THE AGILE IT MANAGER
Tommi Tapanainen, Turku School of Economics, Finland

Abstract
Agility is an organizational concept applied in many fields, e.g. corporate strategy, manufacturing, and software development. Today, agility is increasingly important also to IT organizations in responding to changing business demands. However, agility is still not well understood in this context and this paper seeks to elaborate the role of the IT manager in the agility of the IT organization.
We focus on the capabilities required of IT managers to create and support agility in IT organizations. In addition to a literature review on agile IT management, we present results from a qualitative research in 5 Finnish organizations. Both interviews and the literature suggest that agile IT managers are capable leaders who are strategists and skilled in both IT and business. In particular, the strategist capability was supported by the evidence as important for agile IT managers.
Keywords: agility, IT management, IT manager