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As the world changes, organizations have had to make adjustments to keep up with the development.

Projects are no exception as they are also exposed to the dynamic environment. The traditional project management, which is a well-studied field of research, has received some criticism for being too rigid, and therefore, the need for a more agile project management emerged. The relatively new agile methods have been getting a lot of attention for its success in the software development industry. However, there are those who claim that agile project management can be used in any type of project. This would imply that agile methods could be applicable also in events, which some authors also claim. However, our opinion is that the research on agile project management in events is lacking, and therefore, the purpose of this study was to add to this research. Moreover, the purpose was to examine if some agile project management features can be applied in an event and what the effects could be. The considered agile features are short time-cycles, cross-functional teams, and visualization boards.

To fulfill the investigative purpose of the thesis a qualitative method was applied, where a case study on a gaming event was conducted, and five semi-structured interviews with the members of the project group of the event formed the basis of the empirical data collection. Additionally, a review of existing literature and research was performed. Finally, a thematic analysis was conducted on the collected theoretical and empirical data. The analysis and succeeding discussion showed that due to the high probability for changes to occur in event projects, many of the agile features could be favorably applied, due to the need for continuous planning. The agile short time-cycles and the visualization board could both be beneficial due to the probability for having to make adjustments. Moreover, the implementation of the cross-functional teams could also have positive effects by helping to quickly respond to changes, and thereby contribute to work towards the crucial deadlines in events. However, it could be beneficial to implement other features of the agile methodology as well to fully utilize the benefits from the cross-functional team. Furthermore, there is a need for the project group to understand the benefits of cross-functionality to avoid frustration, confusion, or irritation. There is also a need to keep track of the full time-horizon even when working in short time-cycles because of the importance to reach the deadline. Therefore, it could be useful to implement some milestones and tollgates as well. The purpose of the visualization board also has to be communicated clearly to fully utilize it. However, our conclusion is that implementation of these agile features could result in better control of the progress and more efficient work and thereby lead to time savings by quicker responding to changes and solving of situations.