The organizational structure and learning capabilities of Agile Management

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The organizational structure and learning capabilities of Agile Management

A qualitative research at ING Netherlands

OLIVIER R. S. BERTELS

University of Groningen Faculty of Economics and Business

MSc. Business Administration Change Management

20 June 2016

Supervisor: Dr. I. Maris-de Bresser Co-assessor: Prof. Dr. E. W. Berghout

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2 Abstract

The structure of Agile Management remained unexplored in the academic literature. Therefore, this study first explores the structure of Agile Management. Secondly, this study reveals the significance of the operational process in supporting the organizational structure. Thirdly, this study analyzed how Agile Management stimulates learning on three levels; individual-, team-, and organizational learning, and therefore facilitates the development of a Learning Organization. A case study approach is applied to develop a comprehensive overview of these concepts. The selected case is ING Netherlands, one of the largest organizations operating in the Dutch banking and financial services industry. The results led to the development of a conceptual model of the formal structure, followed by a conceptual model of the operational process, referred to as sprints. Furthermore, this study addresses how Agile Management facilitates the development of the Learning Organization by analyzing the five disciplines.

Keywords: Agile Management, Organizational Structure, Individual, Group, Organizational Learning, Learning Organization

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1. INTRODUCTION

Today’s organizations face many significant new challenges, such as “increasing complexity, enhanced transparency, greater interconnection, shorter time horizons, economic and environmental instability, and demands to have a more positive impact on the world” (Robertson, 2015, p.8). A variety of scholars have called for organizations to be more flexible, adaptive, entrepreneurial, and innovative to effectively meet these changing demands of the environment (Sarros, Cooper, and Santora, 2008). Hence, organizations seek for competitive advantages to stand out and survive in today’s ever-changing environment. Managers seek a competitive advantage in innovation (Crossan and Apaydin, 2009; Ganter and Hecker, 2013; Seifried and Katz, 2015), in increasing the organization’s responsiveness (Meehan and Dawson, 2002; Holweg, 2005; Reichhart and Holweg, 2007), in the voluntarily adopted organizational structure (Soh and Sia, 2005), in market-based organizational learning (Vorhies and Morgen, 2005), and in continuous organizational transformation (Stebbing and Braganza, 2009).

The previous mentioned potential sources for a competitive advantage are combined in Organizational Innovation, commonly referred to as the development and implementation of new organizational forms, administrative systems, management practices, processes, techniques, and strategies to support a firm’s practice (Damanpour and Aravind, 2011; Ganter and Hecker, 2014; Seifried and Katz, 2015). Lam (2005) indicates three organizational elements within control of the organization which determine Organizational Innovation, specified as: Organizational Structure, Strategy, and Organizational Learning. The organization’s strategy is set primarily, since it establishes the criteria for the organizational structure (Galbraith, 2009). The structure has to enable continuous improvement by increasing organizational learning in order to survive (Denning, 2015). Organizations striving for excellence almost certainly pursue the highest form of organizational learning, which is referred to as the Learning Organization (Burnes, 2014).

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The only available literature are the success stories of Zappos (Shieh, 2010) and Spotify (Kniberg and Ivarsson, 2012), which revealed that the organizational structure of Agile Management is based on multiple self-organizing teams. The self-organizing teams have a positive relationship with the Learning Organization, yet insignificant on a general level (Power and Waddell, 2004). Hence, a literature gap remains how the organizational structure of Agile Management facilitates the development of the Learning Organization. This gap is confirmed by the request for “more quality research to assess the links between various types of [self-organizing] teams and organizational learning” (Power and Waddell, 2004, p. 247), where Agile Management is a structure based on self-organizing teams and the Learning Organization is the highest form of organizational learning. Although organizations strive to become and maintain the status of the Learning Organization, the team learning of self-managed teams does not necessarily translate to organizational learning, due to group communication failures with other levels of the organization (Power and Waddell, 2004). Whereas Agile Management is becoming more and more popular in organizations, in the academic literature the phenomenon is little addressed. Even more so, while in the literature a link is made between Agile Management and organizational learning, the nature of this link remains poorly researched.

Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore and refine our current understanding of the concept of Agile Management by analyzing its Organizational Structure and Strategy. Furthermore, this study explores the link between Agile Management and the Learning Organization, by using the five disciplines required to become a Learning Organization according to Senge (1990). Therefore, this study concentrates on the second link of figure 1.1, by analyzing how the organizational structure of Agile Management facilitates organizational learning. To make this study more concrete, the empirical and analytical focus will be on the practices and role of self-organizing teams within the organizational structure. This leads to the main research question:

Does the organizational structure of Agile Management facilitate the development of a Learning Organization?

Figure 1.1: The links between the three determinants of Organizational Innovation

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This study firstly responses to the call for more research on organizational innovation (Damanpour and Aravind, 2011), specifically to study organizational structure where innovation still finds fertile grounds (Ganter and Hecker, 2013). Secondly, this study responds to the request of Crossan and Apaydin (2010) for more studies to observe innovation as an outcome, namely the outcome of a new form of organizational structure and strategy of Agile Management. Lastly, the main response is to the request of future research to self-organizing teams and organizational learning (Power and Waddell, 2004). Therefore, this study contributes to the academic literature by exploring how Agile Management can facilitate the development of a Learning Organization. The majority of the literature studying a type of self-organized teams is based on manufacturing operations with little attention given to service organizations (Parker, Holesgrove, and Pathak, 2015). Power and Waddell (2004) suggests future research to self-organized teams in a broad range of industries. This study responds to these requests by studying a type of self-organized teams with a case study of a service organization in the banking and financial service sector.

In addition, this study has practical relevance by obtaining insights in both strategy and structure of an innovative organization operating in the banking and financial service sector. Organizations can use this information to adjust their current strategy and organizational form to survive or even gain a competitive advantage in the current market. More specifically, organizations willing to become a Learning Organization can use information about the role of Agile Management in developing the organization into a Learning Organization to maximize the transformation.

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2. LITERATURE REVIEW

This section discusses the literature on strategy and in specific ING’s strategy. Secondly, it discusses how the strategy led to the choice of organizational structure and the origin of the Agile Management Structure. Finally, this section discusses the concept of the Learning Organization and its five disciplines required in theory.

2.1 Agile Management

Agile Management is a broad term, used in different ways. Its origin can be found in managing software development, were a variety of radical management methodologies emerged, including Scrum, Kanban, XP and Continuous Deployment (Robertson, 2015). The common ideology is sometimes referred to as Agile, with four main elements: (1) work is done in self-organizing teams, (2) work is focused on directly meeting customers’ needs, (3) interaction with the customer is central, and (4) work proceeds in an iterative fashion and progress toward fulfilling the needs of customers is assesses at every stage (Denning, 2015). Although the methodology was developed for software development, several organizations tried to apply it to manage the organization, especially since the role of IT became more crucial in current times for organizations (Robertson, 2015).

Spotify understood the long-term value of the customers’ experience and re-examined their organization’s management practices, therefor was one of the first organizations which focused their business model on delivering a superior customer experience by changing their strategy and organizational structure (Denning, 2015; Kniberg and Ivarsson, 2012). Their new business model is referred to as the Spotify Model or more general Agile Management. Its development is based on the agile ideology and focusses on continuous innovating and revaluating their business model (Kniberg and Ivarsson, 2012). Other organizations followed by adapting their business strategy and organizational structure, such a Zappos and ING. The academic literature has not yet analysed this model. Sources are limited to success stories written by the leaders of the organizations (Kniberg and Ivarsson, 2012; Shieh, 2010).

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This thesis contributes to the literature firstly by studying how the strategy and organizational structure are formed in the Agile Management model. The first two elements of Lam (2005) are analysed how they are formed in Agile Management. Secondly, the thesis analysis the third element of Lam (2005) by analysing how organizational learning is facilitated by Agile Management. This study combines organizational learning with the concept of the Learning Organization, referred to as the highest status of organizational learning (Burnes, 2014).

2.2 Strategy

The strategy sets the long-term direction of the organization by specifying the goals and objectives to be achieved as well as the values and missions to be pursued (Galbraith, 2009). The organization’s strategy defines unambiguously the products and services provided, the markets served, and the value offered to the customer. This process reveals the potential competitive advantages intended to be attained by the organization. The strategy is the first component addressed in organizational design, because establishes the criteria for choosing the organizational form (Galbraith, 2009; Yin and Zajac, 2004). Hence, ING’s strategy led to the implementation of the present agile structure.

ING’s strategy can be found in their annual report (2015, p. 10), which states the organization’s strategy as: “to deliver on our Customer Promise and create a differentiating customer experience”. According to ING’s annual report, their Customer Promise is to be clear and easy, to make financial services available anytime-anywhere, to empower and to keep getting better for customers. In this case, the empowerment refers to both the employees in autonomous work teams as to the customers to make informed smart financial decisions. Furthermore, ING identified four enablers to support the implementation of their strategy, specified as: “simplifying and streamlining our organization, further striving for operational excellence, enhancing the performance culture within our company and expanding our lending capabilities” (Annual Report, 2015, p. 12). The first three enablers can and have to be supported by the organizational structure. Only the latter refers to a financial aspect, therefore it is less relevant for this study.

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9 2.3 Organizational Structure

Jaques (1989) provides a simple distinction between three types or meanings of structure every organization has to consider. The first is the formal structure, which is described as the organization chart and the job descriptions. The organizations develop this structure themselves and the employees are often aware of how it looks. However, the formal structure is often far removed from the day-to-day events and needs of the organization and therefore it can be considered quickly outdated (Robertson, 2015). The second structure Jaques (1989) provides is the extant structure, which describes how the organization is actually operating. This structure is shaped by personal relationships and politics. Cultural norms develop as employees work for a longer period with each other and eventually routines develop where people will work around the formal structure when they can get quicker results (Robertson, 2015). The third structure is the requisite structure, which is described as the most natural and best-suited structure for the organization’s purpose (Jaques, 1989).

In the hierarchical bureaucracies the top is too far removed from the customer to understand their needs. Besides, the organization’s responsiveness is slowed down by the number of hierarchical layers (Denning, 2015). A gap occurs between the extant structure (what is) and the requisite structure (what should be). This gap led to the request for a flexible formal structure, one which is continually redefined and modified. This evolutionary structure should learn from its employees, stakeholders and environment, which is similar to the objective of the Learning Organization (Senge, 1990).

The structure of Agile Management is only described in the success stories of Zappos (Shieh, 2010) and Spotify (2012) in the form of a book, blogs, and online video’s. These stories reveal a part of the structure, yet remain unreliable to use as a source for this academic study. Therefore, this study explores the structure by its shape and distribution of power, two of the most important areas of structure policies (Galbraith, 2009).

2.4 Learning Organization

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the highest status of organizational learning (Burnes, 2014), which requires the organization to continuously improve (Bass, 2000).

The distinction of Argyris and Schön (1978) of three different levels of learning can be used to explain the difference between organizational learning and the Learning Organization. Their first level is the single-loop learning, which occurs when “errors are corrected without altering the underlying governing values” (Argyris, 2002, p. 206). It is the most basic level of detection and correction of an error and tends to leave the organizational objectives and process unchanged (Davies and Nutley, 2000). The second level is the double-loop learning, which occurs when “errors are corrected by changing the governing values and then the actions” (Argyris, 2002, p. 206). This is reconstructive learning, which leads to organizations reconsidering and redefining their basic norms, values, policies, operating procedures, or even structures (Burnes, 2014; Davies and Nutley, 2002). The third level is the triple-loop learning and is inspired by Argyris and Schön, nevertheless the term is never explicitly used in any of their published work (Tosey, Visser, and Saunders, 2012). The conceptualizations are therefore diverse and leading to misunderstanding in the academic literature. Firstly, several authors refer to triple-loop learning as Argyris used Deutero-learning (Romme and Van Witteloostuijn, 1999; Yuthas, Dillard, and Rogers, 2004), which occurs “by going meta on single- or double-loop learning” (Argyris, 2003, p. 1179). Therefore triple-loop learning is also referred to as meta-learning, which reflects the attempts to learn about and improve the organization’s ability to learn (Davies and Nutley, 2002). To improve the single-loop learning implies “to improve performance at an increasing rate” (Toset et al., 2012, p. 295). To learn to double-loop learning implies “to carry out the reflection on and inquiry into governing variables, values, and norms underlying organizational action” (Tosey et al., 2012, p. 295). Secondly, authors refer to triple-loop learning as something above singe- and double-loop learning and is concerned with the underlying purpose, principles, or paradigms (Tosey et al., 2012) and even radically transforming the organization (Burnes, 2014). This would mean a change in the governs that change the governing variables of the double-loop learning. Both conceptualizations contain the aspect of learning to learn. Therefore, this study will refer to triple-loop learning as meta-learning by re-evaluating the process of the double-loop learning. It will dismiss the aspect of radical transformation, due to low relevance with and occurrence in Learning Organizations.

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often to maintain or improve the organization’s flexibility, innovativeness, and responsiveness to the changing consumer’s wants and needs (Davies and Nutley, 2002). In order to enable the continuous innovation, the Learning Organization seeks to develop an organic structure that can maintain these organizational aspects. Agile Management is seen in the literature as such an organic structure that supports the learning organization. The question that remains unanswered and that will be addressed in this study, is how Agile Management achieve this.

Disciplines of the Learning Organization

Senge (1990) is seen as the most influential writer when it comes to the Learning Organization (Burnes, 2014). He proposes five interrelated disciplines that Learning Organizations need to foster to stimulate learning on all levels. These five disciplines can be seen as the main features of the Learning Organization and are, according to Davies and Nutley (2002), less related to the organizational structure and more to the way employees think about the nature of and the relationship between the organization and its environment. However, the organizational structure has to enable the disciplines in order to maximize the benefits of being a Learning Organization. Theoretically, the organic organizational structure of Agile Management has to meet the following five interrelated disciplines according to Senge (1990):

1. Personal mastery: the individual growth, learning skills and the willingness to learn (Burnes, 2014; Senge, 1990; Yeo, 2005). The individual within the organization must aim for continuously improvement of their personal proficiencies when the organization strives for excellence (Davies and Nutley, 2002). 2. Mental models: the deeply held assumptions and generalizations that affect the way individuals make sense of their environment – how they think about people, situations, and organizations (Burnes, 2014; Davies and Nutley, 2002; Senge, 1990). Changing and updating these mental models is essential when organizations aim for finding new methods of doings things (Davies and Nutley, 2002).

3. Cohesive vision: the development of a clear strategic direction of the organization (Burnes, 2014; Davies and Nutley, 2002; Senge, 1990). The understanding of and commitment to a cohesive vision is crucial for an organization to become or to maintain a Learning Organization (Davies and Nutley, 2002). Therefore, a balance has to be found between the individuals’ empowerment and enabling and the shared vision and guiding of the organization (Davies and Nutley, 2002).

4. Team learning: the shift from individual learning to collective learning (Burnes, 2014; Senge, 1990). Learning Organizations often achieve their goals through self-managing teams (Power and Waddell, 2004). Hence the development of the team learning is vital for the Learning Organization’s performance (Davies and Nutley, 2002).

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focuses on seeing patterns instead of isolated events and forces to react on those patterns (Burnes, 2014; Davies and Nutley, 2002).

According to Senge (1990, p. 12), it is “vital that the five disciplines develop as an ensemble”. Both personal mastery and mental models are the individual disciplines with the purpose to be utilized as part of the interaction process with the other three disciplines (Yeo, 2005). The cohesive or shared vision and team learning are collective disciplines, just like the open system thinking. The latter discipline deserves more attention because it could play a dual role: “one as a skill to help organization members in their learning process, and two as an integrative approach to a more effective operation of the five disciplines” (Yeo, 2005, p. 374). According to Steiner (1998), a holistic approach is needed to assure the disciplines develop as an ensemble and to overcome organizational barriers.

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3. METHODOLOGY

This section discusses the methods used in order to be capable to answer the main research question and the methodological choices made during this research process.

3.1 Research Design

The aim of this study is to gain insight into how Agile Management can facilitate the development of the Learning Organization. This research starts with the exploration of the concept Agile Management as a new organizational structure and describes how this structure facilitates organizational learning. This study aims to answer how-questions, such as ‘how is the organizational structure formed?’ and ‘how does it facilitate organizational learning?’. Therefore, this study is descriptive in nature (Merriam, 2002). This description will develop one analysis how am agile organization develops a structure to facilitate organizational learning. Qualitative research methods are utilized to acquire the data to answer the main research question, because this method suits best to answer the question how the two concepts are linked (Cooper and Schindler, 2008).

The study applies theory development, which is gradually becoming more influential (Blumberg, Cooper, and Schindler, 2014). Consequently, the eight steps of Eisenhardt (1989) for theory development are followed, specified as: getting started, selecting case(s), crafting instruments and protocols, entering the field, analyzing data, shaping hypotheses, enfolding literature, and reaching closure.

The study started in February 2016 and selected a single case. The organization under study is ING Netherlands. They recently adapted the Agile Management methodology, changing their strategy and organizational structure to increase the organization’s flexibility and responsiveness to deliver a superior customer experience. More information of the organization is revealed in the next paragraph. The following step was developing interview protocols to ensure consistency and to conduct the interviews during diverse times within a two-month period. Subsequently, the collected data is transcribed, coded, and analyzed to establish the results (Corbin and Strauss, 2008). Propositions are formed through pattern matching (Yin, 2003). Finally, these propositions are compared to the existing literature to distinguish similarities or differences in need of elaboration.

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14 3.2 Case Study

The selected case is the organization ING Netherlands. The organization is one of the largest organizations operating in the Banking and Financial Services industry in the Netherlands, with nationally 16.000 employees and globally over 54.000 employees (Annual report, 2015). ING’s headquarter, located in Amsterdam, began to transform its organizational structure and strategy in July 2015 to Agile Management. The implementation is completed, but the organization continuously improves. This decision to transform had an immense impact on the way of working for 2.000 employees of ING. The operational process, the hierarchical structure and communication lines, and the daily operations changed.

This study in conducted at three tribes [former departments] of ING; Experience Omnichannel, Payment Service, and Customer Information Management. Fourteen squad-members from seven different squads volunteered to cooperate from these three tribes, leading to a diverse group of participants, as displayed in figure 3.1. The function of each member is discussed in the following paragraph.

Function title Number of participants

Squadmember: IT-expert 2

Squadmember: Customer Journey Expert 2

Product Owner 2

Chapter Lead 6

Integrator 1

Agile Coach 1

Figure 3.1: Number of participants per function level

This case is selected based on the widespread news of their transformation to Agile Management. ING claimed their structure is based on the structure of Zappos and Spotify. The organization’s transformation is unique in its kind, as the first large organizations adapting Agile Management and their operations in the banking and financial services industry.

3.3 Data Collection

Primary data is collected to answer the main research question of this study. The data consists of interviews, observations, and internal documents.

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The fourteen participants are from seven different squads from the three tribes. Each participant volunteered to cooperate for the interview. Each interview took approximately one hour and was held at a conference room at their office. Anonymity was promised to stimulate the interviewee to talk freely about the subjects. The interviews are recorded and made into transcripts, which are checked by the interviewee to review for possible needed corrections and to avoid interpretation differences. The complete interview guide is displayed in appendix II and the interviewees function and abbreviation are displayed in appendix III.

Observations. The opportunity to make observations between interviews was allowed by the organization. This created the opportunity to experience the working environment and the daily operational processes. The purpose of the observations was to complement the data of the interviews and lead to several extra questions to understand the complete situation or to confirm the interpretation of the made observation. The observations were unstructured and meant to get a feel of the Agile Management in practice.

Internal documents. The organization allowed me to view several documents for internal purpose only, such as the report for the transformation. This report contained information of the guide to, rationale, and the consequences of the change. Furthermore, it describes the new organizational structure in detail. These documents have been treated confidential and approval is asked for any used information from these documents. The documents represented an objective presentation of the organizational structure.

3.4 Data Analysis

This study applies the grounded theory approach, which is a general methodology of analysis linked to qualitative data collection with specific methods to generate an inductive theory about a substantive area (Glaser, 1992). This specific method exists of three levels of coding: open coding, axial coding and selective coding. First, open coding is conducted. The transcripts are read numerous times to identify, name, categorize, and describe phenomena found.

Second, the axial coding was executed to disaggregate core themes during the data analysis (Corbin and Strauss, 2008). Core themes related to the phenomenon under study are the Agile Management’s Organizational Structure and its Operational Process. Core themes to analyze the link between Agile Management and the Learning Organization are the five disciplines of the Learning Organization. Axial coding applies the combination of deductive and inductive approaches. The deductive codes originated from existing literature.

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this process, concepts are related to the core themes. The complete protocol and codebook are displayed in appendix II and IV.

3.5 Research Quality Criteria

The most important research-oriented criteria are controllability, reliability and validity. Together they are the basis for inter-subjective agreement and will be measured to improve the inter-subjective agreement of the research results (van Aken, Berends, and van der Bij, 2012). The reliability, internal, and external validity determine the quality of the gathered data.

Controllability. The first criterion is controllability, which is a prerequisite for the evaluation of validity and reliability (van Aken et al., 2012). A detailed description of the study is offered and added to this section, so others can replicate it and check whether they get the same answers. Focus points are not merely how the data is collected, but also how respondents are selected and what sort of questions were asked.

Reliability. It is the second criterion, which can be differentiated into four factors: reliability of (1) the researchers, (2) the instruments, (3) the respondents, and (4) the circumstances. All biases should be limited as much as possible. The first factor, the researcher bias, is limited because the study is conducted by an independent researcher without any link to the organization. Additionally, to prevent any researcher’s interpretations, all conducted interviews are recorded and made into literal transcriptions. The second factor is the reliability of the instruments. The data collection is discussed in a previous paragraph to describe the combination of multiple sources of evidence. The reliability in the interviews is maintained by formulating an interview protocol (appendix II), which displays the structural questions used during each interview. This interview guide is used as the protocol for the case study, as Yin (2003, 2013) proposed to improve repeatability of the operations of the case study. The third factor is the reliability of the respondents, which have to represent the respondents in general. The number of interviews is set at fourteen, to ensure generalization of the qualitative data. An HR-manager asked employees who voluntarily wanted to sign in for participation to the interviews. This led to a diverse group of participants from several departments (tribes), with different level of functions. The overview of this sample is displayed in figure 3.1 above. All participants were promised anonymity to create an environment where they could speak freely. The fourth reliability factor is the circumstance. This is preserved by carrying out the interviews at different moments in a period of two months.

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4. RESULTS

This section presents the empirical findings of this study. First, the organizational structure of Agile Management is discussed, containing several groups and roles. This part is followed by an conceptual overview of the formal tribe structure. Secondly, additional aspects supporting the structure are presented. Finally, the methods of facilitating the five disciplines of the Learning Organization are discussed. In order to ensure the anonymity of the interviewees, every participant is referred to by its abbreviation, displayed in appendix III.

4.1 Agile Management Structure

According to the strategy in ING’s annual report (2015), the formal structure of Agile Management needs to simplify and streamline the organization, yet it should also be cable to evolve and continuously change to improve. A conceptual model is developed, displayed in figure 4.1, based on the qualitative data collected. The reason that the results start with a conceptual model, is that this model supports the development of a comprehensive understanding of the structure. A clear overview presents the structure more clearly than a mere description. Additionally, it helps to place the description into context. The structure contains three type of groups, the squads, chapters, and tribes. Within each group are several specific roles. Each group and role within the structure is discussed in detail in the following paragraph.

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The organizational structure applied is based on a number of principles, set by ING’s board of directors in an internal document developed for the implementation, displayed in figure 4.1.

ING’s twelve principles for organizational design: 1. We work in self-organizing, autonomous squads.

2. A squad is end-to-end responsible for its customer-related mission. 3. Squad are multidisciplinary.

4. The mission of a squad is set, the squad’s composition is flexible. 5. When the mission is completed, the squad will be dismissed.

6. If possible, the work is done in squads. Only a selected group of experts operate from the Centers of Expertise.

7. A maximum of nine members per squad. 8. Squads operate from a joint, fixed location. 9. Related squads are part of an overarching tribe. 10. A maximum of 150 people in a tribe.

11. Three roles support squads to achieve their mission: Product Owner, Chapter Lead, and Agile Coaches.

12. There is no final organizational structure, the model evolves continuously.

Figure 4.2: The twelve principles for organizational design.

Squads. The functional groups in which every individual operates are called squads, which are regarded to be the fundamental units of the organization in the internal document. As CL5 puts it “working Agile is just operating with your squad” when referring to the way of working at the organization.

In the case study of this thesis, there were members of seven different operating squads from three tribes interviewed. All twelve principles are discussed and compared with this case in the following paragraphs, yet not necessarily in the same order. The first eight principles relate to the squads and therefore are discussed first.

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branches around the country” according to CJE2. Besides the CJE, each squad has one or more IT-experts to develop the specific products or features needed to satisfy the customers. The internal document states that the number of CJEs and IT-experts depends on the purpose of the squad. All interviewees confirmed the practical appliance of this. The combination of IT- and CJ-experts makes the squads multidisciplinary, especially because within the expertise, everyone has its own specialty. For instance, IT1 worked at the back-end of his squad’s product while IT2 worked at the front-end. Both work at the same product, but have different programming skills. PO1 summarized it as “a squad means you form a team with people with multiple disciplines, which is your home base. With this squad you try to achieve a certain mission”. The formation and combination of different experts confirms the appliance of principle 3, teams are multidisciplinary, in practice.

A squad does not have a formally appointed leader, but it does have a Product Owner (PO). PO2 describes their responsibility as “prioritizing the work that needs to be done by the squad”. AC1 emphasizes “their role is to focus on the product, to deliver a certain quality and on time”. PO1 and PO2 perceive their role similar to the former manager role, with the difference that they are “for roughly sixty percent of the time operating as a squad-member as well”. They are part of the team and not hierarchical above them like the former manager. Therefore they have to operate as a regular member and have to bring input for the team as well. This makes the role of PO an ancillary position, which is “99.9% of the time filled by a Customer Journey Expert, because they know what kind of products the customers want” according to IN1.

Squad size. The size of the squads is determined at a maximum of nine individuals in total, defined by management in principle 7. The internal document states the maximum number is set to create a team spirit and moreover to ensure a workable group size. CL4 highlights that “from my experience, nine members make it possible to listen to everyone, yet you can still make quick decisions or reach consensus when needed”. Hence, this confirms that the group size is workable or even efficient. Conversely, IT1 revealed that in practice “squads at ING are between 8 and 11 people”. None of the interviewees was part of a squad exceeding the maximum number of members, yet the internal document confirms two squads exceeding the maximum. This can be considered an exception due to high number of squads within the organization. ING has in total over 200 squads, therefore only 1% of the squads exceeds the limit of nine members. These two squad contain only members of the same unique expertise. Hence, one can conclude that principle 7 can be seen as a directive were exceptions are only possible in extraordinary cases.

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leads to easy communication with other squads and a transparent working environment. These observations are confirmed by the interviewees, for example by IT1 “we just walk to our neighbor squad when we want to discuss something” and CL2 “as a chapterlead, I am always open to discuss things or to brainstorm solutions”.

Squad’s purpose. Every squad has its own long-term purpose, which is always a part of the overall purpose of the overarching group referred to as tribe. For example, the tribe Experience Omnichannel is responsible for determining the digital image of ING for all channels, e.g. mobile and website. IT1 operates in this tribe and formulated his squad’s purpose as “to optimize the search engine for the website”. This purpose marks their domain (the website) and their responsibility (the search engine). Together with other squads, they are responsible for the functionality of ING’s website, therefore squads can share a domain. Yet a part of this domain becomes the squad’s responsibility and the focus of their mission, according to IT1, IT2, PO1 and PO2. The internal document states other squads have their own customer-related mission with an explicit domain and responsibility, such as improving the mobile app or focusing on new and innovative customer experiences. This confirms the practice of principle 2: A squad is end-to-end responsible for its customer-related mission.

Furthermore, the squads are responsible for achieving their mission and hereby have the authority to change the composition of the team to achieve this. PO2 illustrates this with “we [the squad] decide if we need a new member with a specific expertise or if one of the current members has to learn a skill to achieve the task”. Hence, this confirms principle 4: the mission of a squad is set, the squad’s composition is flexible.

Additionally, principle 5 states: the squad will be dismissed when the mission is achieved. Conversely, AC1 reveals that in practice “teams are hardly ever truly finished or they will receive another mission to accomplish”. This principle is set as a directive, so employees can easily shift from one squad to another when the mission is accomplished. Yet IT2 states “squads have been terminated and squad-members have been replaced, yet not necessarily because the mission was finished”. For instance, he changed twice from squad due to reorganization within the tribe.

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decisions are made with consensus. The structure supports the squads to operate independent (autonomous), by setting clear domains and missions for each squad. Po2 states “as a squad we have to mandate to operate on our purpose, as long as we do not cross the domains of other squads”. When domains or missions cross, it requires alignment to achieve the overall mission. This alignment of the operational process, which turned out to play a crucial role in the facilitation of the organizational structure, therefore is discussed in detail in a later section.

Informal contact. The twelve principle set by ING’s board are intended to organize the functional side of the operational process. Yet according to the majority of the interviewees, the contact between squad-members is also an important aspect of Agile Management. As the fundamental units of the organization, the self-organizing teams need to “feel as a home base” according to PO1 and CJE2 refers to it as “a place where we can feel and be ourselves“. Communication, both formal and informal, supports sharing mutual perspectives and both giving and receiving feedback to learn how to improve. This is encouraged by the twelve principles set by management, like letting the squad operate from a joint, fixed location and limiting the group size to nine members. CL6 confirms the accomplishment of this with “you talk with each other every day and you sit with each other every day. You get to know each other quite well very fast”, so members become “attuned with the team after some time”. An example of informal contact specified by IT1 “we have a WhatsApp group, go out for drinks and other social activities. Maybe we would even go on holidays”. This type of informal contact promotes team bonding and therefore a positive working environment.

Tribes and Center of Expertise. The internal document states ING consists of twelve tribes and one Center of Expertise (CoE), replacing the departments of the former organizational structure. Each tribe is a collection of squads with interconnected purposes, which are coordinated by one tribe leader. All interviewees confirmed that every squad is part of one tribe, therefore supporting the practice of principle 9. The internal document illustrates that at ING, the number of squads within a tribe varies between 8 and 35 squads, depending on the number of people in the tribe. This can range from 60 to 314 FTEs.

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been split to smaller groups”. The squads were highly interrelated with each other and needed relatively a lot of communication to operate efficiently.

According to the internal document, the task of the tribelead is to ensure that knowledge and insights are shared, to establish priorities, and allocate available budgets. Furthermore, it is his function to provide the most appropriate habitat for the squads within that tribe. The tribe lead also forms the interface with other tribes and ensures alignment cross tribes.

As principle 6 states: all operations are done in squads, with the exception of several communication experts, which collectively form the Center of Expertise (CoE). This group is unique due the requirement to support all the other tribes. The internal document formulate their purpose as to deliver a powerful and differentiating customer experience, applying all available sorts of media and resources. Just like the tribes, the CoE contains 80 experts divided in twelve squads, with each their own purpose and domain.

Chapters. Each squad-member is also placed in a second group called the chapter, which contains people from different squads but with the same expertise, according the internal document. All interviewees state they are part of a chapter containing members with the same expertise or one which most accurate resembles their expertise. For example, the IT-expert from squad1 with the expertise front-end development is in a chapter with other IT-experts from several squads within the tribe, all with the same front-end development skills. Coordination between the members takes place so they can learn from each other, as CL4 framed it “by discussing their methods of working, their results, and their obstacles”. The chapterleads (CL1, CL2, CL3) describe their role as a coach, who facilitates the work of the chapter-members. They take the responsibility for personal development, coaching and the performance management cycle for individual squad-members. Each chapterlead will perform these duties in addition to their regular day-to-day job in their own squad.

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the healthy tension. The integrator is responsible to integrate two or multiple squads in cases where they have to operate on the same domain. The Agile coach’s objective is to let both individuals as teams grow in the operational process. The emphasis lies on learning to learn, also referred to as triple-loop learning. The tribes at ING are supported by two to six agile coaches, approximately one per 35 employees. The TL provides the most suitable environment for his squads to operate in. Three roles support squads to achieve their mission: Product Owner, Chapter Lead, and Agile Coaches, according to principle 10. The practical appliance is confirmed by the qualitative data and specifically confirmed by several employees executing these roles [PO1, PO2, CL1, CL2, AC].

Role Focus

Squad-member Product development and implementation Product Owner Product objectives

Chapterlead Personal development

Agile Coach Process

Integrator Integration of squads

Tribelead Coordination of the tribe

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The formal organizational structure. Agile Management uses a matrix format, but with different principles than regular organizations applying a matrix format. At the start of the section, the conceptual model is presented in figure 4.1. This model displays a conceptual model of the formal tribe structure applied at ING, based on the empirical data. Additionally, four employees [CL5, CL6, IN, AC] confirmed this conceptual model to be accurate for the case of ING. AC, in his role of Agile Coach, could even confirm this model would suite other agile organizations as well. This confirmation is relevant for the model’s validity.

However, principle 12 states: there is no final organizational structure, the model evolves continuously. According the four interviewees [CL5, CL6, IN, AC], the formal tribe structure remains the same but the composition of the structure change. Squads can transfer from tribe to tribe as a collective and individuals from one squad can transfer to another squad when needed. Nevertheless, the conceptual model of 4.1 remains the same, according to these interviewees.

4.2 Additional significant aspects

During the interviews, the significance of the daily operations method came to the surface. Besides the daily operations, it is relevant to analyze how the teams communicate with each other, or more specific, how they align. Solo operating teams will lead to chaos, therefore alignment is necessary to achieve an overall purpose. The operational process and alignment turned out to be intertwined with the structure of Agile Management and necessary to enable learning on all three levels; individual, group, and organizational.

The sprint. The self-organizing squads operate in sprints, which is an iterative process with a duration of two or three weeks. During this period, the squads has several meetings, each with its own purpose. A conceptual model of a two-week sprint is displayed in figure 4.1. The model is based on the empirical data collected and its accuracy is confirmed by four interviewees [CL5, CL6, IN, AC].

Figure 4.3: A conceptual model of a two week sprint

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In the planning sessions, the team discusses all tasks for the upcoming sprint. This session can take between two or three hours, but can be slimmed down by improving the refinement sessions. All the tasks for the sprint, referred by the team as stories, are placed on a backlog. This tool shows what the team is working on at the moment and what it has in the planning for other sprints. The Product Owner (PO) decides the priorities, which have to be aligned with the purpose of the tribe and the other squads. This alignment is established in a meeting referred to as the marketplace, which is discussed in detail in the following section.

During the sprint, the squad will meet at the daily stand-up, often held as first thing in the morning. This brief session takes approximately ten minutes. The goal of this short meeting is described by PO2 as “to discuss any obstacles or share information possible needed by team members, so we can start working aligned”.

Every once a week is a refinement sessions planned. This meeting’s objective is to refine tasks for the future, reflect potential obstacles or cross-tribe dependencies. As IT2 puts it “to get a better understanding of the stories, to divide the stories, to estimate and to make smaller tasks out of it”. The duration of a refinement session depends on the number and variety of tasks to refine, but is on average between two and three hours.

The stories placed on a backlog always include a definition of done, which describes the criteria for when a story is truly completed. This definition is formed collectively in the planning sessions. The evaluation session is held at the end of each sprint, when the criteria are accomplished. This session’s objective, also referred to as the retrospective, is to “see how we can improve things for the squads” according to CJE1. During this session, the employees review their progress of previous sprint, but also in comparison with earlier sprints.

The Agile Coach can support any of these sessions, although extra attention goes to the evaluation session. This session emphasize the improvement of both the individual as the team (learning) skills.

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The alignment is necessary to decrease the chance to interfere which each other work and stimulate modular working. IT1 states “a team works fastest when they can work modular”. Dependencies on other squads or even tribes are perceived to be a threat for the speeds of operations by the majority of the interviewees. The squads are free to operate in their own strict defined domain. Squads receive the mandate to operate on their domain as long as it does not jeopardize the work of others. However, with complex systems, domains easily cross which requires alignment. The marketplace increases the awareness of the progress of other squads and exposes possible dependencies forthcoming. This creates the possibility to decrease dependencies or plan them to limit any delay in the operational process.

Even though the marketplace is a two-weekly happening, just like the sprints, they do not necessary have to be synchronously. According to the IN, the marketplace is often planned at the same day at the same time, yet the sprint’s start can shift when task are earlier accomplished as planned. Besides, the sprint starting date can differ for each squad.

Quarterly Business Reviews. Every three months the Quarterly Business Reviews (QBR) are formed, which is an official report presenting the progress of the past three months and the general direction set for the next quarter. According to the CL5, this report captures the essence of the marketplace meetings of each tribe. The input for both previous progress and future direction comes from the squads. The direction for the future contains the focus of the organization and the set directives, such as the selection of a specific programming tool for developing mobile applications. This selection is made by the chapterlead and his chapter-members, who are the experts of this area. CL6 emphasizes that although the input process is bottom-up, the direction is presented top-down.

4.3 Learning Organization‘s five main disciplines

Theoretically, the Learning Organization requires to address five disciplines in order to achieve or maintain the status. This paragraph elaborates on how ING accomplishes to facilitate each of the five disciplines.

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The second aspect is the opportunities offered by the organization to follow a wide variety of courses during work hours. “If someone signs online up for a course, I [the chapterlead] get a notification. Only if it takes an excessive amount of time or budget, they will need my approval, but the organization is always stimulating to learn” according to CL6. Some of the provided courses are given in person at their office, other can be followed online. These courses can train the individual in hard skills and/or soft skills. Training in hard skills are facilitated to improve an individual’s technical excellence, such as specific programming skills or analyzing data skills. Training in soft skills are intended to improve the team cooperation and learning to learn, such as becoming more assertive in discussions. The majority of the interviewees perceive the organization to offer a lot of time and budget so employees have the chance for personal development.

The third aspect to stimulate personal development is the moments with the chapter-members. As mentioned in the organizational structure, the purpose of the chapter is to share information, problems, and results. These meetings are for employees with the same expertise, therefore they can understand the technical difficulties of a problem and discuss possible solutions. IT2 shared his experience with the chapter as “if I got a problem with front-end programming, I can go to my chapterlead. He often has a solutions or plans a meeting to discuss it with the other chapter-members”. Besides sharing information between chapter-members, CL2 clarifies the task of the chapterlead as “it is not in the nature of employees to always learn, so we [chapterleads] stimulate this by suggesting specific courses for our members”.

The fourth and last aspect is the Agile Coach, who serves to train employees in growing in soft skills. Giving and receiving feedback is perceived as an important aspect for self-organizing teams, in theory and by the majority of the interviewees. AC1 describes his training to strengthen the process of giving and receiving feedback, so “the squad becomes more self-organizing”. Looking at the combination of all four previous mentioned aspects, it can be said that the individual and the organization strive for excellence by continuous improvement.

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Beside the new role of CJE, the squads are formed with a combination of IT-experts and CJEs. CL6 states “the combination of Business people and IT people in one team, who explain each other’s way of thinking”. Hence, the set-up of the squads encourages to share assumptions and generalizations and possibly adjust them when needed.

The fact that the squad-members have different expertise increases the benefits of the retrospectives. CJE1 confirmed the evolvement of the perspective with “our perspectives evolve due to the constant evaluations within the teams”. IT1 elaborated “when we made the wrong assumptions, we evaluate why we made them and how we can prevent it from happening again”. The retrospectives discusses mistakes made and ensures adjustment of the perspectives and assumptions to prevent making the same mistakes again. CL4 captures the outcome as “due to the retrospectives we find the best practice and continue working with it”.

Cohesive vision. The organization has an overall mission and multiple tribes to focus on parts of this mission, according to the internal document. It describes the purpose of the tribe Payment Service as: to deliver stable and innovative payment solutions for the customers. This tribe is the largest tribe of ING, with 35 squads. These squads are divided to sub-purposes. In this case, the tribe payment services exists of 7 squads for Payment services, 5 Application, 5 Control, 5 Cards, 5 Transactions, 4 Business, 2 Innovation, 1 IT building blocks, and 1 for Customer Journey Analysis. Within each sub-purpose, each squad has its own mission and domain, as described in a previous section when discussing the organizational structure.

The squad’s mission is always part of the tribe’s mission. The missions are aligned at the marketplace and in the Quarterly Business Review (QBR) – an official report. The QBR summarizes the progress of previous quarter and sets a general direction for the next quarter. This makes the progress transparent, just like the current squad’s purpose as IT2 states “the purpose of squads are transparent. Everyone can view them on our portfolio wall”. CL1 contributes that the QBR are relevant because it represents the direction set by management and by stating “management support is important to make us committed to the vision”.

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necessary to completely understand all tasks”, but squad-members always keep each other updated on their activities. Hence, the squad trusts each other, as employee with a certain expertise, to successfully achieve their part of the sprint.

The second aspect is the retrospectives held at the end of each sprint. According to AC, these sessions are meant to give and receive feedback so the team improves their performance. CL5 demonstrates the practice of the sessions as “I think it is not for everyone easy to get feedback every two-weeks .. [but] eventually you see the teams come stronger out of it”. The team assesses the progress of both the individuals as the squad as a collective. IN1 states that the weaknesses are revealed during these sessions and solutions are thought of within the squad or the chapter.

The third aspect is the Agile Coach, who ensures the quality of the processes. All interviewees state that this role supports the facilitation of the retrospectives and ensures that squad-members address each other’s weaknesses. AC1 emphasized that it is crucial that squad-members help each other to grow continuously. If the weaknesses are someone’s soft skills, he can coach them to improve their skills. If the weakness is a lack of technical excellence, the employees can address the situation in their chapter and follow additional courses to gain the required skills. If the skill is required on a regular basis, another option can be to adopt a new squad-member.

The option to adopt a new squad-member is possible due to the autonomy of the squad, which is the fourth aspect. The teams are required and mandated to self-regulate their operations. It is their responsibility to successfully achieve their sprints and work on the overall purpose of the tribe. CL4 describes the individual responsibility as “among other things, I believe the reorganization made employees more aware of the changing environment and what their part has to be in it”. The autonomy and responsibility brought an increased awareness that results have to be delivered as a collective and it is the individual’s responsibility to deliver his part for the team.

Open system thinking. This last discussed discipline is perceived to be the most important (Burnes, 2014), yet also the most complicated to analyze. All participants struggled to answer who is responsible for recognizing patterns. CL4 states that “we are still searching for a balance between direction from above and autonomy for the teams”.

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experts of the same expertise and the people who have to work with the tool eventually. The decision is made when consensus is reached. CL5 admits “we are still in transformation, so we are still finding out how to optimize this”.

Hence, the chapterleads recommend directives relevant for their expertise to the tribelead, which the tribelead communicates to the other tribeleads and board of directors. The new set directives are communicated top-down in the QBR. The squads receive the mandate to operate as they want as long as it is within the directives set for their tribe and therefore can operate autonomously.

If the progress of squads is delayed due to too many dependencies, this will be discussed during the marketplace meetings. All parties involved are expected to solve or decrease the number of dependencies, so squads can operate modular. Hence, the squads are truly self-organizing and receive the autonomy to operate as they please. Difficulties, such as too many dependencies, are solved by the squads involved, not by higher managers like in hierarchical structures. This shift in autonomy, from higher management to the teams, has become the open system thinking. The employees closest to the process decide how and which patterns are formed.

4.4 Double and triple loop learning

Theoretically, the five disciplines needs to be addressed in order to become a Learning Organization (Senge, 1990). These disciplines describe how the organization stimulates learning on three levels, the individual, team, and organizational learning. Besides these three levels, another distinguish can be made in learning levels according to Argyris (2002). To reach the status of a learning organization, the organization has to practise the double- and triple-loop learning by Argyris (2002), which are displayed in figure 4.4.

Level of learning Explanation

Single-loop learning Errors are corrected without altering the underlying governing values Double-loop learning Errors are corrected by changing the governing values and then the actions Triple-loop learning Understanding how to improve the single- and double-loop learning

process. Also referred to as Learning to learn.

Figure 4.4: Three levels of learning

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progress more often so the work of two weeks cannot be complete waste anymore. Errors will be detected sooner and therefore corrected in an earlier stage. Due to the iterative work method, the opportunity to evaluate whether the product is optimal for the customer’s needs emerges more often.

The ‘waste’ product was also discussed in chapters to inform other employees of the problem and its solution. This discussion improved the chances to prevent similar mistakes in other squads and helps them to solve similar problems faster and more effective. Hence, the discussion helps understanding how to improve the prevention of errors and to get faster and more effective solutions. Therefore, the example also reflects the practice of triple-loop learning.

The collaboration of each squad stimulates double-loop learning by detecting errors in an earlier stage due to evaluating the outcomes with expectations on a daily bases in the daily stand-up. The governing actions leading to the errors are analysed, so in the future similar problems can be prevented.

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5. DISCUSSION AND RECOMMENDATION

The findings of this study are first compared to the existing literature. Secondly, the conceptual models are presented and discussed, followed by the theoretical and practical implications of this study. Finally, this section ends with this study’s limitations and recommendations for future research. Some recommendations for future research are made directly when it is relevant to mention.

5.1 Literature confrontation

This study is among the first to explore the structure of Agile Management. The structure of squads, chapters, and tribes is not addressed in any academic literature to the author’s best knowledge. The only sources available which discuss this structure are the success stories of Zappos written by their CEO Tony Shieh (2010) and documents of the operations of Spotify made by their CEO Kniberg and their agile coach Ivarsson (2011). This study gained insight in the structure adopted by ING Netherlands and analyzed the structure from an academic perspective.

Firstly, this study presented a conceptual model of the new organizational structure of Agile Management. The structure applies a matrix format. Galbraith (2009, p. 3) describes a matrix as “a type of organization structure that is built around two or more dimensions, such as functions, products, or regions, and in which people have two bosses”. This definition corresponds with the Agile Management structure, where every squad-member is part of both a squad and a chapter, therefore has two bosses: the product-owner and the chapterlead. The explicit focus on learning on all three levels and the methods of facilitating it are new, therefore an addition to the existing matrix formats. This structure empowers the squads, strives for operational excellence with support of the chapters, and applies Agile Coaches to ensure the benefits of the process. Therefore, the structure emphasizes the significance of continuous improvement and learning on all three levels; individual, group, and organizational.

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to compare it with the conceptual model. Furthermore, further research is recommended to compare the results of these studies on agile practices to the operational process of Agile Management

However, these agile practices are applied for developing self-organizing teams within the current organizational structure, instead of transforming the organizational structure to support the self-organizing teams. As mentioned before, Zappos and Spotify are prime examples for the transformation to the structure of Agile Management, or even the creators of the structure. Based on the information shared in their success stories, both organizations apply within the structure the same groups and roles as ING (Shieh, 2010; Knieberg and Andersson, 2012). Both CEOs acknowledge that they continuously have to search for workable solutions for every upcoming problem, where the solution is meant to solve the problem at the moment and not per se has to be the best solution. The organizations aim to continuously improve, therefore have a lot in common with the concept of the Learning Organization. Thirdly, it remained unexplored how the Agile Management structure facilitates learning on three levels and even can facilitate to become a Learning Organization. The exploration of the structure revealed that it is intertwined with the operational process. Hence, this study analyzed and discussed separately all three levels of learning facilitated by the structure and the operational process.

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This study starts with the first proposition of the conceptual model of the formal tribe structure, displayed in figure 6.1. This model is generalized to fit for all tribes within ING. The validity of the model should be analyzed with other case studies. At this moment, it can only be conclude that it corresponds with the available information of the structure of Zappos and Spotify.

Figure 6.1: A conceptual model of the formal tribe structure.

The second proposition is the conceptual model of the sprint and the different types of meetings, displayed in figure 6.2.

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As mentioned before, this study concentrates on the hard aspects of the organization, starting with the three organizational elements influential for Organizational Innovation as described by Lam (2005), specified as strategy, organizational structure and organizational learning. The organization’s strategy establishes the criteria for the structure, which has to enable organizational learning in order to become a Learning Organization. However, this ignores the influence of the operational process on organizational learning and on Organizational Innovation. Agile Management facilitates learning with both the structure as the operational process. Therefore, it is arguable that innovation is also determine by this process, also on organizational level. Hence, this study proposes a possible fourth determinant of organizational innovation: process. With the appliance of Agile Management, the four determinants are proposed to have the following link, displayed in figure 6.3. The strategy determines the organizational structure, which is supported by the operational process, which is required to facilitate organizational learning.

Figure 6.3: the four determinants of Organizational Innovation

According to the STAR model (Galbraith, 2009), process is considered to be one of the five determinants for organizational design. The other four determinats are Strategy, Structure, Rewards and People. This confirms the influence of process on the organizational design, while change in organizational design is considered to be an Organization Innovation, according to the definition set in the introduction.

5.3 Theoretical contributions

This study had two objectives: (1) to understand the structure of Agile Management as applied in the banking sector, and (2) to examine the role of Agile Management in developing the organization into a Learning Organization.

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Secondly, the role of Agile Management is analysed in developing the organization into a Learning Organization. Agile Management emphasizes learning on all three levels: individual, team, and organizational. The five disciplines of Senge (1990) show in detail which actions are done per level in order to achieve the status of the Learning Organization. This thesis analysed the strategy and organizational structure as mentioned as determinants of Organizational Innovation by Lam (2005). Besides these two elements, operational process turned out to have a crucial role in facilitating learning on all three levels as well. This resulted in a conceptual model of the sprint (figure 6.2). The link between all previous mentioned elements is captured in figure 6.3. In short, Strategy establishes criteria for Organizational Structure which has to be supported by Operational Process which requires to enable Organizational Learning. This study achieved to analyse all elements in the context of an organization applying Agile Management and therefore achieved to examine its role in developing a Learning Organization.

5.4 Implications

The organizational structure and learning capabilities of Agile Management