What an interesting conference. And what interesting questions it poses! For example, this one on page 5 of the CFP:
"How did agile software development shape the concepts of work and employment?"
If anyone from this listserv has some cites that speak to this question I'd be psyched if you shared a few.
I make no claims to know anything about this subject apart from recently finishing Cal Newport's
A World Without Email where he touches on these concerns. Among other things, Newport wishes for a productivity revolution in knowledge work. And he thinks that it might happen if we replace email with some of the productivity tools and techniques that are used in software development like kanban boards and scrum and agile work processes. He insists that this can happen without knowledge work suffering the same forms of regimentation/acceleration/dehumanization/surveillance that happened to many forms of manual labor with the implementation of Taylorism and Fordism (cf. page 119). But how plausible are Newport's claims? Are scrum and agile new forms of Taylorism? Or are they something altogether different? Is it even helpful to view these techniques through the lens of Taylorism?
Best,
Luke Fernandez
Weber State University