There is a common perception that, while there may be some 'teething' problems experienced during the initial transition to agile, people are much happier, engaged and ultimately more productive in these environments. This study shows that this belief may not always hold true, identifying many serious 'people' challenges experienced by 17 large multinational organisations, all using agile for more than three years. The cases provide an interesting insight in that they involve instances where agile was implemented in a top-down manner across the organisations or at least across business units. This is in contrast to most accounts of agile which involve voluntary, bottom up adoption on small co-located teams developing systems deemed to be suitable for agile development. The people issues uncovered include a broad range of problems from recruitment of agile staff, to training, motivation and performance evaluation among others. The paper will conclude with a set of actionable recommendations as to how organisations can overcome these challenges, based on the better practices uncovered in the cases studied.

Pilot projects are popular in companies for experimenting with industry 4.0 concepts. However, few studies have addressed the specificities of piloting transformation, whose requirements are quite different than those for implementing a project with clear goals. Pilot projects can be used for the purpose of exploring, demonstrating, optimizing and disseminating solutions. In this paper we identify the role of pilot projects in digital transformation and define a successful pilot project so that it transcends to a full project. We provide accessible guidelines for the deployment of pilot projects in industry 4.0, drawing from a structured literature review and from lessons learned in an action research project implementing mixed reality in household ceramics production. A sound approach to pilot projects is important to reduce unknowns and risks in ensuing full projects and to contributing to organizational knowledge, offering an opportunity to rethink business strategies and train employees in digital transformation.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present an approach to incorporating mobility into continuous manufacturing following the advent of Industry 4.0 (I4.0). Design/methodology/approach The investigation is based on a year-long canonical action research into a paper-manufacturing company implementing core I4.0 technologies. Findings The findings show how to: classify manufacturing mobility strategy based on the dimensions of team, task and control; design business processes enabled by mobile cyber–physical resources; involve different stakeholders in modeling mobility; and create a comprehensive guide to assist in implementing the mobile digitalization required by I4.0. Research limitations/implications Despite the complexity, richness and depth of the insights obtained in this research for mobility management in process industries, this inquiry was conducted in a single organization. Practical implications As the fourth industrial revolution encourages decentralization and increased interaction between humans and machines, this paper presents a model to capture the mobility potential in manufacturing. The tools proposed in this research can be used to steer investments in industry transformations that fuse the physical and digital worlds, overcoming mobility constraints. Originality/value Theoretically, this paper expands the concept of manufacturing mobility in I4.0. In practice, it proposes a participative roadmap to assist technology management in increasingly decentralized environments, identifying the intertwined network of cyber–physical actors, processes and services.

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The importance of effective decision making in organisations has been well documented. Despite the many benefits associated with groupwork, groups are often subjected to process losses such as groupthink, which in turn have a negative impact on group decision making. Limited prior research has suggested that such process losses may be even more prevalent in agile software development characterised by highly cohesive, self-managing teams. This study is one of the first to rigorously investigate the group process losses most prevalent in agile software development teams and assesses how the implementation of agile practices can reduce the impact or occurrence of such losses.