Controlling the uncontrollable: ‘Agile’ teams and illusions of autonomy in creative work

Abstract

The creative industries have recently been hailed as presenting a liberating model for the future of work and a valuable terrain on which to examine purported new regimes of workplace control. This article, based on the empirical examination of a Canadian video game development studio, traces the modes of control which operate on and through project teams in creative settings. The impact of the adoption of an 'emancipatory', post-bureaucratic project management technology, 'Agile', is critically examined through interviews and non-participative observation of management, technical and artistic labour within one project team. The potential for autonomy in such 'Agile' teams is critically assessed within the managerial regime of creative production and the broader power relations implied by the financial, organizational and institutional context.

A Relational Database to Understand Social Innovation and Its Impact on Social Transformation

“…Some concepts, such as social innovation or social economy, still have an open-ended theoretical basis. Research has also advanced conceptually, such as by developing the notion of regressive social innovation, which emerged more recently in some CRISES work (Hodgson and Briand, 2013). Other concepts have multiple theoretical anchor points, such as the concept of governance, used in the standard economic and financial approaches as well as in institutional sociology and social geography.…”

Go with the Flow: Accelerated digital design in the age of Post-agility

“…Schwartz (2014) notes how individuals are often tasked with parallel working, sometimes on multiple projects. Hodgson and Briand (2013) find agile designers are 'exploited' while Babb et al (2014) report 'iteration pressure', where stressors negatively affect creative output (Byron et al, 2010). …”

“…Teams are variously known as 'pods', 'trios' (Hodgson and Briand, 2013) or the 'three amigos' (Dinwiddie, 2014) and usually consist of a designer, developer and product owner. Achievement is highly correlated to individual's capacity, ingenuity and propensity to collaborate (Brown et al, 2011) in contrast to atomized Fordist production.…”

Agile Design: A Combined Model Based on Design Thinking and Agile Methodologies for Digital Games Projects

“…programming and coding, while the other is related to a more artistic perspective, e.g., graphic and character design, music, etc. Thus, many researchers as Akta & Orcun (2014), Albino, Souza, & Prado (2014), Hodgson & Briand (2013), Manninen & Kujanpa (2006) argue that game development can be considered a especial case in software development. Akta & Orcun (2014) consider that game development differs from software development essentially because of the creative aspect, that involves the game concept, aesthetics and entertainment.…”