Top Insights from 11th Annual State of Agile Survey
As the data for the 12th Annual State of Agile report is being compiled, we thought we would take a look back at the top insights from the 11th Annual State of Agile Survey.
1. This was the first year that more respondents cited using agile project management tools over spreadsheets. Hooray, teams are finding solutions to help them be more effective!
2. For the first time, Jira was cited as being the most popular agile management tool (53%) dethroning Microsoft Excel which has seen declining popularity over the last 3 years. Go Atlassian!
3. 38% of respondents said that their team use roadmaps, and this was the first year that roadmaps were included in the survey. The practice of roadmapping is (and arguably always has been) a key component of effective customer collaboration and agile team operations. Glad to see this.
4. Respondents continue to cite the same top three benefits of adopting agile for the sixth year in a row — ability to manage changing priorities, increased team productivity and improved project visibility. Teams are doing same-same and not pushing the boundaries. What benefits do the most mature and effective agile teams cite? What of team health, for example?
5. Scrum of Scrums dropped in popularity (72% to 27%) as the favoured method to scaling agile — overtaken by the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFE). Not a big surprise I guess, lots of marketing muscle behind that approach.
6. Although on-time delivery continued to be the most popular measure of agile initiative success (53%) it’s popularity decreased 5% from the previous year. How about achieving desired outcomes? Surely more important than shipping on time…
7. “Business value” was cited as the second most popular measure of an agile initiatives success (46%) — one of the most notable trends from the survey rising from 4th place in the prior year. As above, hopefully people start to place more emphasis on delivering business and customer value, over on time delivery.
8. Iteration planning was noted as the top agile technique (90%) compared to 69% the previous year in 5th place — by far the greatest leap in popularity across the top 5 agile techniques year on year. I’m surprised that retrospectives or experimentation haven’t taken top spot yet. To be successful at agility on the team and organisation level we need to reflect and experiment.
9. 98% of respondents said that their organisation has realised success from agile projects. Superb, that’s what we want to see, and what we expect!
10. Internal Agile Coaches were cited as being the top tip for success with scaling agile (52%), up from 5th place in the prior survey. I know first hand how important the coaching teams were to driving success at the management level through my participation in the Agile Industry Consortium (Enterprises with over 4,000 employees).
What has your team found most effective? When was the last time you tried something new? We want to hear from you!
