Agile Adoption Rate: 2014 Open Research

This open research into agile adoption rates was performed during February 13 to March 24 2014 until under the title “2014 Agile Adoption Mini-Survey” and there was 114 respondents. The survey was announced in my October 2013 DDJ article, on the Ambysoft announcements list, my Twitter feed, and several LinkedIn discussion forums (Disciplined Agile Delivery, Agile and Lean Software Development, Agile CMMI, and Scrum Practitioners ). 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:

• Figure 1 indicates the challenges faced by organizations adopting agile. The most difficult challenges are listed at the top.
• Figure 2 indicates these same issues as Figure 1 except this time they are ordered by relative importance.
• Figure 3 summarizes the success rates of organizations agile adoption programs. Although there are some failures there are many more successes. However, the fact that a large percentage of organizations seem to be getting neutral results is discouraging.

Figure 1. What’s challenging when you’re adopting agile?

Figure 2. What’s important when you’re adopting agile?

Figure 3. How successful are transitions to agile ways of working?

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 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. Once I’ve published my column summarizing the data in DDJ, I really don’t have any reason not to share the information.
3. 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.
4. I think that it’s a good thing to do and I invite others to do the same.