THE CHALLENGES OF APPLYING GROUNDED THEORY IN INNOVATION AND PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT: A CASE STUDY IN AGILE PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Carolina Rodrigues Reigado, Marcelle La Guardia Lara de Castro, Ana Valéria Carneiro Dias, Daniel Capaldo Amaral · 2017
Grounded Theory (GT) is a qualitative method applied especially in studies of human and social aspects.The application of GT is challenging, since the method does not utilize previously developed hypothesis and suggests the adoption of a wide scope of research.More than that, the literature of GT applied in Innovation and Product Development (PD) is still in early stages, with little evidence on details of how applying the method.This paper presents the challenges regarding GT usage faced by a research on improvisation in Agile Project Management (APM) teams.A brief literature review was applied in order to identify GT protocols from different areas, a protocol was developed for the improvisation's research and the difficulties faced by the researchers were written down in a case study.The definition of the phenomenon, for instance, is one of the critical barriers identified by the authors.The examples found in literature, from human and social aspects, were not sufficient to guide author regarding this aspect.The strategy adopted was to create a practical definition of the phenomenon, including a trigger and an ending state.Other problems, such as the consolidation of the data analysis, are also discussed.Finally, it is expected that the analysis will be useful for researchers interested in adopting GT for PD and innovation or similar areas.