Comparison of Plan-driven and Agile Project Management Approaches: Theoretical Bases for a Case Study in Estonian Software Industry

There is evidence that Scrum could benefit from additional plan-driven practices of defined processes that address the organizational context. The question remains however how to add the plan-driven practices without losing the agility of Scrum and increasing the project performance. This paper describes the preparatory phase of the research that aims to evaluate the tailored project management process in industry. First, we compare the plan-driven project management practices derived from the process models of CMMI and ISO/IEC 15504, the PMBoK, project management literature with the Scrum practices from the case company. We then evaluate the comparison addressing the concerns of using Scrum in industry focusing on the value the plan-driven practices would have in agile environment. Finally, we propose a tailored project management process and suggest measures for evaluating the process in an industry case study.