Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management (December 2022) 23(4):431–452

https://doi.org/10.1007/s40171-022-00311-2

REVIEW PAPERS

Competencies for Managing Activities in Agile Projects

José Romualdo da Costa Filho1 • Renato Penha1 • Luciano Ferreira da Silva1 • Flavio Santino Bizarrias1

Received: 11 November 2021 / Accepted: 6 July 2022 / Published online: 18 August 2022
Ó The Author(s) under exclusive licence to Global Institute of Flexible Systems Management 2022

Abstract The management of activities in an agile envi-
ronment takes place in iterative and incremental processes,
in which people from the development team and other
project stakeholders effectively work together to under-
stand a given problem, in addition to keeping priority to
activities with the greatest business value for the client.
This article aims to understand the competencies of an
agile team for managing activities in an agile environment.
The systematic literature review was performed by using
the Web of Science and Scopus databases, in which 1035
articles were found after the application of filters and
criteria for inclusion and exclusion. Next, 320 articles were
left for full and in-depth reading, which resulted in 126
articles considered to be valid for research. The articles
were categorized by using Excel spreadsheets in order to
group the findings and allow the comparison of categories.
The results demonstrated four categories regarding (1)
competencies, (2) tools, (3) relationship with the activity,
and (4) characteristics of the development team. It was also
highlighted that the technical competencies of the devel-
opment team must be used in new tools. As for iterations, it
is also necessary to promote a process of managing
& Luciano Ferreira da Silva
lf_silvabr@yahoo.com.br
José Romualdo da Costa Filho
joseromualdo@outlook.com
Renato Penha
rp.renatopenha@gmail.com
Flavio Santino Bizarrias
flavioxsp@hotmail.com
1 2002). To address the agile approach, methodologies
Nove de Julho University – UNINOVE, Rua Deputado
Salvador Julianelli, s/n – Barra Funda, Sao Paulo, SP
01156-000, Brazil
interpersonal competencies to ensure engagement and the
ability to communicate effectively with business people and
project members. A model is presented that can be used as
a tool to support the planning of activities in an agile
environment. The development team must have competen-
cies for using new tools during iteration, given the com-
plexity existing in each activity and the critical relationship
of each activity with the finalization phase of the iteration.
Keywords Activity management
Agility

Agile practices
Competency

Interpersonal competencies
Technical competencies
JEL Classification D2
D8
Introduction
A project can be defined as a temporary endeavor aimed at
creating a unique product, service or result (PMI, 2017).
For Dinsmore and Cabanis-Brewin (2009), project man-
agement (PM) is about the application of techniques so that
the project’s objective is achieved. Complementing this
definition, Meredith and Mantel Jr (2011) emphasize that
PM techniques and tools are intended to ensure that the
previously defined objectives for a given project are
respected regarding deadlines and costs. Within the project
management, there are traditional and agile approaches
with specific tools and processes for each stage of the
project. It should be noted that, in this study, a traditional
nomenclature approach called stage gate will be used to
deal with planning-oriented methodologies (Cooper et al.,
influenced mainly by the Agile Manifesto will be recog-
nized (Beck et al., 2001).

123
432 Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management (December 2022) 23(4):431–452
The publication of the Agile Manifesto in 2001 pre-
sented alternative approaches to the international commu-
nity for the management and execution of software projects
(Zaitsev et al., 2020). From this manifesto, professionals
began to discuss on Agile Project Management (APM)
(Conforto et al., 2016). The origin of APM is based on a
highly iterative and incremental process, in which team
members and other project stakeholders actively work
together to understand the problem domain, identify what
needs to be built and to keep requirements for prioritizing
higher business value (Babenko et al., 2019).
Therefore, in parallel with the traditional project man-
agement practices, APM introduces a perspective of greater
team participation by building value with customers and
enabling interaction between business people, developers
and customers (Amaral et al., 2011; Beck et al., 2001;
Magistretti et al., 2020). In the context of project man-
agement practices, the agile approach contrasts with the
traditional (predictive) practices demarcated by the use of a
set of systematic strategic planning processes involving
identification, assessment, response and monitoring in
order to minimize threats and maximize project opportu-
nities (Alzoubi & Gill, 2022; Patil & Suresh, 2019; PMI,
2017; Tiwari & Suresha, 2021). From this dilemma, pro-
ject management practices under the lens proposed by the
APM can allow organizations to leave their comfort zone,
thus increasingly reflecting whether such practices, marked
by systematized procedures, continue to make some sense.
In response, organizations from various segments such as
finance, construction and services began operating strate-
gically for their business and started to approach their
clients (Evans & Bahrami, 2020; Gurd & Ifandoudas,
2014; Piya et al., 2020; Singh et al., 2019), making them
involved in the development of projects in order to remain
profitable and competitive (Cegarra-Navarro et al., 2016).
The main characteristics proposed by APM are the
encouragement and involvement of the customer through-
out the project development cycle (Chin & Chia, 2004) and
whose scope is not at all known and which accepts changes
during the development phases (Highsmith, 2009). There-
fore, we point out that this kind of approach can lead to
constant changes because of an environment with uncer-
tainties and unclear objectives (Augustine, 2005). How-
ever, when it comes to the agile project lifecycle, at the
beginning of each development phase (iteration), there is a
meeting to plan and determine the breakdown of customer
requirements into development activities. These activities
will be carried out by the development team who have a
self-organized profile and technical competencies neces-
sary to do so during a development cycle (Atienza, 2017).
In this sense, we can say that several challenges are evident
from the planning phase to the composition of a set of
customer requirements.
123
In the context of predictive project management, the
assignment of human resources to a certain activity is made
individually by the project manager. To establish this
relationship, the project manager must select the individual
who has the necessary competencies to carry out the task
according to time and cost constraints (PMI, 2017). For this
process to be more efficient, Kerzner (2009) suggests that
human resources should be better used within the organi-
zations. In this sense, Miterev et al. (2020) emphasize that
the use of human resources must be associated with the
organization’s strategy and depending on their competen-
cies. Thus, ensuring the best use of human resources with
high competencies for the most critical activities can pre-
vent deviations from the deadlines. Furthermore, better
human resource management can contribute to increasing
the project’s efficiency in terms of deadlines and costs.
The scenario contemplating the agile approach has ele-
ments related to the management of activities, which
opposes the traditional personnel management practices
guided by command and control routines (Žužek et al.,
2020). Lack of commitment to project deliverables due to
the ineffective use of human resource competencies in
activities is one of the main and most common problems in
project management (Altintas & Azizoglu, 2020). Prob-
lems regarding financial risks, deviations in scope and
commitment to delivery dates are, in large part, associated
with failures in the relationship between criticality and
competencies of human resources in carrying out activities
of projects. For Pascoa et al. (2019), the criticality for
carrying out an activity is related to its final delivery and
must have all the business requirements previously agreed
with the customer.
The development team must be self-organized (Ganesh
& Thangasamy, 2012) and responsible for managing the
planning process, self-assignment of activities and ensuring
that all committed activities are delivered with the level of
quality previously agreed with those involved in the project
(McIver et al., 2018). Thus, several critical factors can
compromise the delivery of value to the customer, such as
identifying the relationship of dependencies between
activities in the same iteration (Ioannou et al., 2020) and
ensuring that an activity is designed effectively, always
taking into account the team competencies and the com-
plexity of the activity (Belsis et al., 2014).
Based on what was presented about the context
involving criticality and complexity for carrying out
activities under APM, this study adopted the following
research question: ‘‘How do studies on agile project man-
agement practices treat the management of activities in an
agile environment?’’ Additionally, to answer this question,
the main objective of this study is to understand the com-
petencies of an agile team for managing activities in an
agile environment. To achieve this aim, a Systematic
Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management (December 2022) 23(4):431–452
Literature Review (SLR) was performed as a method-
ological strategy. The justification for this choice is based
on the role of SLR in helping to map and assess a specific
intellectual structure to develop a body of knowledge
(Tranfield et al., 2003). SLR is a methodological procedure
that uses the literature as the main source of data (Sampaio
& Mancini, 2007).
The challenge in this context of agile management
practices is to identify the relationship of dependencies
between activities in the same iteration in order to ensure
the greatest delivery of value to the customer (Gjøystdal &
Karunaratne, 2020). Based on what has been presented, this
study is justified in the sense of the lack of studies on the
process of self-assignment of an activity to a member of the
team according on its complexity and respective relation-
ship with criticality during the management phase. The
relevance of the today’s phenomenon of organizations
seeking agility (McIver et al., 2018; Muntés-Mulero et al.,
2019), associated with managing people’s skills and
activities through agile practices (Çetin & Durdu, 2019;
Gren et al., 2020; Martini et al., 2016; Shameem et al.,
2018), is another justification for this study.
As the development cycle in agile practices is carried
out by iterations, Belsis et al. (2014) highlight that people
involved in agile project management need to have
essential skills for managing activities during the devel-
opment cycle of iterations. Therefore, the relationship
between competencies and activity management becomes a
challenge for scholars and practitioners, which is explored
in the next section.
Theoretical Background
Project Management Competencies
When dealing with people involved in a project, it is
necessary to understand their competencies. Ahsan et al.
(2013) highlight that the project manager’s competencies
can influence the team members and customers, among
others. Still, with regard to people involved in the project
management, Boterf (2003) defines that competencies are
consistent with the act of a person assuming responsibili-
ties in different scenarios. Pedrosa et al. (2021) emphasize
that people in a project management environment can
combine certain personal competencies, which include a
set of knowledge, skills and attitudes directly related to the
project results. In this sense, we can define competencies as
a set of knowledge, skills and attitudes an individual has to
perform his or her activities (Boyatzis, 1982; Crawford,
2005; Müller & Turner, 2010).
Dutra et al. (2000) and Stevenson and Starkweather
(2010) emphasize the need to address people’s
433
interpersonal and technical skills, the so-called soft and
hard skills, respectively. Additionally, we can say that in
the context of project management, hard skills and soft
skills are used in different situations, and their relevance is
already recognized in hiring professionals. Crawford and
Pollack (2004) developed an interaction model that helps in
evaluating a project by analyzing the influence of dimen-
sions of hard and soft skills, as shown in Table 1.
Atkinson et al. (2006) point out that the model set by
Crawford and Pollack (2004) presents different approaches
to dealing with uncertainty and stakeholder expectations
depending on the project environment. The model also
highlights the hard and soft skills of stakeholders during
the management of predictive projects. Finally, the authors
emphasize that the way to apply the aforementioned
competencies may vary according to the project manage-
ment context.
Based on what has been presented, it can be said that
competency leveling, as highlighted by Engwall and Jer-
brant (2003), helps the project manager manage the
activities by identifying a person in the team who has the
necessary skills for performing them. On the other hand,
when the activities are managed by APM, the project
development team has the autonomy to self-assign activi-
ties in each iteration. Atienza (2017) points out that
effectively managing activities throughout the develop-
ment cycle of iterations in APM can contribute to
increasing the project efficiencies in terms of time and
costs. Aspects related to managing project activities are
explored in the next section.
Managing Project Management Activities
Project management practices are used to promote the
assignment of people to activities, which is made according
to the planning and management of a limited set of people
(Kerzner, 2006; Meredith & Mantel Jr., 2011). Thus,
people involved in project management must employ
techniques, tools, skills and knowledge for controlling and
monitoring activities in an environment with risks and
uncertainties (Pinto & Kharbanda, 1996; PMI, 2017).
When it comes to managing activities under predictive
assumptions, the schedule is the artifact responsible for
planning the distribution of personnel in the activities of a
project (PMI, 2017), in which the process of schedule
preparation is performed according to the following order:
(1) definition of activities, (2) activity sequencing and (3)
estimated duration of activities. Thus, in order to increase
the personnel’s performance in the activities, Glenwright
(2007) points out that the person responsible for managing
the project is also responsible for preparing the schedule. In
this scenario, Ichihara (2002) highlights that the prepara-
tion of the schedule must guarantee an effective allocation
123
434 Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management (December 2022) 23(4):431–452
Table 1 Model of the dimensions of hard and soft skills. Source: Adapted from Crawford and Pollack (2004)
Dimensions Hard skills
Clarity of goals and targets Clear
Tangibility of objectives and Tangible
goals
Success measures Quantitative
Project permeability No outside influence
Number of solution options Single solution refinement
Degree of participation and Specialist practitioner/No stakeholder participation
role of the practitioner
Stakeholder expectations Valuing of technical performance and efficiency/
Management through monitoring and control
of people by seeking to establish the best person-activity
relationship, that is, the one closest to the optimal combi-
nation possible.
Hartmann (1998) highlights that the schedule prepara-
tion should be assigned to the person responsible for the
project, whose role is to minimize the total time of the
project without violating the dependency relationship
between activities and available personnel. Mingozzi et al.
(1998) further point out that the challenge lies in the
number of people to be allocated to a given project, as this
number is usually limited during the project life cycle.
As for the preparation of a schedule, it can be noted that
predictive methods are applied when requirements and
their dependency of the stakeholders are known and can be
estimated by the person responsible for the project man-
agement (PMI, 2017). On the other hand, requirements
change frequently in agile methods, which may be related
to frequent iteration cycles (PMI Agile Alliance, 2017;
Shekhar & Kumar, 2016). From this point of view, we can
understand the distinction between the activity’s relation-
ship with agile methods and that with predictive ones
(Mohanarangam, 2020; Neto et al., 2019; Rahman & Rutz,
2015).
Bosch and Bosch-Sijtsema (2011) point out that the
traditional methods are characterized by planning and
controlling the total of activities in a scenario in which the
scope will be decomposed until it adds value to the cus-
tomer’s business. Another important issue is that agile
methods deal with smaller scopes for carrying out activities
as they have greater flexibility for changes than the tradi-
tional ones, thus reducing uncertainties and possible
impediments regarding a particular activity (McIver et al.,
2018).
Therefore, as in agile methods, the project development
team has the role of being self-organized and it is important
that its members work collaboratively and effectively. The
knowledge and skills of all team members must be clear to
123
Soft skills
Ambiguous
Subjective
Qualitative
High external influence
Exploration of alternative solutions
Facilitator practitioner/High stakeholder engagement
Valuing of relationship, culture and meaning/
Management through negotiation and discussion
everyone who will participate in the next iteration. Gol-
farelli et al. (2013) emphasize that the project development
team must be aligned with the real need of the customer, in
which the objective is to maximize, as far as possible, the
delivery of value to the customer in each iteration. The
result of this equation should be a backlog of activities
based on the team’s competencies and the complexity of
the activities to be performed (Sarpiri & Gandomani, 2017;
Trkman et al., 2016).
As for the assignment of activities in the agile methods,
Shekhar and Kumar (2016) point out that the development
team becomes responsible for designating the activity by
exercising a consultative, self-organized role and having all
the necessary skills to select and control activity. The team
must be aware of the complexity of carrying out the
activity, that is, from its planning to the possible impacts
that the criticality of an unfinished activity may have on the
results of an iteration. It is worth noting that this attitude
can impact the result of an iteration, for example, in rela-
tion to activity sequencing and dependencies (Serrador &
Pinto, 2015).
Therefore, identifying the core competencies of people
in project management makes it possible to identify the
limitations existing in the activity management process. In
addition, it is possible to highlight the limitations of the
development team regarding the activities to be carried out
according to the planning for an iteration, that is, from the
client’s conception (i.e., ideation phase) to the final deliv-
ery, in which the objective is to deliver a greater value to
the customer.
Materials and Methods
This study adopted SLR as a research strategy because it
allows for a deeper understanding of a given phenomenon
based on previous studies. SRL differs from narrative
Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management (December 2022) 23(4):431–452
reviews in that it adopts a systematic scientific approach,
which is replicable and transparent (Tranfield et al., 2003).
With regard to bibliometric studies, the difference lies in
the depth of analysis of the articles studied. Although such
a depth presents a certain degree of subjectivity, the pro-
tocol set by Pollock and Berge (2018) was used to reduce
biases in the construction of a theoretical body and applied
procedures. SLR allows building an audit trail of the
decisions made and procedures performed (Cook et al.,
1997) as it uses a more qualitative approach in which
content analysis is performed to categorize the research
corpus based on critical and reflective reading (Tranfield
et al., 2003).
Therefore, SLR is used to understand the convergence of
two relevant themes, in which the first one is related to
APM practices and the second one is related to the man-
agement of activities by the development team.
The procedures for carrying out this SLR had six phases
according to prescriptions set by Pollock and Berge (2018),
namely: (1) to clarify research goals and objectives; (2) to
seek relevant research; (3) to collect data; (4) to assess the
quality of studies; (5) to synthesize the evidence; and (6) to
interpret the findings. In the first phase, the following
question about what guides this research was made: ‘‘How
do studies on agile project management practices address
the management of activities in an agile environment?’’ For
this purpose, the Web of Science and Scopus databases
were used as research sources because they contain the
main journals, authors and contents in the areas of
administration, engineering, computer science, among
others, which are relevant to the field of study.
The strings used to perform the searches were [(‘‘agil*’’
or ‘‘sprint’’ or ‘‘scrum’’ or ‘‘kanban’’) and (‘‘task*’’ or
‘‘human resource’’ or ‘‘willing*’’ or ‘‘team*’’)]. It is worth
noting that the composition of search strings was used in
several rounds, which made it possible to understand which
were the main keywords used by the authors in the area.
The string used in the function for finding articles was that
used for agile practices, such as Neto et al. (2019), Rahman
and Rutz (2015), and Razavi et al. (2019). In the same way,
in order to contemplate the activity management in the
agile context, we used a word representing both task and
team that appear in the article, such as Bosch and Bosch-
Sijtsema (2011), Ioannou et al. (2020), and Luong et al.
(2021). This process was iteratively performed until a
robust research corpus was obtained from both databases.
These words were used to select the articles that could pass
through the sieve of the researchers in order to contribute to
answering the research question.
The research was carried out on February 4, 2021. The
use of Boolean operators ‘‘and’’ and ‘‘or’’, in addition to the
use of the character ‘‘*’’, allows for a greater scope and
control in the construction of the search base. These
435
operators were used by considering the intersection of the
two research areas to be studied. The use of asterisk
incorporates all variations of the word in the position after
which it is found (e.g., ‘‘agil*’’ allows searching for agility,
agile, among others). It is noteworthy that no temporal
filter was applied so that it was possible to map the entire
production of articles on the themes studied.
After the first phase, which comprises the establishment
of objectives, the researchers moved on to applying the
search string. The results found in the first round were
submitted to analysis and screening, as shown in Fig. 1,
according to Pollock and Berge (2018), who present four
steps for elaboration of the analysis corpus.
Figure 1 presents the four steps for preparing the anal-
ysis corpus. It is worth noting that the four steps presented
follow a set of activities covered in the six phases estab-
lished by Pollock and Berge (2018). The first step high-
lights a string used for searching the databases. For the
composition of the database, some filters were applied
during the initial search, such as the criterion of including
only articles published in journals and excluding those
presented in congress and published textbooks, among
others. The delimited areas for this research, represented by
the Web of Science categories, were as follows: ‘‘Com-
puter Science Software Engineering’’; ‘‘Computer Science
Information Systems’’; ‘‘Management’’ and ‘‘Computer
Science Theory Methods’’. As for the Scopus database, the
following filters were used: ‘‘Business’’ and ‘‘Computer
Science’’. The inclusion of the computer science area is
justified by its adherence to agile practices. It is worth
noting that the Agile Manifesto was made up of a group of
individuals working in this area.
The second stage is aimed at the screening of the results
by using a modifier to mark the articles corresponding to
the research proposal. In the third stage, the eligibility
criteria were applied to select articles on APM practices
and activity management according to inclusion and
exclusion criteria. Articles not addressing the management
of activities in the agile context were disregarded. And
finally, the fourth stage constituted the corpus of analysis
containing the articles for the research.
After the constitution of the corpus of analysis, the
articles existing in the two databases were removed to
guarantee homogeneity, and then, it was treated with the
aid of Excel spreadsheets. This software made it possible to
perform data analysis and present the results from the
combination of quantitative information by using fre-
quency analysis, as well as qualitative information by
categorizing the content of articles. This phase of the
research also allowed us to present a relevant descriptive
analysis of the study.
We emphasize that the applied content analysis is in line
with Bardin’s prescriptions (Bardin, 2011). The selected
123
436 Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management (December 2022) 23(4):431–452
Fig. 1 Research process for data selection and analysis. Source: Adapted from Pollock & Berge (2018).
articles were read in their entirety and categories of anal-
ysis were sought in order to help in understanding the
phenomenon studied, with these categories being validated
by all researchers and recorded in an Excel spreadsheet.
The generated spreadsheet contains the metadata on the
selected articles, as well as information on the categories
constructed. After analyzing all the articles, the researchers
sought convergences through a clustering process to
achieve the categories presented in the next section.
Therefore, the next step was to carefully read the 126
articles contained in the corpus of analysis and categorize
the contents in Excel spreadsheets to group the findings and
compare the categories. The 126 selected articles were the
result of the process described in Fig. 1. Despite the initial
number of articles available in the two databases used, the
application of filters and inclusion and exclusion criteria
helped us to arrive at a set of articles more selectively. The
activities performed in this phase are in line with the
123
prescriptions set by Pollock and Berge (2018) for synthe-
sizing the evidence (phase v) and interpreting the findings
(vi). Although some quantitative treatments have been
used, this research prioritized the qualitative analysis of the
articles to constitute a matrix that could represent the
findings of this study.
Presentation and Analysis of Results
The corpus of analysis consisted of articles from the Web
of Science and Scopus databases. To ensure the integrity of
the search process, the articles from the two databases were
merged and the duplicate ones were removed after the use
of filters. In the end, the corpus of filters ended up with 126
articles. The evolution of academic production on the
theme until the first half of February 2021 is shown in
Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management (December 2022) 23(4):431–452
Fig. 2 Evolution of article
production on the subject
Fig. 2. We point out that this period is presented according
to the selected articles.
When looking at Fig. 2, the evolution of academic
production on the theme can be observed as three articles
were published in 2011 and 26 in 2020. This scenario
shows the search for authors in addition to highlighting the
relevance of the theme and an overview of the scientific
production. In this sense, Fig. 3 shows the 15 main journals
with the largest number of publications on the theme.
As shown in Fig. 3, the purpose of this mapping is to
allow other authors to choose a journal for a possible
submission of a manuscript on the theme, with emphasis on
the ‘‘Journal of Software-Evolution and Process’’ with 15
publications and the journals ‘‘Information and Software
Technology’’ and the ‘‘Journal of Systems and Software’’
with 14 publications each.
After mapping the articles and performing a careful
reading of them, it was possible to identify the connections
between contents and authors, resulting in four categories
as follows: (1) competencies, (2) tools, (3) relationship
with the activity and (4) characteristics of the development
team, as presented in Table 2. We emphasize that these
categories emerged from a process of reading and catego-
rizing the articles. The content was further investigated and
classified into a category by using an Excel spreadsheet to
facilitate access to it and its organization.
These four categories comprise an abstraction observed
in the readings of the articles, which were initially analyzed
on an individual basis and then grouped for categorization.
Such a categorization process was carried out taking into
account the relationship between articles and authors for
each category. It should be noted that the aforementioned
437
competencies are categorized into interpersonal and tech-
nical ones, that is, soft and hard skills. However, as Neto
(2020) points out, there is some complexity in distin-
guishing some people’s competencies because many of
them have both soft and hard skills. Nevertheless, some
technical competencies linked to interpersonal skills are
easily identifiable, such as in the elaboration of an elec-
tronic spreadsheet and capacity for communication, with
the latter being measured by the ability to be empathetic as
well as to write an objective text without grammatical
errors.
Another relevant issue is the competency level to be
observed. Competencies can be observed not only at an
individual level, which is largely addressed from the per-
spective of KSA (knowledge, skill, and attitude), but also
collectively and organizationally (Michaux, 2011). Ruas
et al. (2005) point out that although competency is hardly
observed empirically at a collective level, it can be
understood as a combination of competencies manifested
in teams, departments, or even relationships between peo-
ple in different companies. Collective competencies are
obtained through the synergy of different activities, such as
a logistics system. Prahalad and Hamel (1990) cite orga-
nizational competency as the company’s capability of
differentiating in the business environment.
The next sections deeper examine the macro-categories
found in the analysis process presented in Table 2. It is
worth noting that each sub-category is the result of the
analysis of the 126 articles selected.
123
438
Fig. 3 Number of scientific articles published by journals
Competencies
In a software project environment, a development team
must have a set of competencies to develop an iteration
(Busse & Weidner, 2020; Kalenda et al., 2018). Compe-
tencies, both technical and interpersonal, are associated
with culture (Alqudah & Razali, 2017), organizational
strategy (Jovanović et al., 2016; Lindsjorn et al., 2016), and
stakeholders (Pradeepini, 2019). The main competencies
observed in the present study, as well as their descriptions
and authors, were mapped and are listed in Table 3.
In relation to individuals, technical competencies are
present in the planning of activities (Jia et al., 2019; Trk-
man et al., 2019) as well as in the understanding (Grape-
nthin et al., 2015) and measurement of activities (Ramı́rez-
Mora et al., 2020). In the measurement process, the team
can employ interpersonal competencies (Fontana et al.,
2014) such as negotiation (Adolph et al., 2012) and influ-
ence (Busse & Weidner, 2020).
123
Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management (December 2022) 23(4):431–452
In some cases, competencies go beyond planning to
understand activities (Moe et al., 2012). At this point,
technical competencies related to software development
processes stand out, such as abstraction (Gren et al., 2018)
and the ability to analyze requirements (Medeiros et al.,
2020). In the monitoring of activities, the team must
employ technical competencies to interact with the backlog
framework (Fontana et al., 2015), as in the monitoring of
activities in progress (Hsieh & Chen, 2015; Licorish &
MacDonell, 2015).
The process of carrying out the activities in each itera-
tion can occur through peer development techniques,
known as ‘‘work in pairs’’ (Paasivaara & Lassenius, 2014).
To carry out such techniques, the development team must
have the interpersonal competencies necessary for doing so
effectively (Yilmaz, 2017). In the software development
process, the team must have high knowledge on technol-
ogy, such as computing language and computational
architecture (Pascoa et al., 2019), and techniques of
activity decomposition (Tan & Vicente, 2019). Finally, in
Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management (December 2022) 23(4):431–452 439

Table 2 Analysis of the categories according to the articles selected

Category Description References

Competencies Competencies are defined as technical and Afshari and Gandomani (2021), Al-Baik and Miller (2015), Beaumont
(25) interpersonal for understanding and carrying out et al. (2017), Carvalho and Mello (2012), Cavaleri, Firestone and
activities Reed (2012), Çetin and Durdu (2019), Cram (2012), Dingsøyr et al.
(2018), Drury-Grogan (2021), Elghariani et al. (2018), Ferreira et al.
(2011), Gren et al. (2020), Hajjdiab et al. (2012), Hemon et al.
(2020), Hoda and Murugesan (2016), Hoda et al. (2012), Jørgensen
et al. (2017), Kakar (2017), Kaushik et al. (2020), Lehtinen et al.
(2014), Lehtinen et al. (2017), Liu et al. (2019), Magistretti et al.
(2020), Majchrzak and Stilger (2017), Martini et al. (2016), Mishra
and Abdalhamid (2018), Mishra et al. (2012), Misirli et al. (2015),
Shameem et al. (2018), Martinez et al. (2014), Naim et al. (2019),
Razavi et al. (2019), Sarpiri and Gandomani (2017), Serrador and
Pinto (2015), Trkman et al. (2016), Schloegel (2016), Tripp et al.
(2016), Vlietland et al. (2016)
Tools Tools that support the planning and monitoring of Astromskis et al. (2014), Batra et al. (2016), Casola et al. (2020),
(30) interactive activities Concas et al. (2013), Conforto et al. (2016), Cram and Marabelli
(2018), Ganesh and Thangasamy (2012), Hemon-Hildgen et al.
(2020), Jalali et al. (2014), Karlsen et al. (2011), Korkala and
Maurer (2014), Kremser and Blagoev (2021), Lwakatare et al.
(2019), Mahmoud et al (2020), Malgonde and Chari (2019), Malik
et al. (2021), Masood et al. (2020), Magdaleno et al. (2015),
Nicholls et al. (2015), Perkusich et al. (2017), Muntés-Mulero et al.
(2019), Raj and Sinha (2015), Rolón and Martı́nez (2012), Senapathi
and Drury-Grogan (2021), Shankar and Narayana (2013), Tolfo
et al. (2018), Wohlrab et al. (2019), Yin et al. (2021), Žužek et al.
(2020)
Relationship with Diagnosis of criticality and complexity of Akarsu and Yilmaz (2020), Arora et al. (2018), Barke and Prechelt
the activity activities (2019), Belsis et al. (2014), Borrego et al. (2019), Bosch and Bosch-
(33) Sijtsema (2011), Destefanis et al. (2016), Erdoğan et al. (2018),
Espinosa-Curiel et al. (2018), Fahad et al. (2017), Golfarelli et al.
(2013), Heikkilä et al. (2017), Ioannou et al. (2020), Kasurinen and
Smolander (2017), Lavallée and Robillard (2018), Luong et al.
(2021), Marques et al. (2020), Mitrović et al. (2020),
Mohanarangam (2020), McIver et al. (2018), Neto et al. (2019),
Rahman and Rutz (2015), Rico et al. (2020), Rosenkranz et al.
(2013), Santos et al. (2015), Salaou et al. (2021), Shahsavari-Pour
et al. (2021), Strode et al. (2012), Tenorio et al. (2020), Tsai et al.
(2018), Varela-Vaca and Gasca (2013), Zaitsev et al. (2020), Zielske
and Held (2020)
Characteristics of Roles and responsibility of the team in self- Afshari and Gandomani (2021), Al-Baik and Miller (2015), Beaumont
the development assignment, monitoring and control of activities et al. (2017), Carvalho and Mello (2012), Cavaleri et al. (2012),
team Çetin and Durdu (2019), Cram (2012), Dingsøyr et al. (2018),
(38) Drury-Grogan (2021), Elghariani et al. (2018), Ferreira et al. (2011),
Gren et al. (2020), Hajjdiab, Taleb and Ali (2012), Hemon et al.
(2020), Hoda and Murugesan (2016), Hoda et al. (2012), Jørgensen
et al. (2017), Kakar (2017), Kaushik et al. (2020), Lehtinen et al.
(2014), Lehtinen et al. (2017), Liu et al. (2019), Martini et al.
(2016), Misirli et al. (2015), Magistretti et al. (2020), Majchrzak and
Stilger (2017), Martinez et al. (2014), Mishra and Abdalhamid
(2018), Mishra et al. (2012), Naim et al. (2019), Razavi et al. (2019),
Schloegel et al. (2016), Shameem et al. (2018), Sarpiri and
Gandomani (2017), Serrador and Pinto (2015), Tripp et al. (2016),
Trkman et al. (2016), Vlietland et al. (2016)

the process of completing an activity, the team must have a Palacios et al., 2012) and sense of importance (Grapenthin
set of collective competencies such as effective commu- et al., 2015).
nication, a sense of self-organization (Gjøystdal & Kar- The relationship between technical and interpersonal
unaratne, 2020), adaptability to constant changes (Colomo- competencies existing in agile teams is shown in Fig. 4.

123
440 Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management (December 2022) 23(4):431–452

Table 3 List of competencies and authors

Competency Competency Description References
dimension

Technical Activity planning It is the ability to plan the necessary activities as well as identify the Jia et al. (2019), Trkman et al. (2019)
(hard precedence between them for completing the iteration and
skills) delivering value to the customer
Understanding It is the ability to understand the context and the work required to Grapenthin et al. (2015)
activities perform the activity correctly, according to what was requested
Activity It is the ability to measure the effort required to perform an activity Ramı́rez-Mora et al. (2020)
measurement and is developed during the iterations
Abstraction From the understanding of the activities, it is possible to create Gren et al. (2018)
capacity generalizations and abstractions of requirements and thus develop
the abstract requirements into tangible systemic functionalities
Requirement Through knowledge about the context in which it operates, this Medeiros et al. (2020)
analysis competency makes it possible to break down the requirements into
activities for becoming software features
Activity It concerns the knowledge in analyzing tools for monitoring the Fontana et al. (2015), Hsieh and Chen
monitoring backlog activities of an iteration (2015), Licorish and MacDonell
(2015)
Technology This competency is about knowledge in programming languages as Pascoa et al. (2019)
Knowledge well as in designing patterns and architectures aimed at developing
technological solutions
Activity It is the competence to dismember and group activities arising from Tan and Vicente (2019)
Decomposition the requirements and whose development is linked to the
development of abstraction competency
Interpersonal Negotiation Ability to negotiate inclusion, exclusion or modification of Adolph et al. (2012),
(soft skills) requirements and activities in the backlog
Influence Ability to influence team members to achieve personal or Busse and Weidner (2020)
organizational goals
Effective Ability to convey a message clearly and objectively without loss of Gjøystdal and Karunaratne (2020)
Communication information
Sense of Self- This competence concerns the ability of team members to self- Gjøystdal and Karunaratne (2020)
Organization organize according to their work routine so that they can perform
their activities accordingly
Adaptability to Ability to quickly adapt to changes occurring during iteration. By Colomo-Palacios et al. (2012)
Change developing this skill, the team’s member stops seeing changes
negatively and starts to see change as a strategic action to achieve
results and deliver value at the end of the iteration
Development of It is the ability to work as a team, accept any constructive criticism of Paasivaara and Lassenius (2014),
Team Activities the work developed and thus exchange knowledge and experiences Yilmaz (2017)
in both technical and business contexts
Sense of This competency concerns the ability to recognize the importance of Grapenthin et al. (2015)
importance team events, including activities and behaviors which can affect
the iteration

The relationships between the competencies shown in
Fig. 4 demonstrate that after the execution of several iter-
ations, the development team and its members achieve
technical and interpersonal competencies, which in turn
will become part of the culture of both team and organi-
zation (Alqudah & Razali, 2017). Busse and Weidner
(2020) state that during the stages of iterations, the team’s
members exert influence on the others by using techniques,
such as negotiation, to assign activities (Adolph et al.,
2012).
For the agile team to develop technical competencies for
analysis and decomposition of activities, the team members
must have other individual competencies, such as knowl-
edge in planning and executing activities through tech-
niques such as working in pairs. To achieve this scenario,
the team must have engagement from the conception of the
customer’s idea in the activity until the end of the iteration.
With regard to interpersonal competencies, for a team to
be self-organized, it must have the necessary competencies
to negotiate and manage the execution of activities, making

123
Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management (December 2022) 23(4):431–452
Fig. 4 List of competencies for agile teams
it clear to all its members the relationship of each activity
and the end of the interaction through constant changes
aimed at adding value to the delivery. To achieve this
scenario, the team must promote effective communication
and mutual trust between its members. The competencies
developed by the team will be absorbed and improved in
the following iterations, as well as the new emerging ones
will be incorporated by individuals and teams to become an
integral part of the culture.
To achieve effectiveness in the iteration results, the team
must have essential competencies to carry out communi-
cation processes. For Gjøystdal and Karunaratne (2020),
the team must show enough confidence so that it can
convey a message clearly and objectively without losing
information at each moment of iteration. Here, the team’s
goal will be to ensure the achievement of personal or
organizational goals (Busse & Weidner, 2020).
Thus, competencies gain a prominent role in the effec-
tiveness of the iteration. The team must have adaptability
to the constant changes and a sense of importance on the
criticality of the activities, which is corroborated by
Grapenthin et al. (2015). As a significant factor for
increasing the effectiveness of the team, communication
emerges as an essential competency among its members to
ensure the quality in the development of future activities
contained in the backlog, thus contributing to studies such
as those by Zaitsev et al. (2020).
Tools
During the iterations, management of activity execution is
carried out through various tools (Mahmoud et al., 2020;
441
Yin et al., 2021). These tools must be in line with agile
practices (Casola et al., 2020; Wohlrab et al., 2019) and
with the software development policies adopted by the
organization (Kremser & Blagoev, 2021). As for the soft-
ware development process, some tools are aimed to address
planning issues (Masood et al., 2020) and risks in execut-
ing a given activity (Korkala & Maurer, 2014; Malgonde &
Chari, 2019) before the process of delivering it to the client
(Concas et al., 2013; Senapathi & Drury-Grogan, 2021).
For Malik et al. (2021), the activities should be cate-
gorized by the team in the contexts of the development of
each activity (Lehtinen et al., 2014), and the risk associated
with performing, monitoring and preventing a change in
the activity (Rolón & Martı́nez, 2012). The activity cate-
gorization becomes critical when the team is in transition
to agile practices (Batra et al., 2016), including in scenarios
of digital transformation projects with the adoption of
cloud computing (Muntés-Mulero et al., 2019).
Some challenges can occur regarding the use of tools by
the development team for ideation process and prioritiza-
tion of activities (Ganesh & Thangasamy, 2012). As the
development team has a self-organizing characteristic
(Grapenthin et al., 2015), tools such as user story, story-
telling and storyboard, if not handled correctly, can lead to
deviations in the metrics and updating of the activity per-
formance (Ganesh & Thangasamy, 2012).
The tools gain a prominent role when aligned with the
profile of the development team (Conforto et al., 2016;
Tolfo et al., 2018), resulting in a set of metrics (Perkusich
et al., 2017; Shankar & Narayana, 2013) that will support
the process of knowledge dissemination within the team
(Karlsen et al., 2011). Furthermore, the choice of an
123
442 Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management (December 2022) 23(4):431–452
appropriate tool for the organization must be related to the
best software development practices (Nicholls et al., 2015),
including optimization in the use of a member from the
development team (Jalali et al., 2014; Magdaleno et al.,
2015) and policy for good software development and
testing practices (Astromskis et al., 2014).
In this sense, some tools such as Kanban (Majchrzak &
Stilger, 2017), Jira (Ribeiro, 2020), Trello, and Jenkins
(Seth & Khare, 2015) can contribute to demonstrating the
flow of activity iterations between teams in addition to
tracking agile metrics. The relationship between the steps
of iteration as well as between processes, tools, and metrics
were consolidated and shown in Fig. 5.
Lwakatare et al. (2019) state that activity delivery is
aimed at providing value to the customer, with tools such
as the DevOps (Development and Operations) practices
ensuring the highest quality in software production (Raj &
Sinha, 2015), in addition to bringing people, processes and
teams together according to the agile practices adopted by
the organization (Hemon-Hildgen et al., 2020). Therefore,
DevOps is a tool gaining increasing importance for
development teams as it allows creating processes with the
greatest value (e.g., from an idea to software increment
product) to be delivered to the customer’s business (Žužek
et al., 2020).
In this context, it is noted that these tools contribute to
performing measurable activities to be delivered in an
iteration cadence, which is congruent to that pointed out by
Raj and Sinha (2015). In the same way, these tools also
help to keep the flow of value delivery to the client through
the team’s competencies in using them as best as possible
during the planning and estimation of activities. Mahmoud
Fig. 5 Tools for agile teams
123
et al. (2020) and Malgonde and Chari (2019) point out that
better use of tools by the team makes it prepared for the
constant risks possibly arising from the agile practices.
Relationship with the Activity
Studies by Neto et al. (2019), Rahman and Rutz (2015),
and Razavi et al. (2019) showed that agile practices bring a
different relationship with activities compared to the tra-
ditional (predictive) ones. While in the traditional practices
the activities have scope, restrictions, risks, changes, and
plans previously defined (Golfarelli et al., 2013), in the
agile practices the activities are defined through cere-
monies marking the beginning of each iteration, in which
requirements are presented to the development team
(Ioannou et al., 2020; Luong et al., 2021). Bosch and
Bosch-Sijtsema (2011) state that Scrum Master does not
influence the formation of a backlog and the team must
select prioritized activities that generate the highest value
for the customer without division of activities.
In the ceremony held for each iteration, there is an
analysis and classification of the efforts to perform the
activities (Barke & Prechelt, 2019). This step involves not
only discovering, diagnosing and understanding the main
problems, but also the ability to design evidence-based
solutions adjusted to changing needs, environment
dynamics and changing requirements (McIver et al., 2018).
According to Rosenkranz et al. (2013), the requirements
presented in this step can be qualified as incomplete,
meaningless, redundant, or ambiguous, which can make an
activity not to be understood (Ioannou et al., 2020). Belsis
et al. (2014) suggest that validation of the items making up
Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management (December 2022) 23(4):431–452
the detailing of the requirements should be performed to
mitigate such a deficiency at this stage.
Also, at this stage, it is necessary to ensure that there are
no more uncertainties as to what needs to be done in each
activity (Strode et al., 2012). From this moment on, the
development team uses techniques, such as story points, to
obtain an estimated effort to perform the activity (Varela-
Vaca & Gasca, 2013). At this stage, an effort score is
obtained based on the complexity of the activity and
activity dependencies (Borrego et al., 2019). In the cere-
mony, the artifact is the backlog with all activities priori-
tized according to the criticality, complexity and
dependence identified by the team members (Salaou et al.,
2021).
From this moment on, the execution of backlog activi-
ties begins with the team members, who have the auton-
omy to select the activity they will perform (Akarsu &
Yilmaz, 2020). If the team member does not have the
necessary competency to take the next activity (Barke &
Prechelt, 2019), or if the activity is highly critical (Erdoğan
et al., 2018; Espinosa-Curiel et al., 2018), it is suggested
that such an activity should be performed in collaboration
with another more senior member in order to provide
quality delivery and allow transfer of knowledge between
team members (Luong et al., 2021). At this point, there
should be broad communication between the team mem-
bers regarding the objective in order to avoid failure in
performing any activity that impacts the development of
future activities contained in the backlog (Zaitsev et al.,
2020).
According to Heikkilä et al. (2017), it is important that
the roles are clear and the methodology well defined, so
that the development team knows whom to call if an
obstacle arises during the execution of some activity.
Lavallée and Robillard (2018) state that to solve obstacles,
it is necessary to have interpersonal competencies.
Neglecting obstacles can to some extent negatively impact
the iteration, such as poor-quality delivery or cancellation
of a particular activity (Salaou et al., 2021).
The close relationship between development team
members and characteristics of the activities of an iteration
is supported by Barke and Prechelt (2019), who state that
the requirement analysis process and effort classification
should be used to deal with activities. Strode et al. (2012)
point out the reduction of uncertainties present in the
process of activity execution. These relationships con-
tribute to the advancement in diagnosing criticality and
complexity of activities in face of the identification of
personal and interpersonal competencies present in the
development team.
443
Development Team Competencies
The development team has, at certain points in the itera-
tion, different roles and responsibilities (Sarpiri & Gan-
domani, 2017; Trkman et al., 2016). As for the planning,
the team must assume an advisory role in monitoring the
evolution of the backlog during intermediate ceremonies
(Çetin & Durdu, 2019; Martini et al., 2016) to minimize the
problems resulting from new people entering the team (Al-
Baik & Miller, 2015) or from some type of cultural barrier
associated with agile practices (Liu et al., 2019). Moreover,
the team becomes responsible for analyzing the customer’s
requirement documents (Hemon et al., 2020) regardless of
the effort required to perform one or more activities
(Dingsøyr et al., 2018; Elghariani et al., 2018). At this
point, Hoda and Murugesan (2016) and Serrador and Pinto
(2015) state that the responsibility of the development team
should encompass the views and needs of the stakeholders.
With the planning at hand, the team focuses on
preparing the activities to start the iteration (Lehtinen et al.,
2014; Majchrzak & Stilger, 2017). The team takes on the
responsibility of carrying out the activity decomposition
(Schloegel et al., 2016) by taking into account the com-
plexity (Kaushik et al., 2020) and criticality of each
activity to be performed (Pascoa et al., 2019).
Planning brings barriers to the control and management
of activities (Magistretti et al., 2020). According to Vliet-
land et al. (2016), in the eyes of the customer, activities are
sequenced in order of business need by people who may
not participate in the development process of the iterations
(Beaumont et al., 2017). Thus, people involved in this
context have direct responsibility for iteration performance
(Mishra & Abdalhamid, 2018) and customer’s satisfaction
(Lehtinen et al., 2014). Planning can also be affected by
changes in project activities (Hoda et al., 2012; Shameem
et al., 2018) and the level of technical competency of the
team (Gren et al., 2020; Lehtinen et al., 2017), which may
have negative impacts on the results of an iteration (Afshari
& Gandomani, 2021; Drury-Grogan, 2021; Razavi et al.,
2019).
The result of iterations with the customer can be
approximated by using the User Experience (UX), which is
related to obtaining greater knowledge about the cus-
tomer’s business need (Ferreira et al., 2011; Naim et al.,
2019). Understanding the customer’s needs as soon as
possible becomes the responsibility of the development
team (Jørgensen et al., 2017). From the beginning of the
iteration, the team assumes the role and responsibility for
controlling and monitoring the activities (Misirli et al.,
2015; Tripp et al., 2016). According to Carvalho and Mello
(2012), the team must promote the transfer of knowledge
obtained in the performance of previous iterations, which
123
444 Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management (December 2022) 23(4):431–452
in turn improves the development team’s performance
(Kakar, 2017).
Due to the frequent delivery cycle present in agile
environments, the development team must have specific
personal and interpersonal skills at the various stages of the
iterations. This scenario is an extension of the study by
Çetin and Durdu (2019) on the competencies of a team in
planning activities of an iteration for a continuous flow
view, regardless of one’s roles. This thinking is aimed at
building a closer trust relationship between team and
stakeholders, as pointed out by Hoda and Murugesan
(2016) and Serrador and Pinto (2015).
Theoretical and Practical Implications
Theoretical Implications
A full reading of the articles allowed identifying limitations
of the approach used by the development team for the
activities to be carried out throughout the agile projects,
that is, from the conception about the customer’s desire to
the planning for iteration until its final delivery. The
objective is to guarantee the delivery of greater value to the
customer. This approach can be explored with the purpose
of identifying gaps between themes and presenting possible
research trends.
With regard to the idealization and conception of the
customer’s needs, it is noted that the Design Sprint and
Design Thinking tools have been used (Conforto et al.,
2016; Magistretti et al., 2020). However, both tools have
their limitations in terms of team and project as the
research is limited to their use only for small development
teams and those in transition from predictive to agile
methods. This scenario can cause difficulties in environ-
ments where development teams interact with other ones,
which causes the need to mediate possible conflicts and
impediments to carrying out activities, or when the teams
have a high level of interdependence. Thus, further
research on the use of these tools for the conception of the
customer’s idea in a possible project activity should be
carried out in environments not only transitioning from
predictive to agile ones, but also in agile environments with
development teams with different levels of size, compe-
tencies and organization.
In the planning phase of the activity backlog, it is pos-
sible to highlight analysis techniques based on users’ sto-
ries (Luong et al., 2021), but which are limited to Scrum
and Extreme Programming frameworks (Batra et al., 2016;
Žužek et al., 2020), and systems development policies and
standards (Malgonde & Chari, 2019). In this phase, the
separation of activities for beginning the iteration is not
contemplated, but the customer’s ideas and wishes
123
becoming activities throughout the project will be part of
the iteration. At this point, further research should be car-
ried out taking into account the companies’ agile practices
in line with their respective system development policies
rather than a certain agile framework.
In the process of planning an iteration, in which the
teams are characterized by being self-organized to the point
of identifying the complexity and criticality of each
activity, the technical and interpersonal competencies of
the entire development team are addressed only individu-
ally (Mitrović et al., 2020). Here, the suggestion is to carry
out further research on the technical and interpersonal
competencies of the entire team in the planning process to
ensure that the selected activities are following the team’s
levels of competency as a whole, making the team’s
members increasingly self-organized and self-managed. In
addition, the planning of activities was also limited for
being carried out only in Scrum ceremonies (Alqudah &
Razali, 2017; Marques et al., 2020).
In the activity management process, Lwakatare et al.
(2019) state that several tools allow monitoring activities,
thus enabling the team’s members to analyze the perfor-
mance and reach the goal of the iteration. However, several
authors point to the need for studies on the exchange
between different teams during iteration. Although studies
on DevOps practices are at an early stage (Hemon-Hildgen
et al., 2020), they will be an important source for docu-
menting the team’s tacit knowledge, in addition to
remaining in the organization even with the turnover of
members of the team (Shankar & Narayana, 2013).
Still, on the management of activities, the studies in this
research corpus did not examine the dependency relation-
ship of activities and its possible impacts on iteration.
Trkman et al. (2016) emphasize that the team must
understand the order of execution and integration regarding
the user story dependency to avoid any possible iteration
cancellation. However, it was not possible to identify any
tool enabling the visualization of activity dependencies for
the realization of a user story.
The content developed here brings a view that confronts
project activity management, especially in projects adopt-
ing the agile approach. The relationship between compe-
tencies, tools and activities is a relevant contribution, but
the advance of this study lies in including both criticality
and complexity in this context. These two elements can
help researchers understand team performance and project
success.
Practical Implications
After individual analysis of the research corpus and based
on the connections between contents and authors, it was
possible to present four categories related to the
Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management (December 2022) 23(4):431–452
management of activities in agile teams. These categories
were related to technical and interpersonal competencies
present in agile teams for executing the iteration from the
planning phase to the release phase (delivery to the cus-
tomer). At this point, it is worth noting that such compe-
tencies were abstracted taking into account the hard and
soft sides of each one according to the objective of this
study. As a result, the competencies were divided into
technical and interpersonal ones, as previously presented in
Table 2. They were also subdivided to highlight the tools
present in the development team to carry out activities, as
previously shown in Tables 2 and 3.
In the planning phase, it can be highlighted that the
technical and interpersonal competencies present in the
development team can be used with business people to
analyze and divide the product view requirements into
measurable activities capable of being delivered in an
iteration. This phase must respect the particularities of
agile frameworks in relation to the planning process, for
example, the Scrum sprint planning meeting and the
KanBan replenishment meeting. The point of attention
here is related to the development team’s ability to
identify the priority of execution of activities to fulfill a
given user story taking into account the criticality of
each activity, regardless of the tools chosen in this
phase.
After the planning phase, the development team takes on
a self-organized role in which each member of the team
becomes responsible for executing and monitoring the
activity according to an order of priority. In this self-as-
signment phase, each member must have the necessary
engagement to identify whether they have both technical
and interpersonal competencies to carry out a given activity
with given complexity and criticality in a given iteration.
In the final phase of the iteration, the development team
must complete the activities comprising a given user story
according to an order of prioritization as previously agreed
in the planning phase. Regardless of the agile framework,
this process must comply with the definitions agreed with
the customer for the quality of a ready-made activity. In
addition, the development team must have the technical
competencies necessary for the steps of user story delivery
through the use of agile tools, such as DevOps practices.
This process should occur without taking into account
the agile framework adopted by the company, that is, with
the Scrum Sprint Review meeting and KanBan delivery
planning ceremony. Finally, the team must have the nec-
essary competencies to identify the improvement points of
the team at the end of the iteration for the next ones by
seeking to make the team as self-organized as possible.
Here, this process is present in the sprint retrospective
meetings through the Kanban cadences of operation and
strategy reviews.
445
Based on what was presented here, a development team
must have the technical and interpersonal competencies to
work with business people in the planning phase until the
user stories are deployed into activities. During the itera-
tion, the team must use these competencies for self-as-
signing activities and for employing agile tools in the
analysis and control of ongoing activities. Thus, Fig. 6
shows a conceptual model highlighting the relationship of
technical and interpersonal competencies present in a
development team aimed at managing activities for
iteration.
The conceptual model shown in Fig. 6 was elaborated
by taking into account the particularity of the processes,
tools and ceremonies of the agile frameworks found in the
research corpus. A list of technical and interpersonal
competencies present in the development team during the
planning, self-assignment and activity monitoring phases is
also shown. After the finalization phase, the results of this
process should provide a dataset from the development
phase of iteration as a subsidy to agile metrics.
In this scenario, the proposed conceptual model
identifies both technical and interpersonal competencies
of each member of the development team, thus mini-
mizing the scenario of abstraction existing in the com-
plexity and criticality related to the non-performance of
the activity in an iteration, which is corroborated by
Pascoa et al. (2019) and Kaushik et al. (2020). With
regard to the adherence to agile practices, the model is
used by software development companies independently
of the agile framework adopted in order to reduce cul-
tural barrier, which is corroborated by Alqudah and
Razali (2017). Finally, Jovanović et al. (2016) and
Lindsjørn et al. (2016) show model advances in relation
to the strategies of organizations to identify skills so that
the development team can deliver greater value to the
client through realization of the activities.
Final Remarks
The publication of the Agile Manifesto in 2001 made
software development companies adapt their project
management practices in search of greater efficiency and
effectiveness in their processes. Because of their con-
straints and planning, the management practices have
moved from a more predictive view, in which scope is
fixed and time and cost are variable, to an agile one in
which time and cost are fixed and scope is variable and
continuously refined and discussed in the meetings.
Another change with an impact on organizations is
related to activity management and development cycle. In
traditional practices, the development phase has linear and
sequential stages with an initial planning and detailed
123
446 Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management (December 2022) 23(4):431–452
Fig. 6 Conceptual model of technical and interpersonal competencies in agile teams for managing activities in iteration
documentation of activities to be performed by a previ-
ously allocated team. On the other hand, agile practices are
composed of continuous cycles, collaborative and self-or-
ganized teams, and incremental development.
As agile practices have a self-organizing profile, the
development team needs to present technical and inter-
personal competencies to carry out processes of assign-
ment and execution and monitoring of activities in
shorter development cycles. In this context, there is a
gap concerning studies of both technical and interper-
sonal competencies in development teams under agile
project management. Thus, issues related to technical
and interpersonal competencies as well as to the use of
tools are still little evidenced in scientific journals on the
field of agile project management. In this sense, we
aimed to identify how studies on agile project manage-
ment practices address the management of activities for
iteration.
Through an SLR, we sought to understand the conver-
gence between the themes of agile project management
practices and activity management. SLR is a type of
research in which specific protocols are followed in attempt
to give some logic to a large documental corpus. For this
123
SLR, articles were selected from the Web of Science and
Scopus databases and screened for removal of duplicates,
resulting in a corpus of analysis of 126 articles. It was also
observed that the publication of articles dealing with
activity management and agile practices started in 2011
and continues to grow steadily.
Based on the results obtained, it is proposed to perform
further studies on APM and activity management in an
iteration focused on themes such as: (a) Competencies;
(b) Tools; (c) Relation to the activity; and (d) Characteris-
tics of the development team. Both technical and inter-
personal competencies gain greater relevance in the field of
APM as the development team and its members become
self-organized and responsible for the execution and
monitoring of activities throughout the full cycle of itera-
tion. Therefore, it was possible to highlight that the
development team should have such competencies to use
new tools during the iteration according to the existing
complexity and criticality of each activity for completing
it.
Finally, the development team must have engagement
and ability to communicate effectively with all team’s
members to detect activity prioritization in a user story and
Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management (December 2022) 23(4):431–452
to complete the iteration. It is expected that this study will
contribute to the deepening of the discussion on the themes
of activity management and agile practices by providing
relevant information on studies, journals, authors and sub-
themes, thus becoming a facilitating tool for researchers.
The limitations of this study are related to the abstrac-
tion process used, although more objective protocols and
categories were applied to mitigate these biases. The use of
the Web of Science and Scopus databases can also delimit
the findings. Still regarding this limitation, we can say that
these databases have a valid representation for the areas
studied. A more subjective categorization process allows
for a deeper analysis to detriment of bibliometric studies or
lexical analysis. Although subjectivity can weaken some
studies, this type of research allows using interpretation to
deepen the understanding of new phenomena such as
activity management in the context of agility.
Future studies could empirically test the proposed model
for managing activities in the context of iterations by using
APM practices. The use of technological mechanisms to
assess the technical and interpersonal competencies of the
team’s members could also be a theme of study to allow the
self-management of the activities of an iteration.
Funding This study was supported in Brazil by CAPES—Coordi-
nation of Personnel Improvement for Higher Education: Code 001
and CNPQ—National Council for Scientific and Technological
Development.
Declarations
Conflict of interest The authors have no conflicts of interest for this
publication.
References
Adolph, S., Kruchten, P., & Hall, W. (2012). Reconciling perspec-
tives: A grounded theory of how people manage the process of
software development. Journal of Systems and Software, 85(6),
1269–1286. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2012.01.059.
Afshari, M., & Gandomani, T. J. (2021). Quality of agile adoption in
global software development: An assessment model. Indonesian
Journal of ElectricalEngineering and Computer Science, 21(1),
367–376.
Ahsan, K., Ho, M., & Khan, S. (2013). Recruiting project managers:
A comparative analysis of competencies and recruitment signals
from job advertisements. Project Management Journal, 44(5),
36–54. https://doi.org/10.1002/pmj.21366.
Alzoubi, Y. I., & Gill, A. Q. (2022). Can agile enterprise architecture
be implemented successfully in distributed agile development?
Empirical findings. Global Journal of Flexible Systems Man-
agement, 23(2), 221–235. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40171-022-
00298-w.
Akarsu, Z., & Yilmaz, M. (2020). Managing the social aspects of
software development ecosystems: An industrial case study on
personality. Journal of Software: Evolution and Process, 32(11),
e2277. https://doi.org/10.1002/smr.2277.
447
Al-Baik, O., & Miller, J. (2015). The kanban approach, between
agility and leanness: A systematic review. Empirical Software
Engineering, 20(6), 1861–1897. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10664-
014-9340-x.
Alqudah, M. K., & Razali, R. (2017). Key factors for selecting an
Agile method: A systematic literature review. International
Journal on Advanced Science, Engineering and Information
Technology, 7(2), 526–537.
Altintas, C., & Azizoglu, M. (2020). A Branch and Bound Algorithm
for a Multi-Mode Project Scheduling Problem With a Single
Non-Renewable Resource. International Journal of Information
Technology Project Management (IJITPM), 11(2), 1–14. https://
doi.org/10.4018/IJITPM.2020040101.
Amaral, D. C., Conforto, E. C., Benassi, J. L. G., & Araujo, C. (2011).
Gerenciamento ágil de projetos: aplicação em produtos ino-
vadores. São Paulo: Saraiva.
Astromskis, S., Janes, A., Sillitti, A., & Succi, G. (2014). Continuous
CMMI assessment using non-invasive measurement and process
mining. International Journal of Software Engineering and
Knowledge Engineering, 24(09), 1255–1272. https://doi.org/10.
1142/S0218194014400117
Atienza, C. M. R. (2017). Building organizational identity: An insider
action research from a founder’s viewpoint. Systemic Practice
and Action Research, 30(6), 569–592. https://doi.org/10.1007/
s11213-017-9410-2.
Atkinson, R., Crawford, L., & Ward, S. (2006). Fundamental
uncertainties in projects and the scope of project management.
International Journal of Project Management, 24(8), 687–698.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2006.09.011.
Augustine, S. (2005). Managing agile projects. Prentice Hall PTR.
Babenko, V., Lomovskykh, L., Oriekhova, A., Korchynska, L.,
Krutko, M., & Koniaieva, Y. (2019). Features of methods and
models in risk management of IT projects. Periodicals of
Engineering and Natural Sciences, 7(2), 629–636.
Bardin, L. (2011). Content analysis. São Paulo: Edições, 70.
Barke, H., & Prechelt, L. (2019). Role clarity deficiencies can wreck
agile teams. PeerJ Computer Science, 5, e241. https://doi.org/10.
7717/peerj-cs.241.
Batra, D., Xia, W., & Rathor, S. (2016). Agility facilitators for
contemporary software development. Journal of Database
Management (JDM), 27(1), 1–28. https://doi.org/10.4018/JDM.
2016010101.
Beaumont, M., Thuriaux-Alemán, B., Prasad, P., & Hatton, C. (2017).
Using agile approaches for breakthrough product innovation.
Strategy & Leadership. https://doi.org/10.1108/SL-08-2017-
0076.
Beck, K., Beedle, M., Bennekum, A. V., Cockburn, A., Cunningham,
W., Fowler, M., Grenning, J., Highsmith, J., Hunt, A., Jeffries,
R., Kern, J., Marick, B., Martin, R. C., Mellor, S., Schwaber, K.,
Sutherland, J., & Thomas, D. (2001). Manifesto for agile
software development. Retrieved from http://www.agilemani
festo.org.
Belsis, P., Koutoumanos, A., & Sgouropoulou, C. (2014). PBURC: A
patterns-based, unsupervised requirements clustering framework
for distributed agile software development. Requirements Engi-
neering, 19(2), 213–225. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00766-013-
0172-9.
Bohlander, G., Snell, G., & Sherman, A. (2005). Human Resources
Administration. São Paulo, Pioneira Thomson Learning.
Borrego, G., Morán, A. L., Palacio, R. R., Vizcaı́no, A., & Garcı́a, F.
O. (2019). Towards a reduction in architectural knowledge
vaporization during agile global software development. Infor-
mation and Software Technology, 112, 68–82. https://doi.org/10.
1016/j.infsof.2019.04.008.
123
448 Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management (December 2022) 23(4):431–452
Bosch, J., & Bosch-Sijtsema, P. M. (2011). Introducing agile
customer-centered development in a legacy software product
line. Software: Practice and Experience, 41(8), 871–882.
Boterf, L. G. (2003). A competência do profissional: Saber admin-
istrar uma situação profissional complexa. In: Boterf, L. G. (Ed.)
Desenvolvendo a Competeˆncia dos Profissionais (pp. 37–92).
Porto Alegre: Artmed.
Boyatzis, R. E. (1982). The competent manager: A model for
effective performance. John Wiley & Sons. https://doi.org/10.
1002/spe.1063.
Busse, R., & Weidner, G. (2020). A qualitative investigation on
combined effects of distant leadership, organisational agility and
digital collaboration on perceived employee engagement. Lead-
ership & Organization Development Journal. https://doi.org/10.
1108/LODJ-05-2019-0224.
Carvalho, B. V. D., & Mello, C. H. P. (2012). Implementation of
scrum agile methodology in software product project in a small
technology-based company. Gestão & Produção, 19, 557–573.
Casola, V., De Benedictis, A., Rak, M., & Villano, U. (2020). A novel
Security-by-Design methodology: Modeling and assessing secu-
rity by SLAs with a quantitative approach. Journal of Systems
and Software, 163, 110537. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2020.
110537.
Cavaleri, S., Firestone, J., & Reed, F. (2012). Managing project
problem-solving patterns. International Journal of Managing
Projects in Business, 5(1), 125–145. https://doi.org/10.1108/
17538371211192937.
Cegarra-Navarro, J. G., Soto-Acosta, P., & Wensley, A. K. (2016).
Structured knowledge processes and firm performance: The role
of organizational agility. Journal of Business Research, 69(5),
1544–1549. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2015.10.014.
Çetin, E., & Durdu, P. O. (2019). Blended Scrum model for software
development organizations. Journal of Software: Evolution and
Process, 31(2), e2147. https://doi.org/10.1002/smr.2147.
Chin, C., & Chia, L. G. (2004). Implementing project work in biology
through problem-based learning. Journal of Biological Educa-
tion, 38(2), 69–75. https://doi.org/10.1080/00219266.2004.
9655904.
Colomo-Palacios, R., González-Carrasco, I., López-Cuadrado, J. L.,
& Garcı́a-Crespo, Á. (2012). ReSySTER: A hybrid recom-
mender system for Scrum team roles based on fuzzy and rough
sets. International Journal of Applied Mathematics and Com-
puter Science, 22, 801–816.
Concas, G., Lunesu, M. I., Marchesi, M., & Zhang, H. (2013).
Simulation of software maintenance process, with and without a
work-in-process limit. Journal of Software: Evolution and
Process, 25(12), 1225–1248. https://doi.org/10.1002/smr.1599.
Conforto, E. C., Amaral, D. C., da Silva, S. L., Di Felippo, A., &
Kamikawachi, D. S. L. (2016). The agility construct on project
management theory. International Journal of Project Manage-
ment, 34(4), 660–674. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2016.
01.007.
Cook, D. J., Mulrow, C. D., & Haynes, R. B. (1997). Systematic
reviews: Synthesis of best evidence for clinical decisions. Annals
of Internal Medicine, 126(5), 376–380. https://doi.org/10.7326/
0003-4819-126-5-199703010-00006.
Cooper, R. G., Edgett, S. J., & Kleinschmidt, E. J. (2002). Optimizing
the stage-gate process: What best-practice companies do—II.
Research-Technology Management, 45(6), 43–49. https://doi.
org/10.1080/08956308.2002.11671532.
Cram, W. A. (2012). Aligning organizational values in systems
development projects. Management Research Review, 35(8),
709–726. https://doi.org/10.1108/01409171211247703.
Crawford, L. (2005). Senior management perceptions of project
management competence. International Journal of Project
123
Management, 23(1), 7–16. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.
2004.06.005.
Crawford, L., & Pollack, J. (2004). Hard and soft projects: A
framework for analysis. International Journal of Project Man-
agement, 22(8), 645–653. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.
2004.04.004.
Dinsmore, P. C., & Cabanis-Brewin, J. (2009). AMA-Manual de
Gerenciamento de Projetos. Brasport.
Dingsøyr, T., Moe, N. B., Fægri, T. E., & Seim, E. A. (2018).
Exploring software development at the very large-scale: A
revelatory case study and research agenda for agile method
adaptation. Empirical Software Engineering, 23(1), 490–520.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10664-017-9524-2.
Drury-Grogan, M. L. (2021). The changes in team cognition and
cognitive artifact use during agile software development project
management. Project Management Journal, 52(2), 127–145.
https://doi.org/10.1177/8756972820960301
Dutra, J. S., Hipólito, J. A. M., & Silva, C. M. (2000). Gestão de
pessoas por competências: O caso de uma empresa do setor de
telecomunicações. Revista De Administração Contemporânea, 4,
161–176. https://doi.org/10.1590/S1415-65552000000100009.
Elghariani, K., Kama, N., Azmi, N. F. M., & Abu Bakar, N. A.
(2018). Implicit thinking knowledge injection framework for
agile requirements engineering. International Journal of
Advanced Computer Science and Applications, 9(11), 141–146.
Engwall, M., & Jerbrant, A. (2003). The resource allocation
syndrome: The prime challenge of multi-project management?
International Journal of Project Management, 21(6), 403–409.
https://doi.org/10.1016/S0263-7863(02)00113-8.
Erdoğan, O., Pekkaya, M. E., & Gök, H. (2018). More effective sprint
retrospective with statistical analysis. Journal of Software:
Evolution and Process, 30(5), e1933. https://doi.org/10.1002/
smr.1933.
Espinosa-Curiel, I. E., Rodrı́guez-Jacobo, J., Vázquez-Alfaro, E.,
Fernández-Zepeda, J. A., & Fajardo-Delgado, D. (2018). Anal-
ysis of the changes in communication and social interactions
during the transformation of a traditional team into an agile
team. Journal of Software: Evolution and Process, 30(9), e1946.
https://doi.org/10.1002/smr.1946.
Evans, S., & Bahrami, H. (2020). Super-flexibility in practice:
Insights from a crisis. Global Journal of Flexible Systems
Management, 21(3), 207–214.
Ferreira, J., Sharp, H., & Robinson, H. (2011). User experience design
and agile development: Managing cooperation through articula-
tion work. Software Practice and Experience, 41(9), 963–974.
Fontana, R. M., Fontana, I. M., da Rosa Garbuio, P. A., Reinehr, S., &
Malucelli, A. (2014). Processes versus people: How should agile
software development maturity be defined? Journal of Systems
and Software, 97, 140–155. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2014.07.
030.
Fontana, R. M., Meyer, V., Jr., Reinehr, S., & Malucelli, A. (2015).
Progressive outcomes: A framework for maturing in agile
software development. Journal of Systems and Software, 102,
88–108. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2014.12.032.
Ganesh, N., & Thangasamy, S. (2012). Lessons learned in transform-
ing from traditional to agile development. Journal of Computer
Science, 8(3), 389–392. https://doi.org/10.3844/jcssp.2012.389.
392.
Gjøystdal, S., & Karunaratne, T. (2020). Effect of inadequate self-
organized teams in agile project management: A case study from
the oil and gas industry. International Journal of Information
Technology Project Management (IJITPM), 11(3), 95–106.
https://doi.org/10.4018/IJITPM.2020070106.
Glenwright, E. (2007). A survey of the 30 most serious flaws in
scheduling. In: PMICoS 2007 Annual Conference
Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management (December 2022) 23(4):431–452
Golfarelli, M., Rizzi, S., & Turricchia, E. (2013). Multi-sprint
planning and smooth replanning: An optimization model.
Journal of Systems and Software, 86(9), 2357–2370. https://
doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2013.04.028.
Grapenthin, S., Poggel, S., Book, M., & Gruhn, V. (2015). Improving
task breakdown comprehensiveness in agile projects with an
interaction room. Information and Software Technology, 67,
254–264. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infsof.2015.07.008.
Gren, L., Goldman, A., & Jacobsson, C. (2020). Agile ways of
working: A team maturity perspective. Journal of Software:
Evolution and Process, 32(6), e2244. https://doi.org/10.1002/
smr.2244.
Gren, L., Knauss, A., & Stettina, C. J. (2018). Non-technical
individual skills are weakly connected to the maturity of agile
practices. Information and Software Technology, 99, 11–20.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infsof.2018.02.006.
Gurd, B., & Ifandoudas, P. (2014). Moving towards agility: The
contribution of a modified balanced scorecard system. Measur-
ing Business Excellence, 18(2), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1108/
MBE-10-2012-0052.
Hamel, G., & Prahalad, C. K. (1995). Competindo pelo futuro. Rio de
janeiro: Campus.
Hartmann, S. (1998). A competitive genetic algorithm for resource-
constrained project scheduling. Naval Research Logistics (NRL),
45(7), 733–750. https://doi.org/10.1002/(SICI)1520-
6750(199810)45:7%3C733::AID-NAV5%3E3.0.CO;2-C.
Heikkilä, V. T., Paasivaara, M., Lasssenius, C., Damian, D., &
Engblom, C. (2017). Managing the requirements flow from
strategy to release in large-scale agile development: A case study
at Ericsson. Empirical Software Engineering, 22(6), 2892–2936.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10664-016-9491-z.
Hemon, A., Lyonnet, B., Rowe, F., & Fitzgerald, B. (2020). From
agile to DevOps: Smart skills and collaborations. Information
Systems Frontiers, 22(4), 927–945. https://doi.org/10.1007/
s10796-019-09905-1.
Hemon-Hildgen, A., Rowe, F., & Monnier-Senicourt, L. (2020).
Orchestrating automation and sharing in DevOps teams: A
revelatory case of job satisfaction factors, risk and work
conditions. European Journal of Information Systems, 29(5),
474–499. https://doi.org/10.1080/0960085X.2020.1782276.
Highsmith, J. (2009). Agile project management: creating innovative
products. Pearson education.
Hoda, R., & Murugesan, L. K. (2016). Multi-level agile project
management challenges: A self-organizing team perspective.
Journal of Systems and Software, 117, 245–257. https://doi.org/
10.1016/j.jss.2016.02.049.
Hoda, R., Noble, J., & Marshall, S. (2012). Developing a grounded
theory to explain the practices of self-organizing Agile teams.
Empirical Software Engineering, 17(6), 609–639. https://doi.org/
10.1007/s10664-011-9161-0.
Hsieh, C. Y., & Chen, C. T. (2015). Patterns for continuous
integration builds in cross-platform agile software development.
Journal of Information Science and Engineering, 31(3),
897–924.
Ichihara, J. D. A. (2002). Problema de programação de projetos com
restrição de recursos (resource-constrained project scheduling
problem). Encontro Nacional de Engenharia de Produçao, 22.
Ioannou, C., Nurdiani, I., Burattin, A., & Weber, B. (2020). Mining
reading patterns from eye-tracking data: Method and demon-
stration. Software and Systems Modeling, 19(2), 345–369.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10270-019-00759-4.
Jalali, S., Wohlin, C., & Angelis, L. (2014). Investigating the
applicability of agility assessment surveys: A case study. Journal
of Systems and Software, 98, 172–190. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
jss.2014.08.067.
449
Jia, J., Yang, X., Zhang, R., & Liu, X. (2019). Understanding software
developers’ cognition in agile requirements engineering. Science
of Computer Programming, 178, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
scico.2019.03.005.
Jørgensen, M., Mohagheghi, P., & Grimstad, S. (2017). Direct and
indirect connections between type of contract and software
project outcome. International Journal of Project Management,
35(8), 1573–1586. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2017.09.
003.
Jovanović, M., Mesquida, A. L., Radaković, N., & Mas, A. (2016).
Agile retrospective games for different team development
phases. Journal of Universal Computer Science, 22(12),
1489–1508.
Kakar, A. K. (2017). Investigating the prevalence and performance
correlates of vertical versus shared leadership in emergent
software development teams. Information Systems Management,
34(2), 172–184. https://doi.org/10.1080/10580530.2017.1288526
.
Kalenda, M., Hyna, P., & Rossi, B. (2018). Scaling agile in large
organizations: Practices, challenges, and success factors. Journal
of Software: Evolution and Process, 30(10), e1954. https://doi.
org/10.1002/smr.1954.
Karlsen, J. T., Hagman, L., & Pedersen, T. (2011). Intra-project
transfer of knowledge in information systems development firms.
Journal of Systems and Information Technology, 13(1), 66–80.
https://doi.org/10.1108/13287261111118359.
Kaushik, A., Tayal, D. K., & Yadav, K. (2020). The role of neural
networks and metaheuristics in agile software development
effort estimation. International Journal of Information Technol-
ogy Project Management, 11(2), 50–71.
Kerzner, H. (2006). Gestão de Projetos: as melhores práticas. Porto
Alegre: Bookman.
Kerzner, H. (2009). Project management: A systems approach to
planning (Vol. 11). Scheduling and Controlling.
Korkala, M., & Maurer, F. (2014). Waste identification as the means
for improving communication in globally distributed agile
software development. Journal of Systems and Software, 95,
122–140. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2014.03.080.
Kremser, W., & Blagoev, B. (2021). The dynamics of prioritizing:
How actors temporally pattern complex role-routine ecologies.
Administrative Science Quarterly, 66(2), 339–379. https://doi.
org/10.1177/0001839220948483.
Lavallée, M., & Robillard, P. N. (2018). Are we working well with
others? How the multi team systems impact software quality. E-
Informatica Software Engineering Journal, 12(1), 117–131.
Lehtinen, T. O., Itkonen, J., & Lassenius, C. (2017). Recurring
opinions or productive improvements—What agile teams actu-
ally discuss in retrospectives. Empirical Software Engineering,
22(5), 2409–2452. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10664-016-9464-2.
Lehtinen, T. O., Virtanen, R., Viljanen, J. O., Mäntylä, M. V., &
Lassenius, C. (2014). A tool supporting root cause analysis for
synchronous retrospectives in distributed software teams. Infor-
mation and Software Technology, 56(4), 408–437. https://doi.
org/10.1016/j.infsof.2014.01.004.
Licorish, S. A., & MacDonell, S. G. (2015). Communication and
personality profiles of global software developers. Information
and Software Technology, 64, 113–131. https://doi.org/10.1016/
j.infsof.2015.02.004.
Lindsjørn, Y., Sjøberg, D. I., Dingsøyr, T., Bergersen, G. R., & Dybå,
T. (2016). Teamwork quality and project success in software
development: A survey of agile development teams. Journal of
Systems and Software, 122, 274–286. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
jss.2016.09.028.
Liu, J. W., Ho, C. Y., Chang, J. Y., & Tsai, J. C. A. (2019). The role
of Sprint planning and feedback in game development projects:
123
450 Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management (December 2022) 23(4):431–452
Implications for game quality. Journal of Systems and Software,
154, 79–91. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2019.04.057.
López-Martı́nez, J., Ramı́rez-Noriega, A., Juárez-Ramı́rez, R., Licea,
G., & Jiménez, S. (2018). User stories complexity estimation
using Bayesian networks for inexperienced developers. Cluster
Computing, 21(1), 715–728.
Luong, T. T., Sivarajah, U., & Weerakkody, V. (2021). Do agile
managed information systems projects fail due to a lack of
emotional intelligence? Information Systems Frontiers, 23(2),
415–433. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10796-019-09962-6.
Lwakatare, L. E., Kilamo, T., Karvonen, T., Sauvola, T., Heikkilä, V.,
Itkonen, J., & Lassenius, C. (2019). DevOps in practice: A
multiple case study of five companies. Information and Software
Technology, 114, 217–230. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infsof.2019.
06.010.
Magdaleno, A. M., de Oliveira Barros, M., Werner, C. M. L., de
Araujo, R. M., & Batista, C. F. A. (2015). Collaboration
optimization in software process composition. Journal of
Systems and Software, 103, 452–466. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
jss.2014.11.036.
Magistretti, S., Dell’Era, C., & Doppio, N. (2020). Design sprint for
SMEs: An organizational taxonomy based on configuration
theory. Management Decision, 58(9), 1803–1817. https://doi.
org/10.1108/MD-10-2019-1501.
Mahmoud, A. B., Fuxman, L., Mohr, I., Reisel, W. D., & Grigoriou,
N. (2020). ‘‘We aren’t your reincarnation!’’ workplace motiva-
tion across X, Y and Z generations. International Journal of
Manpower, 42(1), 193–209. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJM-09-
2019-0448.
Majchrzak, M., & Stilger, L. (2017). Experience report: Introducing
Kanban into automotive software project. e-Informatica Soft-
ware Engineering Journal, 11(1), 1.
Malgonde, O., & Chari, K. (2019). An ensemble-based model for
predicting agile software development effort. Empirical Soft-
ware Engineering, 24(2), 1017–1055. https://doi.org/10.1007/
s10664-018-9647-0.
Malik, M., Sarwar, S., & Orr, S. (2021). Agile practices and
performance: Examining the role of psychological empower-
ment. International Journal of Project Management, 39(1),
10–20. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2020.09.002.
Marques, R., Costa, G., da Silva, M. M., Gonçalves, D., & Gonçalves,
P. (2020). A gamification solution for improving Scrum
adoption. Empirical Software Engineering, 25(4), 2583–2629.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10664-020-09816-9.
Martini, A., Pareto, L., & Bosch, J. (2016). A multiple case study on
the inter-group interaction speed in large, embedded software
companies employing agile. Journal of Software: Evolution and
Process, 28(1), 4–26. https://doi.org/10.1002/smr.1757.
Mascarenhas, A. O. (2020). Gestão estrate´gica de pessoas: Evolução,
teoria e crı´tica. Cengage Learning.
Masood, Z., Hoda, R., & Blincoe, K. (2020). How agile teams make
self-assignment work: A grounded theory study. Empirical
Software Engineering, 25(6), 4962–5005. https://doi.org/10.
1002/smr.1757.
McIver, D., Lengnick-Hall, M. L., & Lengnick-Hall, C. A. (2018). A
strategic approach to workforce analytics: Integrating science
and agility. Business Horizons, 61(3), 397–407. https://doi.org/
10.1016/j.bushor.2018.01.005.
Medeiros, J., Vasconcelos, A., Silva, C., & Goulão, M. (2020).
Requirements specification for developers in agile projects:
Evaluation by two industrial case studies. Information and
Software Technology, 117, 106194. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
infsof.2019.106194.
Meredith, J. R., & Mantel, S. J., Jr. (2011). Project management: A
managerial approach. Wiley Global Education.
123
Michaux, V. (2011). Articular as competeˆncias individual, coletiva,
organizacional e estrate´gica: esclarecendo a teoria dos recursos
e do capital social. Competências coletivas: no limiar da
estratégia, 1–21.
Mingozzi, A., Maniezzo, V., Ricciardelli, S., & Bianco, L. (1998). An
exact algorithm for the resource-constrained project scheduling
problem based on a new mathematical formulation. Management
Science, 44(5), 714–729. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.44.5.714.
Mishra, D., & Abdalhamid, S. (2018). Software quality issues in
SCRUM: A systematic mapping. J. Univers. Comput. Sci.,
24(12), 1690–1716.
Misirli, A. T., Verner, J., Markkula, J., & Oivo, M. (2015). Factors
affecting team motivation: A survey of finnish software
engineers. International Journal of Information System Modeling
and Design (IJISMD), 6(3), 1–26. https://doi.org/10.4018/
IJISMD.2015070101.
Miterev, M., Jerbrant, A., & Feldmann, A. (2020). Exploring the
alignment between organization designs and value processes
over the program lifecycle. International Journal of Project
Management, 38(2), 112–123. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpro
man.2019.12.003.
Mitrović, Z. M., Rakićević, A. M., Mihić, M. M., Rakićević, J. Ð., &
Jelisić, E. T. (2020). Systems thinking in software projects-an
artificial neural network approach. IEEE Access, 8,
213619–213635. https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2020.
3040169.
Moe, N. B., Aurum, A., & Dybå, T. (2012). Challenges of shared
decision-making: A multiple case study of agile software
development. Information and Software Technology, 54(8),
853–865. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infsof.2011.11.006.
Mohanarangam, K. (2020). Transitioning to agile—in a large
organization. IT Professional, 22(2), 67–72. https://doi.org/10.
1109/MITP.2019.2902345.
Müller, R., & Turner, R. (2010). Leadership competency profiles of
successful project managers. International Journal of Project
Management, 28(5), 437–448. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpro
man.2009.09.003.
Muntés-Mulero, V., Ripolles, O., Gupta, S., Dominiak, J., Willeke, E.,
Matthews, P., & Somosköi, B. (2019). Agile risk management
for multi-cloud software development. IET Software, 13(3),
172–181. https://doi.org/10.1049/iet-sen.2018.5295.
Naim, W., Hussain, S., Hassan, B., Ali, S. A., & Bhatti, P. (2019).
How to address Impediments in Scrum? IJCSNS, 19(6), 130.
Neto, A. L. (2020). Framework para propor alocação de agentes de
transformação levando em consideração as competeˆncias e o
tipo de abordagem de gerenciamento de projetos. Dissertação
(Programa de Pós-Graduação em Gestão de Projetos) - Univer-
sidade Nove de Julho, São Paulo.
Neto, P. S., Medeiros, D. B., Ibiapina, I., & da Costa Castro, O. C.
(2019). Case study of the introduction of game design techniques
in software development. IET Software, 13(2), 129–143.
Nicholls, G. M., Lewis, N. A., & Eschenbach, T. (2015). Determining
when simplified agile project management is right for small
teams. Engineering Management Journal, 27(1), 3–10. https://
doi.org/10.1080/10429247.2015.11432031.
Paasivaara, M., & Lassenius, C. (2014). Agile coaching for global
software development. Journal of Software: Evolution and
Process, 26(4), 404–418. https://doi.org/10.1002/smr.1577.
Pascoa, C., Telha, A., & Santos, T. (2019). Online organization: A
flexible, agile and adaptable organizational instrument. Interna-
tional Journal of Human Capital and Information Technology
Professionals, 10(1), 55–75. https://doi.org/10.4018/IJHCITP.
2019010104.
Patil, M., & Suresh, M. (2019). Modelling the enablers of workforce
agility in IoT projects: a TISM approach. Global Journal of
Flexible Systems Management, 20(2), 157–175.
Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management (December 2022) 23(4):431–452
Pedrosa, N., da Silva, L. F., & Martens, C. D. P. (2021). Projeto
aprovado: E agora, como contratar o gerente de projetos ideal?
Revista De Gestão e Secretariado, 12(1), 231–257. https://doi.
org/10.7769/gesec.v12i1.1152.
Perkusich, M., Gorgônio, K. C., Almeida, H., & Perkusich, A. (2017).
Assisting the continuous improvement of Scrum projects using
metrics and Bayesian networks. Journal of Software: Evolution
and Process, 29(6), 1–17.
Pinto, J. K., & Kharbanda, O. P. (1996). How to fail in project
management (without really trying). Business Horizons, 39(4),
45–54.
Piya, S., Shamsuzzoha, A., Khadem, M., & Al-Hinai, N. (2020).
Identification of critical factors and their interrelationships to
design agile supply chain: Special focus to oil and gas industries.
Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management, 21(3),
263–281. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40171-020-00247-5.
PMI - Project Management Institute. (2017). Guide to the project
Management body of knowledge - Sixth Edition (Project
Management Institute, ed.). Pennsylvania USA.
Pollock, A., & Berge, E. (2018). How to do a systematic review.
International Journal of Stroke, 13(2), 138–156. https://doi.org/
10.1177/1747493017743796.
Pradeepini, G. (2019). Experimenting cloud infrastructure for tomor-
rows big data analytics. International Journal of Innovative
Technology and Exploring Engineering, 8(5), 885–890.
Prahalad, C. K., & Hamel, G. (1990). The Core Competence of the
Corporation. Harvard Business Review, 1–15.
Rahman, N., & Rutz, D. (2015). Building data warehouses using
automation. International Journal of Intelligent Information
Technologies, 11(2), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.4018/IJIIT.
201504010.
Raj, P., & Sinha, P. (2015). Project Management In Era Of Agile And
Devops Methodlogies. In: International Conference on Applied
Sciences, 9(1), 1024–1033.
Ramı́rez-Mora, S. L., Oktaba, H., & Patlan Perez, J. (2020). Group
maturity, team efficiency, and team effectiveness in software
development: A case study in a CMMI-DEV Level 5 organiza-
tion. Journal of Software: Evolution and Process, 32(4), e2232.
https://doi.org/10.1002/smr.2232.
Razavi, A. M., Nasir, M. H. N. M., Yasin, N. B. M., & Ahmad, R.
(2019). Cultural issues in offshore teams: A categorization based
on existing studies. KSII Transactions on Internet and Informa-
tion Systems (TIIS), 13(3), 1363–1384. https://doi.org/10.3837/
tiis.2019.03.014.
Ribeiro, P. C. (2020). Problemas na implantação do Jira: estudo de
caso em uma equipe de desenvolvimento de software. Tecnologia
em Gestão da Tecnologia da Informação-Unisul Virtual.
Rolón, M., & Martı́nez, E. (2012). Agent-based modeling and
simulation of an autonomic manufacturing execution system.
Computers in Industry, 63(1), 53–78. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
compind.2011.10.005.
Rosenkranz, C., Charaf, M. C., & Holten, R. (2013). Language quality
in requirements development: Tracing communication in the
process of information systems development. Journal of Infor-
mation Technology, 28(3), 198–223. https://doi.org/10.1057/jit.
2012.33
Ruas, R., Antonello, C. S., & Boff, L. H. (2005). Aprendizagem
organizacional e competeˆncias. Porto Alegre.
Salaou, A. D., Damian, D., Lassenius, C., Voda, D., & Gançarski, P.
(2021). Archetypes of delay: An analysis of online developer
conversations on delayed work items in IBM Jazz. Information
and Software Technology, 129, 106435. https://doi.org/10.1016/
j.infsof.2020.106435.
Sampaio, R. F., & Mancini, M. C. (2007). Estudos de revisão
sistemática: Um guia para sı́ntese criteriosa da evidência
cientı́fica. Brazilian Journal of Physical Therapy, 11, 83–89.
451
Sarpiri, M., & Gandomani, T. (2017). How Agile managers affect the
process of software development. International Journal of
Computer Science and Network Security, 17(5), 283–286.
Schloegel, U., Stegmann, S., Maedche, A., & Van Dick, R. (2016).
Reducing age stereotypes in software development: The effects
of awareness-and cooperation-based diversity interventions.
Journal of Systems and Software, 121, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.
1016/j.jss.2016.07.041.
Senapathi, M., & Drury-Grogan, M. L. (2021). Systems thinking
approach to implementing kanban: A case study. Journal of
Software: Evolution and Process, 33(4), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.
1002/smr.2322.
Serrador, P., & Pinto, J. K. (2015). Does Agile work? A quantitative
analysis of agile project success. International Journal of Project
Management, 33(5), 1040–1051. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpro
man.2015.01.006.
Seth, N., & Khare, R. (2015, December). ACI (automated Continuous
Integration) using Jenkins: Key for successful embedded Soft-
ware development. In: 2015 2nd International Conference on
Recent Advances in Engineering & Computational Sciences
(RAECS) (pp. 1–6). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/RAECS.2015.
7453279.
Shameem, M., Kumar, R. R., Kumar, C., Chandra, B., & Khan, A. A.
(2018). Prioritizing challenges of agile process in distributed
software development environment using analytic hierarchy
process. Journal of Software: Evolution and Process, 30(11),
e1979. https://doi.org/10.1002/smr.1979.
Shankar, P. R., & Narayana, M. G. (2013). Developing agile teams for
project execution: A cybernetic approach. Global Journal of
Flexible Systems Management, 14(1), 33–43. https://doi.org/10.
1007/s40171-013-0028-7.
Shekhar, S., & Kumar, U. (2016). Review of various software cost
estimation techniques. International Journal of Computer Appli-
cations, 141(11), 31–34.
Singh, R. K., Modgil, S., & Acharya, P. (2019). Assessment of supply
chain flexibility using system dynamics modeling. Global
Journal of Flexible Systems Management, 20(1), 39–63.
Stevenson, D. H., & Starkweather, J. A. (2010). PM critical
competency index: IT execs prefer soft skills. International
Journal of Project Management, 28(7), 663–671. https://doi.org/
10.1016/j.ijproman.2009.11.008.
Strode, D. E., Huff, S. L., Hope, B., & Link, S. (2012). Coordination
in co-located agile software development projects. Journal of
Systems and Software, 85(6), 1222–1238. https://doi.org/10.
1016/j.jss.2012.02.017.
Tan, T. A. G., & Vicente, A. J. (2019). An innovative experiential and
collaborative learning approach to an undergraduate marketing
management course: A case of the Philippines. The International
Journal of Management Education, 17(3), 1–18. https://doi.org/
10.1016/j.ijme.2019.100309.
Tiwari, P., & Suresha, B. (2021). Moderating role of project
innovativeness on project flexibility, project risk, project
performance, and business success in financial services. Global
Journal of Flexible Systems Management, 22(3), 179–196.
Tolfo, C., Wazlawick, R. S., Ferreira, M. G. G., & Forcellini, F. A.
(2018). Agile practices and the promotion of entrepreneurial
skills in software development. Journal of Software: Evolution
and Process, 30(9), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1002/smr.1945.
Tranfield, D., Denyer, D., & Smart, P. (2003). Towards a method-
ology for developing evidence-informed management knowl-
edge by means of systematic review. British Journal of
Management, 14(3), 207–222. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-
8551.00375.
Tripp, J. F., Riemenschneider, C., & Thatcher, J. B. (2016). Job
satisfaction in agile development teams: Agile development as
123
452 Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management (December 2022) 23(4):431–452
work redesign. Journal of the Association for Information
Systems, 17(4), 1. https://doi.org/10.17705/1jais.00426.
Trkman, M., Mendling, J., & Krisper, M. (2016). Using business
process models to better understand the dependencies among
user stories. Information and Software Technology, 71, 58–76.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infsof.2015.10.006.
Trkman, M., Mendling, J., Trkman, P., & Krisper, M. (2019). Impact
of the conceptual model’s representation format on identifying
and understanding user stories. Information and Software
Technology, 116, 106169. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infsof.2019.
08.001.
Varela-Vaca, A. J., & Gasca, R. M. (2013). Towards the automatic
and optimal selection of risk treatments for business processes
using a constraint programming approach. Information and
Software Technology, 55(11), 1948–1973. https://doi.org/10.
1016/j.infsof.2013.05.007.
Vlietland, J., Van Solingen, R., & Van Vliet, H. (2016). Aligning
codependent Scrum teams to enable fast business value delivery:
A governance framework and set of intervention actions. Journal
of Systems and Software, 113, 418–429. https://doi.org/10.1016/
j.jss.2015.11.010.
Wohlrab, R., Pelliccione, P., Knauss, E., & Larsson, M. (2019).
Boundary objects and their use in agile systems engineering.
Journal of Software: Evolution and Process, 31(5), 1–24. https://
doi.org/10.1002/smr.2166.
Yilmaz, R. (2017). Exploring the role of e-learning readiness on
student satisfaction and motivation in flipped classroom. Com-
puters in Human Behavior, 70, 251–260. https://doi.org/10.1016/
j.chb.2016.12.085.
Yin, X., Huang, J., He, W., Guo, W., Yu, H., & Cui, L. (2021). Group
task allocation approach for heterogeneous software crowd-
sourcing tasks. Peer-to-Peer Networking and Applications,
14(3), 1736–1747. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12083-020-01000-6.
Zaitsev, A., Gal, U., & Tan, B. (2020). Coordination artifacts in agile
software development. Information and Organization, 30(2),
1–23. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infoandorg.2020.100288.
Žužek, T., Kušar, J., Rihar, L., & Berlec, T. (2020). Agile-Concurrent
hybrid: A framework for concurrent product development using
Scrum. Concurrent Engineering, 28(4), 255–264. https://doi.org/
10.1177/1063293X20958541.
Key Questions for Further Reflection
1. How to adapt the competences to the complexity of the
activities?
2. How to build an environment beneficial to the development of
competencies suitable to the complexity and criticality of project
activities?
Publisher’s Note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to
jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Springer Nature or its licensor holds exclusive rights to this article
under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsh-
older(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of
this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing
agreement and applicable law.
123
José Romualdo da Costa Filho is Master in
Project Management and Researcher in Informa-
tion Technology. He is a systems architect in On
Premise and Cloud Computing environments,
specializing in IoT solutions and automated cus-
tomer service. He currently works as an IT Man-
ager with passage in large companies in the
aviation and customer service sector.
Renato Penha is Ph.D. in Business Administra-
tion and Master in Project Management. Systems
Manager for companies in the Financial, Services
and Customer Service segment. He currently leads
Information Technology projects in On Premise
and Cloud Computing environments. Professor
and scholar at the Stricto Sensu Professional
Postgraduate Program in Project Management at
UNINOVE. He is dedicated to agility studies and technical produc-
tions, such as patents and software.
Luciano Ferreira da Silva is Post-Doctorate in
Sustainability at PUC-Campinas, Doctorate in
Business Administration at Pontifical Catholic
University, PUC-SP, Master in Business Admin-
istration, Communication and Education at
Universidade São Marcos, Specialist in Organi-
zational Psychology, Specialist in Human
Resource Management and graduated in Business
Administration. Professor and scholar at the Postgraduate Program in
Project Management (PPGP) at Universidade Nove de Julho—
UNINOVE. He works with research about ‘‘Society 4.0 and the
Circular Economy’’ and ‘‘People Management and Project
Management’’.
Flavio Santino Bizarrias is professor and scholar
at the Postgraduate Program in Project Manage-
ment (PPGP) at Universidade Nove de Julho—
UNINOVE. He works as business consultant,
applying scientific knowledge to the challenges of
organizations. Post-doctorate in International
Marketing, Doctorate in Administration, and
Master degree in Administration. Research topics
of interest: marketing and project management, consumer behavior,
implicit (automatic) brand attitudes, crowding, and consumer identity.
Scientific Editor of the Journal of Management and Projects.