DEVELOPMENT OF A BEHAVIORAL TAXONOMY OF AGILITY 1

Development of a Behavioral Taxonomy of Agility in the Workplace

Moritz K. H. Petermann

Mercedes-Benz AG & Leipzig University

Hannes Zacher

Leipzig University

This article has been accepted by International Journal of Managing Projects in Business. It
is a post-review, pre-publication version of the article. Please refer to the journal for the
final, authoritative version of the article.

Please cite as:

Petermann, M. K. H. & Zacher, H. (2021, in press). Development of a behavioral taxonomy of
agility in the workplace. International Journal of Managing Projects in Business.
doi:10.1108/IJMPB-02-2021-0051

Author Note

Moritz K. H. Petermann and Hannes Zacher, Institute of Psychology – Wilhelm Wundt,

Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany.

Correspondence concerning this article may be addressed to Moritz K. H. Petermann,

Institute of Psychology – Wilhelm Wundt, Leipzig University, Neumarkt 9-19, 04275 Leipzig

Germany
DEVELOPMENT OF A BEHAVIORAL TAXONOMY OF AGILITY 2

Abstract

Purpose: The concept of workforce agility has become increasingly popular in recent years.

However, defining it has sparked much discussion and ambiguity. Recognizing this ambiguity,

this paper aims to inductively develop a behavioral taxonomy of workforce agility.

Design: We interviewed 36 experts in the field of agility and used concept mapping and the

critical incident technique to create a behavioral taxonomy.

Findings: We identified a behavioral taxonomy consisting of ten dimensions: (a) accepting

changes, (b) decision making, (c) creating transparency, (d) collaboration, (e) reflection, (f) user

centricity, (g) iteration, (h) testing, (i) self-organization, and (j) learning.

Research Implications: Our research contributes to the literature in that it offers an inductively

developed behavioral taxonomy of workforce agility with 10 dimensions. It further adds to the

literature by tying the notion of workforce agility to the performance literature.

Practical Implications: Our results suggest that it might be beneficial for companies to take all

workforce agility dimensions into account when creating an agile culture, starting agile projects,

integrating agility into hiring decisions, or evaluating employee performance.

Originality: This paper uses an inductive approach to define workforce agility as a set of

behavioral dimensions, integrating the scientific as well as the practitioner literature on agility.

Keywords: agility, workforce agility, agile project management, adaptability

DEVELOPMENT OF A BEHAVIORAL TAXONOMY OF AGILITY 3

Development of a Behavioral Taxonomy of Agility in the Workplace

The increased globalization, the soaring speed of innovation, and heightened customer

expectations have created an extremely competitive, complex, and fast changing business

environment for organizations (Breu, et al., 2002; Sherehiy and Karwowski, 2014). This has

resulted in the need for companies to be faster, more innovative, flexible, and efficient than ever

before (Dyer and Shafer, 2003). To master these challenges, many companies are now changing

their mode of operation to new and more adaptive ways of working (Braun, et al., 2017). One of

the more popular ideas has been the notion to create an agile organization (Petermann and

Zacher, 2021). Agile organizations are expected to be more flexible, competent, responsive, and

quicker in adapting to and using new surroundings and circumstances to their advantage (Breu et

al., 2002; Zhang and Sharifi, 2000).

Muduli (2016) proposed that agile organizations do not rely on a few decision makers at

the top levels, but instead use their entire workforce to react to changes and new challenges. It is,

therefore, important to consider the agile workforce when building up an agile organization

(Breu et al., 2002). Workforce agility has been suggested to provide several organizational

benefits, such as an increase in productivity (Braun et al., 2017) and business growth in markets

with unanticipated and constant change (Sherehiy and Karwowski, 2014). It has been defined as

the ability of employees to successfully respond to and exploit unpredictable and continuous

changes (Muduli, 2016). Whereas the most prevalent behaviors linked to workforce agility in the

scientific literature are proactivity, adaptability, and resilience (Sherehiy and Karwowski, 2014),

the practitioner literature considers agility more in project management terms and associates it

with behaviors such as reflecting, iterative behaviors, collaborating, as well as testing of products

and using different methods (Fischer and Zimmermann, 2017; Schwaber and Sutherland, 2017).
DEVELOPMENT OF A BEHAVIORAL TAXONOMY OF AGILITY 4

Even though workforce agility is supposed to influence organizational functioning, it has

rarely been studied in a systematic way (Muduli and Pandya, 2018; Sherehiy and Karwowski,

2014). This might partly be due to the multitude of different definitions and conceptualizations

of agility that currently exist in the literature. Current definitions of agility include an array of

different aspects such as abilities, motivation, attitudes, behaviors, or information systems and

often have issues regarding concept clarity and measurement accuracy. For example, the widely

used three-dimensional framework of Sherehiy (2008) did not show a good model fit and could

not be supported in the original study. Sherehiy (2008) even suggested that a definition

consisting of several more specific dimensions could be a more promising fit for the agility

concept. Taken together, these aspects result in a conceptual vagueness of workforce agility in

the literature and the need to define agility on the basis of more empirical research. Additionally,

the academic and practitioner discussions about agility are largely taking place separately. This

leads to a situation in which the practitioner and project management literature has a very

different understanding of how to increase workforce agility than the scientific agility literature.

This complicates the transfer of information from one domain to the other.

As a result of this conceptual vagueness, researchers and practitioners currently do not

agree on a general definition of workforce agility. A definition based on multiple behavioral

dimensions would be a first step toward creating a valid measure of workforce agility. A more

specific definition and measure based upon it could be the foundation of more rigorous empirical

research that increases the understanding of predictors and outcomes of workforce agility. This is

especially important considering that workforce agility is supposed to have several benefits for

organizations and employees, such as a greater job satisfaction (Melnik and Maurer, 2006),

higher well-being (Laanti, 2013), and better performance (Braun et al., 2017; Laanti, 2013;
DEVELOPMENT OF A BEHAVIORAL TAXONOMY OF AGILITY 5

Lagerberg, et al., 2013). At the same time, the concept of agility and the question how

organizations are able to transform their workforce to become more agile plays a significant role

in the strategies of many organizations. Organizations like the Daimler AG, the ING or the

German Telekom incorporate agile project management into their daily business to increase agile

behaviors in their employees. Consequently, research on workforce agility is particularly

important to practice and should be extended to meet practitioner needs.

Recognizing the conceptual vagueness in the literature, this paper aims to inductively

develop a behavioral taxonomy of workforce agility. We build on the limited knowledge about

the construct and pursue an exploratory approach. To this end, we conducted 36 structured

interviews with experts in the field of agility. We followed the approach adopted by Pulakos et

al. (2000) analyzed the data using the critical incident technique (Flanagan, 1954; Hughes, 2007)

and concept mapping (Ohly and Schmitt, 2015; Jackson and Trochim, 2002).

The scientific literature can benefit from our inductive and behavioral approach which,

consistent with Campbell and Wiernik (2015) and Pulakos et al. (2000), defines workforce

agility as a compound construct or set of behavioral performance dimensions. This could lead to

a more detailed understanding of the behaviors that the workforce agility construct is comprised

of and how an agile workforce deals with unexpected and dynamic changes in the business

environment. Moreover, the scientific literature will gain from integrating aspects of the

practitioner view as it entails a broader view of the agility concept. Our approach of developing a

behavioral taxonomy could be a useful reference point to develop a complete measure of the

workforce agility concept. This might be especially important when further examining the

proposed positive effects of an agile workforce on employees and organizations. Lastly,

organizational practice can benefit from integrating this behavior taxonomy into its daily
DEVELOPMENT OF A BEHAVIORAL TAXONOMY OF AGILITY 6

business, by integrating it into their strategies, selection processes, performance metrics, and

development programs.

Workforce Agility

There are different definitions and models of workforce and individual agility presently

discussed in the literature (Muduli, 2016). It has been defined as a specific ability, an attitude, or

behavior that is demonstrated by employees in uncertain and volatile business environments

(Muduli and Pandya, 2018). In this section, we provide an overview of the current agility

literature. As one of the first authors to write on this topic, Plonka (1997) described an agile

workforce as having a positive attitude toward learning and self-development, good problem-

solving abilities, a comfortable attitude toward change, the ability to be innovative, and a

readiness to accept new responsibilities. Later, workforce agility was often described as

consisting of two aspects: (a) the ability of a workforce to properly respond to change and (b) the

ability to exploit changes to use them as opportunities (Alavi et al., 2014; Chonko and Jones,

2005).

In one of the first empirically tested models, Breu et al. (2002) described the agile

workforce based on five capabilities: intelligence, competencies, collaboration, culture, and

information systems. The authors stated that all factors had a significant impact on workforce

agility, however, intelligence and competencies had the strongest impact. Intelligence, in the

context of an agile workforce, was defined as the ability of the workforce to read and interpret

change and to be responsive to changing customer as well as marked needs. Competencies entail

the speed of developing new skills and gaining new information. Collaboration concerns the

effectiveness of cooperating across functional boundaries and the ease of moving between

projects. The term culture describes the empowerment of employees to make independent
DEVELOPMENT OF A BEHAVIORAL TAXONOMY OF AGILITY 7

decisions and, lastly, information systems concern the support of IT infrastructure within an agile

organization (Breu et al., 2002).

Other approaches differ in their definition of workforce agility and describe it in terms of

an agility-oriented mindset or attitude and agility-oriented behaviors. An agile mindset or

attitude exists when all employees share a common understanding about agility. This means that

every employee needs to understand the necessity to use agility to respond to and maneuver in

rapidly changing markets. They need to value and think about agile behaviors as a way of

sensing market changes, exploiting advantages, and creating organizational learning (Dyer and

Shafer, 2003). Dyer and Shafer (2003) described the agile workforce from a behavioral

perspective as consisting of proactive, adaptive, and generative behaviors. Based on these

behaviors, Sherehiy (2008) later established a three-dimensional model of workforce agility. It

was defined as observable performance or behavior at work consisting of proactivity,

adaptability, and resilience rather than personality traits or predispositions. The proactivity

dimension considers a person’s activities that have a positive impact on the environment, the

adaptability dimension concerns a person’s modification of self to create a better fit with the new

environment, and the resilience dimension considers a person’s ability to function effectively in

stressful situations such as a changing environment or a failed solution. It should be mentioned,

however, that the original study did not find the three-dimensional model to be a good fit and

argued for a model with more specific dimensions of workforce agility. In a subsequent study,

Sherehiy and Karwowski (2014) found that job control as well as job autonomy are important

predictors for workforce agility and that management practices that focus on cooperation inside

the organization and with the customer as well as empowerment promote workforce agility.
DEVELOPMENT OF A BEHAVIORAL TAXONOMY OF AGILITY 8

Other studies on workforce agility used this three dimensional structure by Sherehiy

(2008) and showed that organizational learning, a flat organizational structure, and the

decentralization of decision making were positively related to workforce agility (Alavi et al.,

2014). Using the same structure, Liu et al. (2015) found that relationship conflict has a negative

effect and task conflict has a positive effect on workforce agility, which were moderated by the

frequent use of social media. Cai et al. (2018) validated the claim that psychological availability,

meaningfulness, and safety mediated the relationship of enterprise social media and the three

dimensional model of agility performance. All of these studies used adapted versions of the

workforce agility scale developed by Sherehiy (2008) and a cross-sectional self-report design.

Muduli and Pandya (2018) did not use the three dimensional framework but based their

research on an adapted version of the workforce agility model of Breu et al. (2002). They also

used a cross-sectional self-report design and found psychological empowerment as important

aspect for a company to influence workforce agility. They considered an agile workforce to be a

workforce that has to have a positive attitude toward learning and self-development, to be

flexible, adaptive, proactive and resilient, to be comfortable with change, possess good problem-

solving abilities, accept new responsibilities, and to be able to generate new and innovative

ideas.

Braun et al. (2017) also mention several behaviors such as collaboration, cooperation,

and knowledge sharing as factors connected to agility, but stayed closer to the definition of

Charbonnier-Voirin et al. (2010), who only considered proactivity and adaptability as

dimensions of agility, in developing a measurement for agility. They also found resilience to be

strongly related to agility and showed that a focus on resilience and agility can help employees to

adapt quickly and to manage stress in a more efficient way.

DEVELOPMENT OF A BEHAVIORAL TAXONOMY OF AGILITY 9

More recent studies showed that workforce agility can be increased using human

resources management (HRM). Doeze Jager-van Vliet et al. (2019) considered proactivity and

adaptability with the subdimensions resilience, teamwork, coping with change, decisiveness,

eagerness to learn, independence, and courage as factors comprising agility. They showed that

HRM practices such as building goals, feedback, and reflection on the provided feedback can

improve individual agility over time. They also showed that factors such as the need for change,

the need for power, and the need for achievement are positively associated with agility (Doeze

Jager-van Vliet, 2017). Furthermore, Harsch and Festing (2020) used quantitative analyses to

show that agile talents are employees who have a high willingness to perform and learn,

constantly question the status quo, and who are innovative, mobile, customer orientated, resilient

and adaptable.

In contrast to the aforementioned studies, other research on agility focused on the

organizational or project management level of agility. An example for this line of research are

Koch and Schermuly (2020), who argued that the core application of agility is on the project

management level and defined agility in terms of autonomy, equality, and iterative delivery.

Autonomy refers to a high degree of decision making power and self-organization, equality

refers to an equality in the team, and iterative delivery refers to a management in which no clear

objectives are defined beforehand, objectives are regularly evaluated and redefined, and

customer feedback is integrated. They found agile project management to be positively related to

the psychological empowerment felt by employees and their attraction toward the organization

(Koch and Schermuly, 2020). At the organizational level, Arokodare and Asikhia (2020) argued

that strategic insight, internal and external response orientation, human resource capability, and

IT capability are measures of strategic agility in organizations. Nejatian et al. (2018) proposed a
DEVELOPMENT OF A BEHAVIORAL TAXONOMY OF AGILITY 10

methodology for choosing agile performance metrics such as agile attributes, agile enablers or

improvement path that fit a company’s needs. Finally, Pulakos et al. (2019) argued that it might

be valuable for organizations to focus on clarity and simplicity when installing measures to

increase the agility level of the company. They found the three organizational characteristics

stability, rightsized teamwork, and relentless course correction to have a direct effect on agility

which, in turn, was positively related to an organization’s financial performance.

Agility in Organizational Practice

Even though much of the practitioner literature concerning agility seems to refer to a set

of principles connected to software development and focuses on adapting an agile methodology

such as scrum or design thinking (Baran and Bible, 2019; Petermann and Zacher, 2021), we

consider a line of practitioner literature that focuses on improving the overall agility capabilities

of the organization. At a behavioral level, this literature seems to strongly focus on specific

behaviors that increase the agility level of the organization and that can be integrated into

cultural change programs. Examples of these behaviors include quickly testing a product,

working in an iterative fashion, learning from mistakes, collaborating with other departments and

customers, critical reflection, or creating greater transparency (Aghina et al., 2017; Baran and

Bible, 2019; Mahadevan et al., 2017). These behaviors have been found to lead to feelings of

higher innovative ability as well as to a higher ability to adapt to new work situations and to

handle stress (Aghina et al., 2017; Mahadevan et al., 2017). This is in line with research

conducted by Fischer and Zimmermann (2017), who described an agile mindset as being

transparent, open, and ready to change, as well as to having good reflecting abilities,

collaborating, and taking responsibility. This mindset, together with speed, adaptability, and

customer centration, was proposed to constitute the core of the agility concept. In addition,
DEVELOPMENT OF A BEHAVIORAL TAXONOMY OF AGILITY 11

concepts like quick decision making (Sherehiy and Karwowski, 2014), testing, learning, and

feedback are consistently named as agile behaviors (Baran and Bible, 2019; Winby and Worley,

2014).

In conclusion, even though several authors propose that agility is related to positive work

outcomes and that it is crucial for organizations to become agile to stay competitive in the future,

a common definition of workforce agility could not be established. Current definitions include

several different aspects such as abilities, motivation, attitudes, or behaviors, but also topics such

as information systems, which results in conceptual vagueness and unclarity. In this research, we

address this vagueness as well as the gap between the current agility literature and the

organizational practice. We follow the approach of Pulakos et al. (2000) to understand workforce

agility as agile performance of employees and use a qualitative approach based on the critical

incident technique as well as the concept mapping method to obtain a clearer understanding of

agility. Both methods have been used to inductively develop taxonomies of psychological

constructs (Ohly and Schmitt, 2015; Pulakos et al., 2000). Due to the vagueness around the

different aspects of agility we base our research on methods that have a clear focus on behavioral

aspects. This focus represents a good starting point in organizing the different aspects of agility.

We expect to find a multidimensional definition of workforce agility based on behaviors.

Method

Participants and Procedure

Participants were 36 experts in the field of agility from different German companies, with

whom individual interviews were conducted. This sample size is appropriate for an inductive

qualitative study using the critical incident technique and the concept mapping approach,

because each participant generates multiple points of data, which form the basis of the analyses
DEVELOPMENT OF A BEHAVIORAL TAXONOMY OF AGILITY 12

(Hughes, 2007; Ohly and Schmitt, 2015). Both, the concept mapping approach as well as the

critical incident technique do not specify a certain number of participants or observations that are

needed to derive conclusions. Rather, the number of observations necessary depends of the

complexity of the concept and the participants themselves. It is therefore advised to collect

observations until redundancies in the incidents or concepts occur (Flanagan, 1954; Hughes,

2007; Jackson and Trochim, 2002). Accordingly, we checked the observations for redundancies

after each interview and stopped the data collection when no new observations appeared.

Participants were chosen on the basis of their experience with agility in real life settings.

They were recruited via the vocational network of the first author. All of them had at least 6

months of experience working in an agile fashion, with a mean of 4 years (SD = 0.7, Range =

0.75 to 8). For a detailed sample description, see Table I. The age of participants ranged from 26

to 58 years with a mean age of 36.4 years (SD = 7.7). The majority of the sample was male 72%

(n = 26), 28% of the sample were female (n = 10). Organizational tenure ranged from 1 to 28

years with a mean of 12.4 years (SD = 8.1). Each participant read and signed a work counsel

approved informed consent form.

All 36 interviews were conducted face to face (n = 28) or via telephone (n = 8). The first

author as interviewer and each participant were alone in an enclosed room to guarantee an

undisturbed interview. The duration of the interviews ranged from 50 minutes to 90 minutes with

an average of 73 minutes (SD = 13.5). The interviewer led the participant through a standardized

interview manual. After signing the informed consent form, the interviewer started the concept

mapping part of the interview. Concept mapping is an interview technique designed to explore

and define a concept by collecting and analyzing short statements (Jackson and Trochim, 2002;

Ohly and Schmitt, 2015). Following the concept mapping, the interviewer described the working
DEVELOPMENT OF A BEHAVIORAL TAXONOMY OF AGILITY 13

definition of agility used in this study, explained the critical incident technique (Flanagan, 1954;

Hughes, 2007) and supported the participant in formulating critical incidents.

- Table I here -

Concept Mapping

In creating and analyzing the concepts for the concept mapping technique, we followed

the approach described by Jackson and Trochim (2002) and Ohly and Schmitt (2015). At the

beginning of the interview, we asked participants to create short statements that contained

specific behaviors related to agility. No further specifications about the content of the statements

were made, to obtain insights that represented the full breadth of the agility concept. To

categorize and analyze the statements generated by the participants, we wrote them on record

cards and handed these to 10 expert reviewers. As suggested by Jackson and Trochim (2002),

three initial participants were part of the reviewing process. The remaining reviewers were

industrial and organizational psychologists. The reviewers independently sorted the statements

on the basis of content similarities, into as many categories as they liked. The only conditions for

the sorting were that they could not create single item categories, one category with all items, or

one miscellaneous category in which they put all items that they were not able to assign to

categories (Jackson and Trochim, 2002). The results of the sorting were aggregated into an

individual sorting matrix for each rater. These matrices had all of the items on the y and the x

axis, which allowed us to mark it with a one, when two concepts were sorted together by a rater.

The individual sorting matrices of each reviewer were aggregated by adding them together to

create a two-dimensional multidimensional scaling that was analyzed using a hierarchical cluster

analysis (Ohly and Schmitt, 2015).

DEVELOPMENT OF A BEHAVIORAL TAXONOMY OF AGILITY 14

Results of the cluster analysis of the concepts are graphically depicted using a

dendrogram that illustrated the proximity of the different concepts. At each level the concepts

with the closest proximity are combined into one group, at the next level these groups are then

combined with other groups or single concepts based on their proximity. We analyzed the

different levels of the dendrogram to identify the best fit for the model. It is important to note

that the decision about the number of clusters is based on researchers’ judgement and the level of

desired specify (Ohly and Schmitt, 2015).

Critical Incidents

The critical incident technique entails the study of critical incidents that are collected

directly from experiences or observations of the participants (Flanagan, 1954; Hughes, 2007). It

has been used in a wide range of different studies in the past, e.g. Flanagan (1954), Hughes

(2007), Hutchins and Rainbolt (2017), but has been shown to be especially useful in creating

behavioral taxonomies (Pulakos et al., 2000). The critical incidents were directly obtained from

interviews with participants. Considering the complex nature of the agility concept we used

interviews as method for obtaining incidents, given that it has been found to yield the best results

and a number of high quality critical incidents (Flanagan, 1954; Hughes, 2007) . The interviewer

explained the method to the participants and defined agility. Agility was defined as an active

search for and proactive initiation of change, as well as a quick adaption to new circumstances,

which gives the agile team an advantage over other teams (Muduli and Pandya, 2018). The

participants were asked to describe a situation in which a team that worked in an agile fashion

experienced a significant increase or decrease of their adaptability or innovativeness. They were

further asked to describe the situation, the exact behavior that led to the described advantage or

disadvantage, the consequences of the described behavior and the external influences that played
DEVELOPMENT OF A BEHAVIORAL TAXONOMY OF AGILITY 15

a role in the given situation. As recommended by Flanagan (1954), the interviewer supported the

participants during this process, reviewing and providing feedback on the incidents participants

wrote to make sure the incidents contained all necessary information and were usable for further

research.

Following the procedure, three industrial and organizational psychologists read and

categorized a subset of 50 critical incidents independently and subsequently met to discuss their

dimensions. Using only a subset of the critical incidents is in line with the method described by

Flanagan (1954) and is used since it creates the opportunity to develop a taxonomy that can be

tested against and improved on the basis of incidents that have not been used previously.

Additionally, it allows to calculate the interrater reliability of the statements remaining. The

raters created the initial categories without building on a previous model. This increased the

likelihood of developing a taxonomy with dimensions purely based on the incidents. All three

researchers were trained in the critical incident content analysis by the first author beforehand.

The three industrial and organizational psychologists then sorted the remaining critical incidents

into the previously established dimensions. After categorizing the incidents independently, the

researchers met again to discuss the fit of their dimensions and the dimension definitions.

Results

Concept mapping

In total, 290 statements were generated by participants (3 to 16 statements per participant;

M = 8, SD = 2.8) that were subsequently reviewed by the first author. After deleting redundant

statements, a total of 228 statements were used in the cluster analysis. Using the cluster analysis,

we calculated a dendrogram on the basis of the Euclidean distance of the sorting matrixes. The

different levels of the dendrogram were then visually inspected to find the most useful and
DEVELOPMENT OF A BEHAVIORAL TAXONOMY OF AGILITY 16

interpretable solution. This analysis showed that especially the third level (Figure 1) and the

fourth level (Figure 2) of the dendrogram showed meaningful solutions and were further

analyzed. On the basis of the count of dimensions and the quantity of concepts per dimension,

the third level of the dendrogram revealed the best solution and was therefore chosen for further

analysis. This level contained 8 categories with 5 to 51 statements per category: (a)

collaboration, (b) self-organization, (c) learning, (d) create transparency, (e) reflection, (f)

iteration/ testing, (g) openness for change/ adaptability and (h) decision making/ user centric/

working in a structured fashion. The definitions of the 8 dimensions can be found in Table II.

- Figure 1 and 2 here -

Critical incidents

The interviews yielded 155 usable critical incidents that provided a good coverage of

successful and unsuccessful agile behaviors. The first analysis, based on 50 incidents, resulted in

seven different dimensions of agility: (a) accepting change, (b) deciding, (c) creating

transparency, (d) collaborating, (e) reflecting processes and behavior, (f) acting user-oriented and

(g) acting in an iterative manner.

The second analysis showed that some of the incidents were qualitatively different to the

other dimensions which led the judges to add an eighth dimension that integrated the incidents

into the model that were not accounted for in the previous seven dimensions. The eighth

dimension was (h) testing products. A comparison of judgments for the second analysis indicated

that the judges categorized 80% (n = 124) of the incidents into the same dimension. Three

incidents were judged as not reflecting agile behavior and were therefore deleted. The remaining

28 incidents showed more than one behavior, which led the researcher to categorize them into

different dimensions. These incidents were discussed and an agreement about the dimension
DEVELOPMENT OF A BEHAVIORAL TAXONOMY OF AGILITY 17

could be reached. The second analysis therefore resulted in eight dimensions of agility: (a)

accepting change, (b) deciding, (c) creating transparency, (d) collaborating, (e) reflecting

processes and behavior, (f) acting user-oriented, (g) acting in an iterative fashion and (h) testing

products. Finally, we sharpened the eight dimensions and their definitions on the basis of all 152

remaining incidents (Table II).

Combining the Results

The results of the content analysis and categorization of criterial incidents, as well as the

concept mapping technique are summarized in Table II. Both methods resulted in eight similar

dimensions of agility. In the next step, we combined the two results into one model of workforce

agility (Figure 3). To do this, we categorized the dimensions into three working categories. The

first category contained dimensions that were very similar and constituted a dimension for itself

in both results. This category included the dimensions (a) collaboration, (b) create transparency,

(c) reflection, and (d) accept change / openness for change. These dimensions were transferred to

the new model with minor adjustments regarding the respective definitions. Given that the model

was developed as a behavioral model that could be applied to every employee without

considering structural factors such as leadership position, the leadership part in the collaboration

dimension was not added to the model.

The second category contained dimensions that were found in the results of the concept

mapping as well as the critical incidents. However, these dimensions were not separate but sub-

dimensions found in the concept mapping results. This category included decision making,

testing, iteration and user centricity. Given that the raters in the critical incident technique rated

these concepts as distinct dimensions and that these concepts could be distinguished by
DEVELOPMENT OF A BEHAVIORAL TAXONOMY OF AGILITY 18

analyzing the dendrogram further, we decided to integrate the dimensions with minor changes as

separate dimensions into the model for agility.

The third category consisted of dimensions that were found in the concept mapping

results but not in the resulting dimensions of the critical incidents. This category included self-

organization, learning, and working in a structured fashion. Self-organization was already

discussed to be a ninth dimension in the critical incident technique, However, there were not

enough incidents supporting it as a separate dimension. With the additional evidence of the

concept mapping, we added self-organization to the new model of agility as a separate category.

The learning dimension was also a category for itself in the concept mapping approach. We

therefore added it as a separate dimension to the proposed model of agility. Finally, the

dimension working in a structured fashion entailed several agile methods like Srum and could

therefore not be integrated into a behavioral dimension in the new model. However, given that

these methods are built iteratively and transparently, we suggest that this dimension is covered

by the dimensions of creating transparency and iteration.

- Figure 3 here -

- Table II here -

The integrated taxonomy

The integrated behavioral model consists of the ten dimensions (a) accepting changes, (b)

decision making, (c) create transparency, (d) collaboration, (e) reflection, (f) user centricity, (g)

iteration, (h) testing, (i) self-organization, and (j) learning (Table II). In this section we will

define and give examples for each dimension. The examples shown were translated into English

by the lead author.

DEVELOPMENT OF A BEHAVIORAL TAXONOMY OF AGILITY 19

Accepting changes. The acceptance of changing circumstances and situations as well as

the adoption of new ways of working and the ability to adopt new roles and responsibilities was

included in 13 incidents and 37 concepts. The dimension “Accepting changes” is set to include

the revision of previous decisions, the acceptance of different roles and situations, and the ability

to flexibly and quickly adapt to changing circumstances. This is also reflected in the following

statements:

We decided to make changes to a product […] some team members did not accept this

change and did not show any openness for change […] This led to lower motivation in the team

and the team did not make any adaptions to the product (Incident 144)

In a crucial phase of a project the team leader had to leave the project. Another team

member directly accepted his role and the responsibility that came with it. This way the project

could go on and was successful. (Incident 114)

Decision making. Decision making was represented by 22 incidents and 51 concepts. It

is defined as the ability of people to tolerate risks, react and decide quickly, as well as to take

responsibility for their actions. Several incidents included situations in which quick decisions led

to higher innovation and project success. On the other hand, several incidents show that deferred

decisions slowed the project down significantly and even led to failure of some projects.

Furthermore, prioritization was found to be an important behavior of agility. Especially in the

occurrence of resource scarcity, due to changing circumstances, a quick prioritization seemed to

be crucial.

[…] a part needed to be built quickly for a vehicle that was not part of the standard

approach. It was quickly decided to self-develop this part and to build it in a short timeframe.
DEVELOPMENT OF A BEHAVIORAL TAXONOMY OF AGILITY 20

This led to the situation where the project received new and custom-made parts right from the

start which resulted in a faster realization of the project. (Incident 82)

Transparency. The most often named behavior was to create transparency with 42

incidents and 36 concepts. Participants described situations in which people quickly and openly

shared information which led to quick responses and adaptions. This also happened across team

borders leading to more creative and better tested solutions. Furthermore, they described

situations in which mistakes and problems were shared openly, incentivizing people helping each

other in fixing the problem. Creating transparency was therefore defined as the capability to

quickly share information, ask for help, gain information or admitting to mistakes. It also refers

to a direct communication that surpasses team or department borders and is preferably face-to–

face communication.

In developing a new product, a part needed to be built into a tight space. In a test it was

noticed that the part increased in size while using it and did not fit into the space anymore. The

team working on this part quickly shared this information with the other teams working on the

product and asked for help. They created a workshop in which they all came together to speak

about this problem. This led to a quick and innovative solution in which all helped to make room

for this piece. (Incident 69)

Collaboration. Collaboration was included in 23 incidents and 37 concepts, suggesting a

behavior that is crucial for agility. Collaboration, as defined here, concerns the creation of and

adherence to agreements and rules set by the group as well as a cross functional, open and

dynamic cooperation across team or department boarders. It, further, refers to the valuing of

others and the deferment of egoistic behavior. Especially the absence of collaboration was often

named to be a big obstacle in being agile. Teams that did not collaborate or did not set rules and
DEVELOPMENT OF A BEHAVIORAL TAXONOMY OF AGILITY 21

clear responsibilities seemed to be less agile and to have more problems than teams that

collaborated well. Furthermore, people that were able to collaborate with customers and other

departments reported to be more agile and to have more successful projects. Lastly, it seemed to

play a huge role how people worked together. People that had a positive communication style

and gave each other positive feedback were often able to work better as a team.

My team developed a culture in which we gave each other a lot of positive feedback.

Thereby we grew much closer together and viewed our results as team achievements instead of

individual achievements. Therefore, the communication in the team is much faster and we have

faster and better adapted results. (Incident 116)

Reflection. A slightly less often mentioned behavior was reflection (13 incidents and 8

concepts). It is defined in the model as constantly questioning the current behaviors and

collaboration as well as looking for improvements in working behaviors. Particularly,

purposefully stopping the flow of the project and question assumptions, the current progress or

behaviors of team members seemed to be helpful for agility. By reflecting on these issues, the

team was better able to find weaknesses and mistakes and fix these. Using a special timeslot for

this reflection also seemed to help to bring up different concerns which might otherwise have

gone unnoticed.

We used a workshop to question different assumptions which we originally thought to be

set in stone. However, questioning them helped us to find totally different solutions for the

problem we had. (Incident 121)

Customer Orientation. Customer orientation was represented by 17 incidents and 8

concepts. It refers to the constant integration of customers in the project or development process

by collecting and including their feedback. It further puts the users in the center of attention in
DEVELOPMENT OF A BEHAVIORAL TAXONOMY OF AGILITY 22

that it focuses on creating the most value and the best product for them. Constantly getting

feedback from the customer and making clear what exactly they needed seemed to yield a

product that was extremely well adapted to their needs. Because of the constant contact with the

customer, it also seemed to be easier to react on changing preferences or circumstances which

resulted in much less work that was done needlessly.

In product development, the product cycles should be shortened in order to achieve the

finished product more quickly. At the same time, feedback from the customer was repeatedly

sought in the project and thus the product was adapted – We continuously reflected with the

customer if we were still on the right track. As a result, the product could be adapted to the

customer's wishes more quickly and the customer was much more willing to invest in the

product. (Incident 41)

Iteration. Another behavior that was mentioned in 14 incidents and 30 concepts as being

agile was taking an iterative approach. Iteration is defined as concerning the stepwise

development of projects, continuously making improvements, and acting in short adaptive

cycles. Products were developed in a step by step manner, which was often combined with a

heightened customer centricity and rich feedback procedures. This seemed to help the employees

in deciding on the next steps as they felt safer deciding on small incremental steps then on a

complete project. It was also said to be helpful in dealing with failure and adapting the product to

new circumstances as the results of the last step could be directly observed, discussed and the

approach could consequently be adapted. Additionally, iteration seemed to help with handling

uncertainty. Several participants described situations in which the customer did not exactly know

what the finished product should look like or situations in which the legislation and

circumstances were extremely uncertain.

DEVELOPMENT OF A BEHAVIORAL TAXONOMY OF AGILITY 23

In our project, we worked in an iterative way and tested the product after every step to

decide if we could go on like this. This procedure gave room for failure. After each step we also

did an exact evaluation and challenged our results. We felt that this proceeding resulted in more

innovations in our team and a lower risk of failing with the project because recourses had to be

used only step by step. It was also easier to get resources for our project because we were

always able to show exactly why we needed them. (Incident 73)

Testing. Testing was included in 11 incidents and 5 concepts as an agile behavior. It

describes how a prototype is build, experiments are conducted, and test runs are tried to regularly

test a product. Testing and iteration were often connected, however, there were some situations

in which the two behaviors could be seen separately. In the interviews, testing a product was

described to strongly increase its quality. Quickly testing parts of the product through building

prototypes or having interviews seemed to make it easier to evaluate the product and to redesign

or adapt it if necessary.

We wanted to build a new document management system for a company. In an early stage

in the process we decided to build a paper prototype that visualized the system and could be

tried out. We therefore had a better understanding of the project and knew quickly which aspects

to adapt. […] (Incident 11)

Self-organization. Self-organization was also identified as an agile behavior. It is a

dimension that was predominantly named in the concept mapping (18 times), however, 4 critical

incidents also named it as a second behavior. In the interviews, self-organization was reported to

lead to a team structure and task management that was better adapted to the needs of the persons

working in this team. This would also lead to a higher commitment and motivation. The

following incident and the three statements show examples of this dimension in the interviews.
DEVELOPMENT OF A BEHAVIORAL TAXONOMY OF AGILITY 24

[…] We decided to design the agenda ourselves and to change it to fit our needs. This led

to a higher commitment and a higher motivation of the team […] this way we were able to

actually address the needs of the project and adapt the To-dos of this day to these needs.

(Incident 77)

Learning. Learning has been identified as an agile behavior in six concepts and was

therefore included as tenth dimension in our model. It refers to constant learning and

development of skills needed for one’s job as well as a good knowledge management and the

possibility to learn from others. Statements of the learning dimension that were mentioned in the

interviews are as follows:

Knowledge management; learning from others; necessity to learn, self-learning

organization

Discussion

The aim of this study was to develop a behavioral taxonomy of workforce agility. The

interviews confirmed our assumption that agility is a multidimensional construct that includes

ten behavioral dimensions: (a) accept changes, (b) decision making, (c) create transparency, (d)

collaboration, (e) reflection, (f) user centricity, (g) iteration, (h) testing, (i) self-organization, and

(j) learning. These dimensions connect several streams of the current workforce agility literature

using a more specific approach than previous models, which are based on two or three more

global dimensions (Braun et al., 2017; Cai et al., 2018; Sherehiy, 2008). Especially the

dimensions learning, collaborating, accepting changes, and decision making have often been

connected to the agility literature. Breu et al. (2002) proposed, for example, that companies that

are able to collaborate well with customers, other companies, or across team or functional

borders are better able to utilize all existing resources and, therefore, create better adapted and
DEVELOPMENT OF A BEHAVIORAL TAXONOMY OF AGILITY 25

more cost-effective products. Additionally, it was proposed that close and stable contacts to other

companies or customers may create a safer work environment which could then counter-balance

possible negative effects of change (Sherehiy and Karwowski, 2014).

Our proposed model also mirrors the current trend in the workforce agility literature to

describe the concept through more specific dimensions and subdimensions. As an example for

this trend, Doeze Jager-van Vliet et al. (2019) described the components teamwork, coping with

change, decisiveness, independence, courage, eagerness to learn, and resilience as belonging to

agility. Especially eagerness to learn has been found to be one of the best enablers of workforce

agility, given that agility is depended on the acquired skills and knowledge of employees. Having

a better skill and knowledge base allows employees to be more flexible and to show superior

reactions when confronted with competitive challenges (Alavi et al., 2014). Similarly, other

agility models showed that concepts such as role flexibility, quick adaption, and quick decision

making are some of the main components of agility and should be integrated in workforce agility

models (Chonko and Jones, 2005; Dyer and Shafer, 2003; Muduli and Pandya, 2018; Sherehiy

and Karwowski, 2014). It was argued that resilient individuals, who accept change, possess

adaptive mechanisms that enable them to be more responsive and to improvise in unexpected

situations (Coutu, 2002; Fleig-Palmer et al., 2009).

In addition to the dimensions that were previously mentioned throughout the agility

literature, our model integrates several dimensions that were rather linked to the practitioner and

project management literature. Especially iterative and incremental work designs as well as

product testing, user centricity, and self-organization have often been named to be agile

dimensions by literature that has a stronger practitioner focus. Iterative and incremental work

designs and product tests that focus strongly on the customer were, for example, described to be
DEVELOPMENT OF A BEHAVIORAL TAXONOMY OF AGILITY 26

part of the development process in several different methodologies like Scrum or Design

Thinking (Lagerberg et al., 2013; Schwaber and Sutherland, 2017) as well as the “act and adapt

cycle” described by Winby and Worley (2014). They were described to lead to rapid

implementation, learning, and a fast detection of errors. Additionally, iteration-based plans were

also connected to the agile literature as it was argued that they increase a sense of immediacy and

improve prioritization in projects due to a relatively short time horizon (Hoda and Noble, 2017;

Whitworth and Biddle, 2007). This is also in line with the notion that user centricity and

especially the adaption to changing customer needs is seen as crucial for agility, as it is essential

to stay competitive in the current markets (Breu et al., 2002). The cooperation with the customer

is seen to be particularly beneficial for workforce agility and in creating a more specified product

in a more effective manner (Plonka, 1997; Sherehiy and Karwowski, 2014). Likewise, self-

organization, reflection, and transparency have been strongly linked to agile methodologies and

have been proposed to be agile dimensions. It was argued that reflection enables people to

understand the cause and effect of their actions better, which permits them to change their future

behavior to create a better situational fit (Derue et al., 2012). As such, reflection behaviors are an

essential part of the agile methodology Scrum. Team members regularly reflected upon the last

work periods to identify items that went well and plan possible work improvements (Schwaber

and Sutherland, 2017). Agile methodologies are also often used to increase transparency and

enable self-organizing behaviors since self-organized teams do not need long report lines and are

expected to react faster to challenges that arise from uncertain environments (Baran and Bible,

2019; Harsch and Festing, 2020). Especially the resulting direct and lateral communication as

well as fast information sharing of self-organizing teams were found to be vital preconditions for
DEVELOPMENT OF A BEHAVIORAL TAXONOMY OF AGILITY 27

an empowered decision making and were therefore found to be crucial for agility (Breu et al.,

2002).

In summary, we showed that workforce agility performance may be a multidimensional

construct consisting of ten different behavioral dimensions. Interestingly, all ten dimensions

were already linked to agility through previous research, however, were never combined to

create a holistic taxonomy of agile behavior.

Theoretical and Practical Implications

The results of this study may have implications for further theory development in several

important ways. First, we offer a behavioral taxonomy for defining and understanding workforce

agility from a multidimensional performance standpoint. Although workforce agility has been

associated with a wide range of dimensions in the current agility literature, this research

constitutes the first effort to systematically identify potential dimensions of agile performance.

We argue that this taxonomy offers a more detailed understanding of the behaviors that the

workforce agility construct is comprised of and with this answers the call by Sherehiy (2008) to

define workforce agility in a more detailed and specific manner. In a next step, this taxonomy

could be used to advance the theoretical understanding of the proposed relations between

workforce agility and different work-related outcomes, such as higher job performance or a

heightened well-being of employees working in agile settings.

Additionally, our research has implications for the performance literature and expands the

current conceptualizations of performance to include agility as a compound performance domain.

Following the approach by Campbell and Wiernik (2015) and Pulakos et al. (2000), who define

performance as multidimensional structure of specific dimensions that are described as

concretely as possible, we defined workforce agility as a multidimensional and behavioral model

DEVELOPMENT OF A BEHAVIORAL TAXONOMY OF AGILITY 28

of performance. This way we were able to advance job performance theory to include a

taxonomy of workforce agility. We argue that this inclusion is an important step for the

performance literature, given that workforce agility gains more and more attention throughout

the literature as well as the organizational practice.

The present research may also have important implications for organizational practice.

First, organizations could include agile behaviors in their performance metrics. This would

provide them with the opportunity to set specific agility goals and track their fulfillment.

Organizations would be able to assess agility levels as well as agility needs within different

departments and create tailored programs to improve agility levels. In a next step, organizations

could integrate this agility model in their development and training processes. Modular training

could be developed on the basis of the current agility model to strengthen single dimensions

which relate back to the overall agility level. Departments could assess their agility level and

then receive training on the basis of specific dimensions and behaviors to increase coherence

with their needs and subsequent training success. We would also advice companies to train

employees in the application of different agile behaviors, structures, methods and tests. Agile

behaviors such as iteration, reflection, testing, and user centricity are a crucial part of agile

projects and can easily be integrated through processes and methods that should be exactly

tailored to the needs of the employees. Training should explain the logic and reasoning behind

these processes and advice employees about when and where to use them.

Second, we would recommend organizations to consider the different dimensions of

agility in their recruitment processes. Especially the selection processes could benefit from

considering this model of workforce agility, which could be assessed through tests or tailored

interviews. In this way, organizations will be able to choose candidates who show agile
DEVELOPMENT OF A BEHAVIORAL TAXONOMY OF AGILITY 29

behaviors and will increase agility in selected departments. Ideally, the agility level of the team

and position is assessed beforehand, and the candidate fills gaps that might exist in the team or

department.

Finally, we advise organizations to consider their structures and processes when they aim

to promote agility. Structures and processes often prevent employees from being agile due to the

lack of flexibility. They repeatedly limit employee’s decision-making room and prevent them

from acting in an iterative fashion. These dimensions, however, have been shown to be a crucial

part of agility. It is, therefore, important that organizations create structures that increase decision

making abilities of employees, allow for cooperation and customer integration, and emphasize

the usefulness of tests and experiments. It might also be beneficial to create processes that

regularly incorporate reflection sessions in which the collaboration within a team is assessed and

subsequently improved. We therefore advise organizations to take all ten dimensions into

account when creating an agile culture, starting agile projects, integrating agility in hiring

decisions, performance metrics, and development processes, and building their structures and

processes in a way that allows for agility to develop.

Limitations and Future Research

A limitation that should be considered is that the present research only considers

qualitative data. Even though we base our model on two different methods that were

independently evaluated, the model lacks a quantitative database. It was therefore difficult to

make clear differentiations between some of the dimensions. Even though the raters agreed on

separate dimensions and the data from the concept mapping approach confirmed these

differentiations, the exact definitions should be further investigated. Especially the concept

mapping approach showed that some dimensions like iteration and testing were strongly linked
DEVELOPMENT OF A BEHAVIORAL TAXONOMY OF AGILITY 30

and could only be distinguished in lower levels of the dendrogram (see Figures 1 and 2). It is

therefore crucial that future research examines the model using quantitative methods. Further

limitations are the relatively small sample of 36 interview partners and the non-randomized

selection procedure of interview partner. However, each of our participants provided multiple

data points and we interviewed participants until answers became redundant.

Overall, however, it can be stated that this study provides first insights into a possible

taxonomy of agility and offers several impulses for further research in this area. Future research

should, for example, use quantitative measures to examine the model further. We suggest using

our taxonomy as a first reference point for creating a questionnaire and to use confirmatory

factor analysis to verify the ten-dimension taxonomy that is proposed by the current research.

This questionnaire could be the base of a new measure of the workforce agility concept that is

based on all behavioral dimensions of agility. This measure could be the foundation of more

empirical research to increase the understanding of influence factors and outcomes of agility in

organizations. This model, therefore, has potentially important implications for future research

that strives to use a model of agility to examine correlations of agility with variables such as

performance, well-being, or employee satisfaction. Positive relations with these variables are

often predicted in the literature, however, very few studies did use quantitative measures to

measure agility. Consequently, it has been difficult to link agile behavior to positive work

outcomes and we encourage more research in this direction.

Future research could also investigate the relationship between leadership and workforce

agility. It was suggested that leadership plays a great role in initiating collaboration between

teams and departments and that leaders play a great role in empowering employees and creating

an agile culture. In line with this, Parker et al. (2015) have described the agile leader to become
DEVELOPMENT OF A BEHAVIORAL TAXONOMY OF AGILITY 31

more of an adaptive leader who sets a direction, initiates collaboration, establishes rules, and

encourages constant feedback. It is also reasonable to suggest that agile leadership is related to

concepts such as empowering, supporting, or transformational leadership, which have been

described as an empowering leadership style in which leaders constantly provide feedback and

lead through a shared vision (Minai et al. 2020). As several benefits are expected to come from

an agile leadership, it might be worthwhile to further inspect what an agile leader should look

like.

Conclusion

In conclusion, this research fulfilled its goal to inductively develop a behavioral

taxonomy of workforce agility in order to enhance the theoretical understanding of the workforce

agility concept. It provides a definition based on ten specific behavioral dimensions and lays the

groundwork toward developing a reliable and validated measurement of workforce agility. This

measure could be the foundation of improved empirical research to increase the understanding of

predictors and outcomes of workforce agility.

DEVELOPMENT OF A BEHAVIORAL TAXONOMY OF AGILITY 32

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DEVELOPMENT OF A BEHAVIORAL TAXONOMY OF AGILITY 38

Table I
Characteristics of Study Participants
Work Experience
Vocational
Age Gender experience Current position with agility in Basis of expert status
background
in years years
MBA and Consultant for
50 F 23 4 Leading agile Projects
Biology digitalization
Engineer
32 M 7 Agile Coach 1.5 Working in agile Projects
(Business)
35 M 8 Business Chief Scrum Master 2 Scrum master and leader of a big agile Project

37 M 12 Engineer Engineer 1.5 Member of different agile Teams

Psychology Leader in the Center
49 M 25 3 Working in agile Tams
(PHD) for Innovation
Leader in
44 W 20 Business Organizational 4 Agile Coach and working in agile teams
Development
48 F 28 Business Leader in finance 2 Leading agile Projects
31 M 3 Engineer Project lead 2 Leading a two-year agile Project
Engineer autonomous
28 M 9 Engineer 1.5 Agile Project management
driving
58 M 30 Engineer Leader in R&D 3.5 Working in and lading agile projects
34 M 9 Engineer Engineer in R&D 0.75 Project management in agile projects
40 M 10 Engineer Agiler Coach 6 Leading the agile transformation in R&D
29 F 4.5 Engineer Project lead in R&D 2 Leading agile Projects
Psychology
29 M 5 HR Policies 2 Working in agile projects + PHD about agility
(PHD)
DEVELOPMENT OF A BEHAVIORAL TAXONOMY OF AGILITY 39

Digital marketing
32 M 5 Business 5 Working in an agile organization
specialist
33 M 7 Engineer Project lead R&D 2 Team lead in agile project management
Engineer
33 M 7 Agile Coach 5 Agiler Coach + PHD about agility
(Business).
Engineer Project lead; Agiler
35 M 13 3 Consultant agile Projects
(Business). Coach
Informatic
35 M 19 Agile Coach 3 Leading agile Projects + Trainer agile methods
(Business)
Training agile coach + long experience in agile
38 M 16 Informatic Agile Coach 11
projects
28 M 3 Engineer Product owner 2.5 Project lead in agile projects
43 M 16 Engineer Department lead 2.5 Experience in agile teams
Engineer
35 M 10 Agile Coach 3 Experience in agile teams
(Business)
29 M 10 Engineer Team lead R&D 7 Leading agile Projects
31 M 6 Informatic Head of Agility 6 Leading an agile change program
Communic
ation
38 M 12 Head of digital UX 8 Leading an agile change program
manageme
nt
Experience in agile teams + training in different agile
52 M 28 Business Head of HR 7
methods
Neuroscien
33 W 10 Agile coach 4 Design thinking Expert + agile coach
ce (PHD)
44 M 19 Engineer Agile coach 6 Leading and working in agile projects
33 F 10 Engineer Agile coach 3 Leading and working in agile projects
DEVELOPMENT OF A BEHAVIORAL TAXONOMY OF AGILITY 40

HR Consultant
Working in an agile project + Master thesis about
26 F 1 manageme organizational 2
agility
nt development
Project
Consultant in Working in agile teams + consultant in an agile
34 F 10 manageme 6
innovation consultancy
nt
Business +
Consultant and coach
Innovation
31 F 6 in innovation 4 Working in an agile organization + agile coach
manageme
management
nt
Communic
ation Consultant and coach
27 F 2 1.5 Scrum master + agile coach + agile consultant
manageme in agile management
nt
Consultant and coach
39 F 25 Business 15 Agile Coach
in agile management
Consultant
Sinology
M Organizational 3 Leading an agile team
(PHD)
Development
DEVELOPMENT OF A BEHAVIORAL TAXONOMY OF AGILITY 41

Table II
Resulting dimensions of the concept mapping approach, critical incidents and the final model

Definition of dimensions
Definition of dimensions resulting from
resulting from the critical Dimensions of the combined model
Dimensions the concept mapping
incidents
This dimension concerns the revision
This dimension concerns the ability of
This dimension concerns the of previous decisions due to other new
Accept people to be open, to manage and to
revision of previous decisions information as well as the acceptance
accept change as part of their daily life.
due to other new information as of different roles and situations. It
changes It further contains the ability to flexible,
well as the acceptance of further contains the ability to flexible,
quickly and successfully adapt to
different roles and situations. quickly and successfully adapt to
changing circumstances.
changing circumstances.

This dimension contains three

subdivisions. It firstly concerns user
centricity in that developers regularly
ask for feedback from the customer, put
the value for the customer in the center
of attention and integrate them in the This dimension concerns the This dimension concerns the ability of
development process. The second ability of people to tolerate risks, people to tolerate risks, prioritize,
Decision subdimension concerns the speed in prioritize and decide quickly and react and decide quickly and
making which decisions are made. It contains the proactively. It further contains proactively. It further contains the
act of making a decision itself as well as the ability of people to take ability of people to take responsibility
the notion to react quickly and quickly responsibility for their actions. for their actions.
create value. The third subdimension
concerns working in a structured
fashion. It contains methods like scrum
as well as the notion to make a plan and
to create well established processes.
DEVELOPMENT OF A BEHAVIORAL TAXONOMY OF AGILITY
This dimension concerns the creation of
transparency as well as information or
Create knowhow sharing, direct communication
Transparency and feedback. It further contains a focus
on the person as well as values like trust
or respect.
This dimension has several facets that
concern the collaboration within a team
and with a leader. Within a team it
suggests a collaboration that is cross
functional, open, dynamic and works
Collaboration beyond team boarders. In concern of the
collaboration with a leader this
dimension suggests an informal or
servant leadership with low hierarchy in
which team members are empowered to
take responsibility.
Reflection This dimension concerns regular
reflection as well as regular feedback.
User
See subdimension of decision making.
centricity
The sixth dimension contains the facet of
This dimension concerns
Iteration an iterative work fashion and continuous
developing a project in a
improvement as well as the notion to
This dimension concerns
quickly sharing information,
admitting to mistakes, asking for mistakes, asking for help or
help or information as well as
direct communication preferably
face to face.
This dimension concerns the
creation of agreements as well
as the adherence to these
agreements and to rules. It
further contains that remembers
go along with decisions that
were made by the team and trust
each other. Lastly it concerns the
deferment from egoistic
behavior, the valuing of others
and an empathic behavior.
This dimension concerns
questioning current behaviors,
reflecting the collaboration and
constantly looking for
improvements in the work.
This dimension concerns
constantly integrating the
customer in the project and
collecting and including
feedback of the customer.
42
This dimension concerns quickly
sharing information, admitting to
information as well as direct
communication preferably face to
face.
This dimension concerns the creation
of agreements as well as the adherence
to these agreements and to rules. It
further contains that remembers go
along with decisions that were made
by the team and trust each other. It
suggests a collaboration that is cross
functional, open, dynamic and works
beyond team boarders. Lastly it
concerns the deferment from egoistic
behavior, the valuing of others and an
empathic behavior.
This dimension concerns questioning
current behaviors, reflecting the
collaboration and constantly looking
for improvements in the work.
This dimension concerns constantly
integrating the customer in the project
and collecting and including feedback
of the customer. It further, puts the
value for the customer in the center of
attention and integrates them in the
development process.
This dimension concerns developing a
project in a stepwise manner, make
DEVELOPMENT OF A BEHAVIORAL TAXONOMY OF AGILITY
start building prototypes, experiment, try
things out and regularly test your
product.
Testing See subdimension of Iteration.
This dimension concerns the
commitment of the team members and
the willingness to manage structure and
Self- organize themselves. It also entails a
organization subdimension that concerns leadership.
This subdimension contains the notion to
set and follow goals and to create a team
with the right team members.
This dimension contains the necessity
for constant education as well as a good
Learning
knowledge management and the
possibility to learn from others.
stepwise manner and to act in
short adaptive cycles.
This dimension concerns the
testing of a product. It does not
include the test of a method.
43
continuous improvements and to act in
short adaptive cycles.
This dimension concerns the regular
testing of a product as well as the
building of a prototype, experimenting
and trying out new things. It does not
include the test of a method.
This dimension concerns the
commitment of the team members and
the willingness to manage structure
and organize themselves.
This dimension contains the necessity
for constant education as well as a
good knowledge management and the
possibility to learn from others.
 DEVELOPMENT OF A BEHAVIORAL TAXONOMY OF AGILITY 44

Figure 1
Third level of the Dendrogram and the resulting dimensions

Level 1

Level 2

Level 3

Collaboration Learning Reflection

6 Items Openness for Change
37 Items 9 Items
37 Items
Self-organization Iteration / Testing Decision making / User
Create transparency /
18 Items 35 Items centric/ working in a
Communication
structured fashion
36 Items
51 Items
 DEVELOPMENT OF A BEHAVIORAL TAXONOMY OF AGILITY 45

Figure 2
Fourth level of the Dendrogram and the resulting dimensions

Level 1

Level 2

Level 3

Level 4

Collaboration Empowering Creating Feedback Testing/ iteration Structured approach

17 Items Leadership Transparency 2 Items 32 Items Flexibility / 21 Items
9 Items 13 Items Adaptability
Reflection 22 Items
Decision making /
Empowerment /taking 7 Items user centricity
on responsibility Self-learning 34 Items
22 Items 2 Items Circular reaction Openness for change
4 Items 17 Items
Learning
5 Items Focus on values
Self-organization /Feedback
11 Items 25 Items
DEVELOPMENT OF A BEHAVIORAL TAXONOMY OF AGILITY 46

Figure 3

Flowchart showing the approach for combining the results from the Critical incident method and the concept mapping

8 Dimensions
Critical incident
based on the CI
method
method

10 final dimensions as
Interviews with 36
result of the combination
participants using the
of 8 dimensions from the
critical incident and
CI method and 8
concept mapping
dimensions of the
approach
concept mapping

8 Dimensions
Concept
based on
mapping
Concept
mapping