 23 May 2025, https://www.wrike.com/projectmanagement-guide/faq/what-is-agile-methodology-in-projectmanagement/.
5 Artem Gurnov, Popular Agile Project Management Frameworks, n.d., accessed 26 September 2025, https://www.wrike.com/project-management-guide/projectmanagement-frameworks/.
6 The Story, Chaos Report — Why This Study about IT Project Management Is so Unique, n.d., accessed 26 September 2025, https://thestory.is/en/journal/chaos-report/.
7 David A. Garvin, 'How Google Sold Its Engineers on Management', Management Skills, Harvard Business Review, 1 December 2013, https://hbr.org/2013/12/how-google-sold-its-engineers-onmanagement.
8 Mark Cruth, 'The Spotify Model for Scaling Agile', Atlassian, n.d., accessed 26 September 2025, https://www.atlassian.com/agile/agile-at-scale/spotify.
9 Deepak Mahadevan, ING's Agile Transformation | McKinsey, 10 January 2017, https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/financialservices/our-insights/ings-agile-transformation.
10 Brad Stone, The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon (Random House, 2013).
11 Yves Doz and Mikko Kosonen, 'The Dynamics of Strategic Agility: Nokia's Rollercoaster Experience', California Management Review 50, no. 3 (2008): 95–118, https://doi.org/10.2307/41166447.
12 'The Fall of Nokia: What Happens When Innovation Stops | Brand Vision', Brand Vision Insights, Jan 03, 2025T00:00:00-05:00, https://www.brandvm.com/post/nokia-innovation-stops.
13 Jouko Nuottila et al., 'Challenges of Adopting Agile Methods in a Public Organization | Request PDF', ResearchGate, ahead of print, January 2016, https://doi.org/10.12821/ijispm040304.
14 Hudson- Agile-Leads, 'Banking on Change: How Traditional Banks Must Adapt or Fail in the Digital Era', Medium, 4 December 2024, https://medium.com/@rhudso_agile-leadsUAE/bankingon-change-how-traditional-banks-must-adapt-or-fail-in-thedigital-era-16419c502764.
© 2025 Published by SPJIMR. This is an open-access article under the CC BY license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
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