Implementation of Scrum Elements in a Cultural Institution

Since March 2020, managers of cultural institutions have had to dynamically adapt their methodologies for teamwork, project management, and ongoing institutional tasks to the COVID-19 restrictions and guidelines handed down by public authorities. Following the initial downtime in the spring season and the reopening in June 2020, the Pod Atlantami Municipal Library in Wałbrzych took vigorous measures to adapt its cultural project management to the new conditions, drawing on the experience of the broadly understood business sector. These measures included the implementation of certain elements of Scrum as an agile framework for project management. The goal of the paper is to showcase the pilot implementation of Scrum elements in project management in the selected cultural institution. The analysis relied on structured questionnaires and open questions, visualisation meetings, and semi-structured interviews. Data analysis showed the applicability of backlog management, iterative planning, and iterative task execution to projects pursued by cultural institutions, along with potential for winning the employees’ approval. However, a properly executed implementation is necessary, in which regard this paper offers a set of recommendations arising from the analysis.

Since March 2020, managers of cultural institutions have had to dynamically adapt their methodologies for teamwork, project management, and ongoing institutional tasks to the COVID-19 restrictions and guidelines handed down by public authorities. Following the initial downtime in the spring season and the reopening in June 2020, the Pod Atlantami Municipal Library in Wałbrzych took vigorous measures to adapt its cultural project management to the new conditions, drawing on the experience of the broadly understood business sector. These measures included the implementation of certain elements of Scrum as an agile framework for project management. The goal of the paper is to showcase the pilot implementation of Scrum elements in project management in the selected cultural institution. The analysis relied on structured questionnaires and open questions, visualisation meetings, and semi-structured interviews. Data analysis showed the applicability of backlog management, iterative planning, and iterative task execution to projects pursued by cultural institutions, along with potential for winning the employees’ approval. However, a properly executed implementation is necessary, in which regard this paper offers a set of recommendations arising from the analysis.