Track description n°17

IS Development and Project Management

Track Chairs

Anna Wiedemann

Bern University of Applied Sciences

Anna Wiedemann is a Professor of Information Systems at Bern University of Applied Sciences. She earned her PhD from the Technical University of Munich, Germany. With over ten years of practical experience, she has provided consultancy and research services to companies in agile project and service management. Her research interests lie in agile IT project management, DevOps, IT operations, and qualitative methods. Her work has been published in journals, including the European Journal of Information Systems, Information and Organization, and Communications of the ACM.

Sabine Matook

University of Queensland

s.matook@business.uq.edu.au

Dr Sabine Matook is a Professor in Information Systems at the UQ Business School, University of Queensland. She is a digital technology scholar with an interest in systems development and social media. Dr. Matook is on the editorial boards of various leading information systems journals, including MIS Quarterly (MISQ). Currently, she is the Secretary of the Council of the Association for Information Systems (AIS), the professional body of more than 5,500 members from the Information Systems field. Her work has appeared repeatedly in Financial Times FT 50-ranked journals. She is a Senior Research Fellow with the Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society – The German Internet Institute.
Dr. Matook is also a passionate educator and a champion for work-integrated learning in higher education. She received 2024 an Australian National Teaching Award citation and is a Senior Fellow of Advance HE, an advanced level of professional standing.

Edward W.N. Bernroider

Vienna University of Economics and Business

edward.bernroider@wu.ac.at

Edward W.N. Bernroider is a Professor of Information Systems (IS) and Head of the Institute of Information Management and Control at WU Vienna in Austria. His research interests center on (overlapping) issues related to IT decisions, control over IS development projects and agile digital transformation, and information security, and how these can impact individuals, organizations and entire societies. Apart from serving as senior editor for the European Journal of Information Systems (EJIS) and ad-hoc reviewer for IS journals, Edward has been involved in the organization of more than 75 IS-related conferences since 2010. Most noteworthy, he is currently serving or has served as Conference Co-Chair for Conf-IRM (2012, Vienna), Associate Editor for ECIS and ICIS (for several years), and Co-Track Chair for a range of AIS and other international IS related conferences (such as HICSS).

Information Systems development (ISD) and project management continue to be central topics within IS research and practice. Practitioners routinely adapt, blend, and reconfigure established approaches into novel assemblages tailored to unique project contexts and organizational demands. This pragmatic adaptation often emerges as organizations strive to enhance agility, responsiveness, and innovation amidst dynamic market conditions and rapid technological advancements.

Agility is increasingly perceived as a broader capability that transcends individual methodologies, underscoring the need for research that critically investigates and theorizes the actual, situated practices through which agility is enacted in contemporary ISD and project contexts. Studies are especially encouraged that unpack the nuanced realities of agile and post-agile practices, highlighting how flexibility, improvisation, and hybrid methodologies contribute to effective project outcomes.

Furthermore, the proliferation and integration of AI tools into the domain of ISD and project management is beginning to radically alter traditional practices. AI-driven tools are transforming core project activities including requirement elicitation, coding, testing, project scheduling, and risk management. Research is urgently needed to explore and understand how these tools reshape professional roles, collaborative dynamics, decision-making processes, and overall methodological practices.

This track invites research that unpacks the implications of AI and agile methods to provide new theoretical, methodological and practical insights into contemporary ISD and project management. We encourage contributions that delineate new perspectives (AI, agile) from traditional views, and examine novel approaches and adaptive practices in ISD and project management, or real-world applications and implications of agility beyond formal agile frameworks.

Studies that propose novel theoretical, analytical, or empirical approaches to understanding and addressing opportunities and issues that arise in the use of agile methods or AI-based tools in ISD and project management processes are especially encouraged. By fostering dialogue between theory and practice, the track aims to advance our collective understanding of evolving methodological landscapes and in particular stimulate insights into the profound implications of AI on the future of ISD and project management.

Track topics

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

Selection, use, and customization/configuration of ISD approaches across traditional, agile, and post-agile paradigms
Agile and AI-based approaches to ISD/IT project estimation and planning
Hybrid methodologies and approaches for combining traditional and agile elements
DevOps, continuous development and deployment, and no/low-code platforms
AI affordances to support ISD and project management processes and practices
Project team dynamics: collaboration, communication, conflict resolution, and inter-team dynamics
ISD and project management in distributed and virtual teams
Governance, risk management and compliance in ISD/IT projects
Leadership, coordination, and control perspectives on ISD/IT projects
Socio-technical aspects of ISD and project management
Ethical issues and sustainability in ISD and project management
Critical perspectives on human-AI interactions in ISD/IT projects
Design principles for digital practices integrating human and AI-based agents
Long-term perspectives on the use of agile or AI in ISD/IT projects
Global, international, and cross-cultural perspectives on the use of agile methods or AI-based tools in ISD and project management