Agile Project Management and IT Project Success in Medium-Sized Enterprises

Agile project management is widely used in IT projects, but most research treats firm size as a side factor rather than studying it directly and almost no study looks at medium-sized firms as their own distinct group, separate from small or micro firms. This paper reviews 21 verified sources, found through a real search of SpringerLink, Taylor & Francis Online, Wiley Online Library, IEEE Xplore, and ProQuest/ABI-INFORM, plus an earlier general web search. Every source was checked against its own publisher record. The review finds that firm size clearly affects agile project success larger firms generally struggle more but even sources that focus on SMEs almost always treat small, micro, and medium firms as one group, rather than isolating the medium band. Management support and team/culture fit have the most supporting evidence overall, though very little of that evidence is specific to medium-sized firms. Using Contingency Theory as its main lens, this paper argues that medium-sized firms likely need a different approach to agile than either small or large firms, because the fit between a practice and its organizational context not the practice by itself is what drives success. Scopus and Web of Science were not accessible for this search, so this is presented as a working paper rather than a completed, fully database-searched systematic review.