Agile and Enterprise Architecture: 2011 Open Research

This open research into agile and enterprise architecture was performed on March 28-29 2011 and there was 57 respondents. The survey was announced on my Twitter feed and the Agile Alliance, Agile CMMI, Considerate EA, EA Symposium, and CIPS discussion groups on LinkedIn. The survey results Downloads What you may do with the information Discussion of the results Links to other articles/surveys Why share this much information?

The Survey Results

Some findings include:

• The ability of enterprise architecture (EA) teams to work with agile teams varies, as you see in Figure 1. The weighted average, on a scale of -10 to +10, is .8
• This may be explained by the fact that EA teams lean towards a more traditional way of working, as you see in Figure 2. The weighted average is -1.7
• The good news is that the attitude of EA teams towards agile appears to be positive, as you see in Figure 3. The weighted average is 2.0
• You may find the article Agile Enterprise Architecture of interest.

Figure 1. Collaboration between EA and agile teams.

Figure 2. Your EA team’s “agileness”

Figure 3. Your EA team’s attitude towards agility.

Downloads

The Survey Questions

Raw Data

Summary Presentation

What You May Do With This Information

You may use this data as you see fit, but may not sell it in whole or in part. You may publish summaries of the findings, but if you do so you must reference the survey accordingly (include the name and the URL to this page). Feel free to contact me with questions. Better yet, if you publish, please let me know so I can link to your work.

Discussion of the Results

1. This was a small survey that I ran quickly. I purposely sent it to EA lists, so the percentage of people indicating that their orgs have an EA team (67%) is high.
2. This survey suffers from the fundamental challenges faced by all surveys.

Links to Other Articles/Surveys

1. My other surveys

Why Share This Much Information?

I’m sharing the results, and in particular the source data, of my surveys for several reasons:

1. Other people can do a much better job of analysis than I can. If they publish online, I am more than happy to include links to their articles/papers.
2. Too many traditionalists out there like to use the “where’s the proof” question as an excuse not to adopt agile techniques. By providing some evidence that a wide range of organizations seem to be adopting these techniques maybe we can get them to rethink things a bit.
3. I think that it’s a good thing to do and I invite others to do the same.