🤖 AI Summary
This study addresses the persistent paradox of engineering managers in agile software development: despite agile’s emphasis on decentralization and team autonomy, the engineering manager role remains salient. Adopting a mixed-methods approach—integrating systematic literature review with multi-case empirical investigation—the research identifies three interlocking drivers of this persistence: historical path dependence, theoretical tensions (e.g., balancing autonomy with cross-team coordination), and organizational constraints (e.g., technical debt governance, inter-team alignment, and talent development). Based on these findings, the paper proposes the “adaptive leadership” conceptual model, positioning engineering managers not as control-oriented supervisors but as enablers and architects who focus on technical strategy alignment, capability co-development, and systemic resilience. The model offers a theoretically grounded framework for rethinking leadership in agile organizations, informing management tool design and guiding future empirical inquiry. (149 words)
📝 Abstract
Although Agile methodologies emphasize decentralized decision-making and team autonomy, engineering managers continue to be employed in Agile software organizations. This apparent paradox suggests that traditional managerial functions persist despite the theoretical displacement of managerial hierarchy in Agile. This paper explores the persistence of engineering managers through a multidimensional framework encompassing historical context, theoretical tensions, organizational realities, empirical evidence, evolving managerial roles, and practical implications. A systematic literature review underpins our multifaceted analysis, supplemented by illustrative case studies. We conclude by proposing a conceptual model that reconciles Agile principles with managerial necessity, offering guidance for practitioners, researchers, and tool designers. Implications for leadership development, tool integration, and future research are discussed.