Abstract Agile teams are not meant to have project managers. Instead, agile methods such as Scrum and XP define roles such as product owner, scrum master, and coach. Studies have uncovered the existence of the project manager in agile projects, pointing to disconnect between theory and practice. To address this gap, a Grounded Theory study with a mixed methods approach was conducted using multiple sources of data including over 45 h of interviews with 39 software practitioners and quantitative data from 57 questionnaire respondents. We present and describe the project manager’s role in agile projects in terms of (a) everyday activities: facilitating, mentoring, negotiating, coordinating, and protecting, performed by the project manager using; (b) three management approaches: hard, moderate, and soft; (c) four traditional project management activities continued to be performed by them, including: tracking project progress, reporting on project status, budgeting and forecasting, and managing personnel; and (d) the influence of the presence of the project manager on the frequency with which agile activities are carried out by the teams. Our study highlights the continued presence of the role of the project manager in agile software projects as a part of the transition from traditional to agile ways of working.

中文翻译：

---

项目经理在敏捷软件开发项目中的角色

摘要 敏捷团队并不意味着要有项目经理。相反，Scrum 和 XP 等敏捷方法定义了产品负责人、Scrum 主管和教练等角色。研究揭示了敏捷项目中项目经理的存在，指出理论与实践之间存在脱节。为了弥补这一差距，我们使用多种数据来源进行了一项采用混合方法的扎根理论研究，其中包括对 39 位软件从业者进行的超过 45 小时的访谈以及来自 57 位问卷受访者的定量数据。我们展示并描述了项目经理在敏捷项目中的角色 (a) 日常活动：由项目经理执行的促进、指导、谈判、协调和保护；(b) 三种管理方式：硬、中、软；(c) 他们继续进行四项传统的项目管理活动，包括：跟踪项目进展、报告项目状态、预算和预测以及管理人员；(d) 项目经理在场对团队执行敏捷活动的频率的影响。我们的研究强调，作为从传统工作方式向敏捷工作方式转变的一部分，项目经理在敏捷软件项目中的角色继续存在。