The State of Agile

These are the Most Significant Reasons
for Adopting Agile

75%

of companies said that accelerated software delivery is their #1 reason for adopting agile.

64%

said that the enhanced ability to manage changing priorities is what made them choose agile.

55%

listed “increased productivity” as their primary reason.

The Most Commonly Used Agile
Methodologies

The agile Scrum methodology is by far the most widely used among teams. To make up for the shortcomings in Scrum, a large number of companies are also using other Agile methodologies, or a hybrid of methods to reach success.

5%

of teams use ScrumBan.

14%

of teams use a Hybrid.

56%

of teams use the
Scrum methodology.

Scrum Statistics

Companies that are searching for an all-encompassing framework to implement the Agile mindset, often choose the Scrum framework.

The average size of a Scrum team
is 7 members.

94% of respondents are using Scrum in their agile practice. Out of that 94%, 78% use Scrum with other frameworks, and 16% use Scrum exclusively.

The average length of a Sprint is 2.4 weeks, while the average duration of a Scrum project is 11.6 weeks.

The top certification in 2017 was the certificate for ScrumMaster. Moreover, 40% of them got a Product Owner Certification, and 24% got certified as Scrum Coaches.

Challenges Implementing Scrum

51%

Organizational design culture makes it difficult for adopting agile and scaling.

44%

Teams struggle to transition from traditional Waterfall.

41%

No clearly defined metrics to identify and measure success are another challenge.

40%

Alignment with other projects in a portfolio is a major issue.

38%

Teams also struggle with a lack of trust.

Most Popular Agile Scaling Methods
and Approaches

SAFe is by far the most popular agile scaling method, followed by Scrum of Scrums.

45%

SAFe is among the most used agile
scaling methods and approaches.

22.1%

Scrum of Scrums is second on the list with 22.1% of respondents using this scaling method.

13.3%

of respondents use a custom-made scaling method for their agile project.

4.4%

Fourth in popularity is the LeSS framework, preferred by 4.4% of respondents.

Most Commonly Used Agile Project
Management Tools

These tools can be of great help in creating and arranging tasks, setting out priorities, and releasing great software.

61.8%

JIRA

34.7%

SPREADSHEETS

21.8%

20.4%

18.7%

9.8%

of respondents said they use Atlassian’s products, JIRA and Confluence.

said they use Spreadsheets to help them with their tasks.

said their preferred choice of an agile project management tool is the Microsoft Team Foundation Server.

use Google Docs as agile project management tool.

prefer using Rally to help them track and release great software.

of respondents said their favorite agile project management tool is VersionOne.

Implementing Agile Processes in
Distributed Teams

Companies are hesitant about moving their agile processes online. They have established a regular meeting schedule, daily stand-ups, retrospectives, their team is tight and works together from the same office. How would you achieve all of it by working remotely?

Set up an online planning board.

The best project management tools for remote teams are Jira and Trello. Jira is the ideal agile project management tool if you’re leading a complex project. Trello is designed for smaller teams and has a free version with limited features.

Schedule daily standups.

With tools like Zoom and Google Meet, you can schedule calls with the whole team, do online presentation through a screen share, and even record the sessions.

Hold iteration planning meetings.

The agile iteration planning meetings are the same with remote teams. Once everyone joins the planning conference call, the person who leads the meeting can open the project planning board and present it to the rest of the team through a screen share.

Schedule an online meeting to demonstrate the functionality.

Schedule an online meeting with the whole team and the product owner and have one person to lead the story walk.

Define the acceptance criteria.

You can do it at the iteration planning meeting, after prioritizing the backlog items or you can schedule a separate meeting for the acceptance criteria.

Create a release schedule.

For managing the whole release cycle, it’s a good idea to set up a continuous integration using a tool like Jenkins.

Structure the team knowledge.

Starting from Google Drive as the simplest option, through GitHub wikis until Confluence pages that allow for more advanced usage, you have plenty of agile tools to choose from for documenting your processes.

Skills of an Ideal Agile Tester

The agile testing era includes software testers at the beginning of the project. There’s less documentation and more room for adaptation.