  Agile methods have gotten a good reputation for managing projects in many
different sectors. A challenge among practitioners in the ERP (Enterprise
Resource Planning) domain, is to decide if an agile method is suitable or not
for new projects. This study investigates how decision-makers select between
agile and plan-driven ERP implementation projects in relation to known factors
from previous research. We selected projects that the decision-makers assessed
as successful, but borderline, agile and plan-driven projects already
implemented and let project managers fill out a survey consisting of key agile
or plan-driven characteristics. We found that the assessment made by
decision-makers did not differ on any aspects except higher executive buy-in
for process change, and the prioritization of low cost in the agile projects.
This study highlights the difficulty in selecting implementation strategy for a
large part of the ERP implementations, and the data show that the
decision-makers could not make such a decision at an early point in time
without contextual knowledge.
