Provisional Directionality: Unpacking the prospective dimension of organizational routines

While it is well known that organizational routines guide actions in practice, the prospective dimension of this guiding function remains underexplored. We examine the prospective dimension of routines through an ethnographic study of Scrum software development teams. Our findings show how actors continuously (re)create a tentative realm of possible paths in what we refer to as provisional directionality. The findings describe how provisional directionality is continuously (re)created through three patterning mechanisms: initiating possible paths, including or excluding possible paths, and reorienting possible paths. Provisional directionality contributes to routine dynamics research by, first, unpacking the prospective dimension of patterning in routines, second, emphasizing temporality in routine performances as flow, and third, showing how heavily scripted routines enable action when it is unclear how to proceed. We also discuss how provisional directionality may inspire future research on routines in contexts such as product and service innovation, agile software development, and emergent strategizing.