The impact of the Abilene Paradox on double-loop learning in an agile team

• Authors: John McAvoy;Tom Butler
• Venue: Information and Software Technology
• Year: 2007

This paper presents a qualitative investigation of learning failures associated with the introduction of a new software development methodology by a project team. This paper illustrates that learning is more than the cognitive process of acquiring a new skill; learning also involves changes in behaviour and even beliefs. Extreme Programming (XP), like other software development methodologies, provides a set of values and guidelines as to how software should be developed. As these new values and guidelines involve behavioural changes, the study investigates the introduction of XP as a new learning experience. Researchers use the concepts of single and double-loop learning to illustrate how social actors learn to perform tasks effectively and to determine the best task to perform. The concept of triple-loop learning explains how this learning process can be ineffective, accordingly it is employed to examine why the introduction of XP was ineffective in the team studied. While XP should ideally foster double-loop learning, triple-loop learning can explain why this does not necessarily occur. Research illustrates how power factors influence learning among groups of individuals; this study focuses on one specific power factor - the power inherent in the desire to conform. The Abilene Paradox describes how groups can make ineffective decisions that are contrary to that which group members personally desire or believe. Ineffective decision-making occurs due to the desire to conform among group members; this was shown as the cause of ineffective learning in the software team studied. This desire to conform originated in how the project team cohered as a group, which was, in turn, influenced by the social values embraced by XP.