Why Scrum works in new product development: the role of social capital in managing complexity

Figures & data

Table 1. Complexities and Responses (From Maylor and Turner, 2017, 1086).

		Complexity
		Structural	Socio-political	Emergent
Response	Planning and control	Initiating, planning, monitoring (e.g. applying earned value systems). Using an Integrated Master Schedule.	Develop a communications plan. Establish project board of stakeholders.	Apply risk management and change control processes.
	Relationship development	Prioritize communications with stakeholders. Conduct project outreach activities.	Engage in teambuilding activities. Invest in social capital.	Socialize changes. Increase informal communications.
	Flexibility	Embrace changes from process. Anticipate change. Enable parallel development.	Manage expectations of change. Engage in joint look-ahead planning with major stakeholders.	Use Agile PM approaches. Encourage entrepreneurial PM

Figure 1. Social capital in the creation of intellectual capital (Nahapiet and Ghoshal 1998).

Figure 2. Analysis framework.

Table 2. Examples of complexities and responses in the case.

		Complexity
		Structural	Socio-political	Emergent
Response	Planning and Control	Regular scheduled meetings to coordinate development activity.	Regular meetings force social interaction which can reduce tensions.	The regularity of back-and-forth discussions enables requirements to be evolved in a controlled manner.
	Relationship Development	Schedule and technical issues can be addressed through open dialogue.	Client and team can coordinate and reach agreement to prevent problems growing.	‘Red tape’ can be bypassed to smooth the product development process.
	Flexibility	Resource allocation problems were simplified by making smaller scale requests.	Co-location enables face-to-face discussions more easily, enabling rapid informal issue-reduction.	Uncertainty is accommodated within the process through loosely-defined requirements.

Figure 3. Reciprocity between social capital and the Scrum framework.

Figure 4. Partially overlapping knowledge domains.

Maylor, H., and N. Turner. 2017. “Understand, Reduce, Respond: Project Complexity Management Theory and Practice.” International Journal of Operations & Production Management 37 (8): 1076–1093. doi:10.1108/IJOPM-05-2016-0263.

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Nahapiet, J., and S. Ghoshal. 1998. “Social Capital, Intellectual Capital, and the Organizational Advantage.” The Academy of Management Review 23 (2): 242. doi:10.2307/259373.

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