The popularity of agile methodologies is steadily increasing. This study is an intent to balance the agile change literature with a psychological perspective and quantitative measures of an agile change made within a Swedish organization. Organizational change recipients’ beliefs (discrepancy, appropriateness, valence, efficacy, & principal support) and trust in management were measured in an online survey to see how well these variables could predict a successful agile change towards transparency. The results indicate a lack of support for several previously cited success factors in the agile literature and a need for more quantitative and research-driven literature. No support could be found for a relationship between discrepancy, appropriateness, valence, principal support, trust in management, and the outcome of a successful implementation of transparency. Efficacy was found to be a significant and robust predictor of the outcome. More research is needed to ensure the generalizability of the results.

Background: The Scaled Agile Framework®(SAFe) has been adopted by many automotive Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) for scaling their agile practices. It is one of the ways to improve and accelerate their in-house software development life cycle. Most OEMs have tailored the agile framework to fit their own needs. However, with the increasing complexity of vehicles, especially in terms of embedded software and hardware development, agile release trains (ARTs) face challenges in managing requirements throughout the vehicle development life cycle. Multiple teams working on requirements, consistency of requirements, collaboration, prioritization of requirements between teams, and changing requirements are some of the challenges faced by the SAFe practicing organizations. Objectives: This thesis examines how the requirements engineering within SAFe has been practiced inone of the automotive OEMs, and the challenges its agile release trains face. It addresses the real problems of practical interest and real-life context by interacting with the teams who have been closely working with the requirements daily. It also accumulates the impacts due to the identified challenges. Methods: This study utilizes a case study methodology, which is flexible in design, exploratory, andqualitative. This choice of research method is influenced by the scope of the study, research questions, and the degree of interaction required between us and the participants to collect the data. By conducting semi-structured interviews, a large quality of data isproduced by having a higher level of interaction with participants. The collected data is then probed for newer and unexpected responses using a thematic approach, which helps to identify patterns and themes using large and complex data. Results: This thesis summarizes the requirement engineering practices and challenges faced by theagile release trains in SAFe practicing automotive industry. We approached the agile teams directly and collected the organizational and stakeholder behavior while working with therequirements and the challenges faced. Using intrinsic data analysis, the gathered interview data is understood, and the implications are listed. This study reemphasizes that agile release trains were facing many challenges, especially in the requirements engineeringarea even though the Scaled Agile Framework is practiced. Knowledge gaps, incompleteand misunderstood customer requirements, ineffective communication, fragmented tooling, inadequate management support, and inconsistent requirement engineering practiceare some of the challenges highlighted by the agile release trains.

Idag används många metoder och tillvägagångssätt inom projektledning och bland dessa har agila metoder blivit en av de mest populära. Dessa metoder är ofta anpassade till små eller medelstora organisationer, vilket kan skapa svårigheter för större företag som vill implementera agilt arbetssätt. Ett av de utformade ramverken för att arbeta agilt inom stora organisationer är The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe).  Denna studie syftar därför till att undersöka en stor statlig organisation som nyligen övergått från traditionell projektledning till agil och tillämpat SAFe. Studien fokuserade på att identifiera de utmaningar organisationen mötte vid implementering av SAFe, samt undersökte hur de förändringar som stod till följd av den agila transformationen påverkade medarbetar-och ledarskapsrollerna. Mer specifikt fokuserar studien på att undersöka påverkan av förändringar i de anställdas ansvarsområden, kommunikation och koordinering. En kvalitativ liten N-studie genomfördes på IT-avdelningen i organisationen där resultatet visade att övergången till agilt arbetssätt skapade flera utmaningar såsom budgetrestriktioner, anställdas motstånd mot förändring som ledde till en kontinuitet i arbetet med traditionella metoder, bristande medvetenhet och kunskap om agila metoder samt problem med kortsiktig planering. Ytterligare utmaningar identifierades som specifikt relaterar till ramverket SAFe såsom att ramverket upplevs som komplext vilket gör det svårt att förstå och tillämpa, att en strikt applicering av ramverket inte fungerade effektivt i praktiken, samt att SAFe gav bristande flexibilitet i organisationen i vissa fall.  Studien visar att den agila förändringen påverkade de anställda genom utökade ansvarsområden och arbetsuppgifter, samt att linjechefernas kontroll skapar svårigheter för medarbetare. Dessa förändringar har skapat frustration och till viss del minskad produktivitet. Å andra sidan har transformationen också gett positiv påverkan och har bidragit till bättre kommunikation och ökad transparens vilket har lett till en ökad motivation och nöjdhet hos de anställda. / Today, many methods and approaches are used in project management, among which agile methods have become one of the most popular. These methods are often tailored to small or medium-sized organizations, which can create difficulties for larger companies that want to implement an agile work approach. One of the frameworks designed to implement agile within large organizations is The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe). Therefore, this study aims to examine a large governmental organization that has recently transitioned from traditional project management to agile and applied SAFe. The study focused on identifying the challenges the organization faced during the implementation of SAFe and investigated how the changes resulting from the agile transformation affected employee and leadership roles. More specifically, the study focuses on investigating the impact of changes in employees' responsibilities, communication, and coordination. A qualitative small N-study was conducted in the IT department of the organization, where the result showed that the transition to an agile project management created several challenges such as budget restrictions, employees' resistance to change leading to a continuity in working with traditional methods, lack of awareness and knowledge about agile methods, and problems with short-term planning. Additional challenges were identified that specifically related to the SAFe framework, such as the framework being perceived as complex which makes it difficult to understand and apply, that a strict adherence to the framework did not work effectively in practice, and SAFe lead to a lack of flexibility in the organization in some cases. The study shows that the agile transformation affected employees through increased responsibilities and tasks, and that line managers' control creates difficulties for employees. These changes have created frustration and partially reduced productivity. On the other hand, the transformation has also had a positive impact and has contributed to better communication and increased transparency, which has led to increased motivation and satisfaction among employees.