Agile Practices and Empowered Teams: Pathways to Innovation

This academic paper explores the relationship between agile project management practices and project performance, specifically focusing on innovative outcomes. It introduces psychological empowerment as a crucial mediating mechanism, explaining how aspects like team autonomy and agile communication foster a sense of empowerment within teams, which in turn drives innovative behaviour. The study’s empirical findings suggest that psychological empowerment is essential for these agile practices to translate into innovative actions and ultimately enhance overall project success, challenging traditional project management's prescriptive focus. It also highlights the importance of social systems in innovation processes.

Source: Malik, Mohsin, Shagufta Sarwar, and Stuart Orr. "Agile practices and performance: Examining the role of psychological empowerment." International journal of project management 39.1 (2021): 10-20.