VERSIONONE.

COM #StateOfAgile
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
AGILITY ACCELERATES THE DELIVERY OF BUSINESS VALUE

The 11th annual State of Agile™ survey found

that enterprise agility is increasing throughout
organizations and across almost all industries at an
accelerated rate. For the first time, half of the survey
respondents came from outside North America.
60%
have less than
½ of teams
While the largest number (23%) of respondents practicing agile
still worked for software companies, the number
from non-software companies grew significantly in
2016. Respondents from very large organizations,
employing more than 20,000 people, also
80%
at or below “still
maturing” level
increased. with agile

However, the survey also highlights that there

is still a lot of opportunity for growth and that 71%
investing in
the momentum is far from slowing. While 94% of DevOps
respondents said their organizations practiced agile,
they also stated that more than half (60%) of their
organizations’ teams are not yet practicing agile.
Similarly, although 44% of respondents stated that 98%
realized success
they were extremely knowledgeable regarding agile from agile
projects
development practices, 80% said their organization
was at or below a “still maturing” level. Finally,
the survey showed that many companies are now
investing (71%) in DevOps.

Just as the survey made it clear that there are still Top 3 Benefits of Agile
Respondents continue to cite the same top three benefits of
opportunities for increasing enterprise agility, it adopting agile for the sixth year in a row.
also made clear that there are many reasons for
improving agility. 98% of respondents said that
their organization has realized success from agile
projects. Respondents stated that the top benefits
from adopting agile were accelerated delivery, Ability to manage Increased team Improved project
better project visibility, improved team productivity, changing priorities productivity visibility

and management of changing priorities.

VERSIONONE.COM #StateOfAgile 2
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
AGILITY ACCELERATES THE DELIVERY OF BUSINESS VALUE
ENTERPRISE AGILITY SUCCESS
With so much momentum and opportunity around agility,
it is important to understand what the best organizations
are doing to succeed. Executive sponsorship (48%),
consistent process and practices (41%), implementation
of a common tool across teams (36%), and agile
consultants or trainers (36%) continue to be cited in the
top five tips for successfully scaling agile.

RECOMMENDED AGILE PROJECT

MANAGEMENT TOOLS
This was the first year that more respondents cited using
agile project management tools than spreadsheets.
This is no doubt due to companies succeeding through
implementing consistent processes, practices, and tools
across teams. For the fifth year in a row, VersionOne
had the highest recommendation rate of any other
tool evaluated in the survey, even though only 20% or
respondents used VersionOne.

MEASURE ENTERPRISE AGILITY

WITH BUSINESS VALUE
One of the most notable trends from the survey is the
importance of measuring how much business value
your organization is delivering. This year business value
has become a much more popular measure of an agile
initiative’s success.

Business value was cited as the second most popular

measure (46%) of an agile initiative’s success, rising
from fourth in the prior year. Conversely, it ranked as the
eleventh most popular measure (23%) on a day-to-day
basis. This highlights an important inconsistency between
how more strategic areas of the enterprise are measuring
success and how success is being measured at the team
level.

LOOKING FORWARD
As more organizations’ enterprise agile initiatives mature,
the need for consistent processes and tools for managing
and measuring the flow of business value across the
entire value stream will become critical (or similar). To
achieve this, enterprises will need to truly unify their
agile portfolio planning, agile project management, and
continuous delivery efforts.

This will further decrease the use of spreadsheets and

team-oriented point solutions as organizations seek a
more enterprise-centric solution for unifying their Agile
and DevOps initiatives and accelerating the delivery of
business value across the entire organization.

VERSIONONE.COM #StateOfAgile 3
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

RESPONDENT COMPANY
SECTION SECTION

1 DEMOGRAPHICS
Size of Organization
Size of Software Organization
Location of Organization
5
5
5
2 EXPERIENCE
AND ADOPTION
Personal Experience with
Agile Development Practices 7
Role 6
Company Experience 7
Industries 6
Percentage of Teams Using Agile 7
Distributed Agile Teams 6
DevOps Initiative 7
Reasons for Adopting Agile 8
Agile Maturity 8

BENEFITS AGILE
SECTION SECTION

3 OF AGILE
Benefits of Adopting Agile 9
4 METHODS
AND
PRACTICES
Agile Methodology Used 10

AGILE
SECTION
Top 5 Agile Techniques 10

5
Agile Techniques Employed 10
SUCCESS Epic Estimation Unit of Measure 11

AND
Engineering Practices Employed 11
Agile in Outsourced Development 11

METRICS Projects

ABOUT Success of Agile Projects 12 SECTION

THE SURVEY
6
Challenges Experienced Adopting &

The 11th annual State of Agile survey was

Scaling Agile 12 SCALING
AGILE
How Success Is Measured 13
conducted between July and December,
With Agile Initiatives
2016.
How Success Is Measured 13
With Agile Projects Scaling Methods and Approaches 14
Sponsored by VersionOne, the survey
invited individuals from a broad range Top 5 Tips for Success with Scaling Agile 14

of industries in the global software

AGILE PROJECT
development community and was SECTION

7
promoted far beyond VersionOne’s
customer base at tradeshows and
multiple digital channels. Thousands
MANAGEMENT
of responses were collected, analyzed, TOOLS
and prepared into a summary report by General Tool Use and 15
Analysis.Net Research, an independent Preferences
survey consultancy. Only 20% of the Use of Agile Management Tools 16
respondents were VersionOne customers, Recommended Agile Project 17
indicating the range and diversity of Management Tools
respondents.

VERSIONONE.COM #StateOfAgile 4
RESPONDENT
DEMOGRAPHICS
For the first time, half of the respondents were from outside North America.
While the largest number of respondents (23%) worked for software/ISV
companies, that number declined from 26% last year. Respondents from very
large organizations, employing more than 20,000 people, increased from 24%
last year to 26% this year.

Size of Organization Size of Software Organization

Respondents who worked for organizations with: Respondents who worked for organizations
with software groups with:

39% 18%
< 1,000 1,001-5,000
17%
5,001-20,000
26%
20,001+
32% 34%
< 100 101-1,000
15%
1,001-5,000
19% 5,001+
people people people people people people people people

Location of Organization
Respondents were from:

50% 28%
North America
Europe
10%
Asia

5%
2%
South America

Africa
4%
Oceania

VERSIONONE.COM #StateOfAgile 5
 RESPONDENT DEMOGRAPHICS

23% 13% 14% 6% 3%

15% 19% 5% 2%
Role
Project/Program Manager

Development Leadership

Other (ScrumMaster

Consultant/Trainer
Development Staff

or Internal Coach)

Business Analyst
Product Owner

C-Level
IT Staff
Industries
Industries respondents worked in:

Software (ISV)
23%
Financial Services 14%
Professional Services
12%
Insurance 6%
Healthcare
6%
Government 5%
Telecom 4%
Transportation 4%
Manufacturing 4%
Education 3%
Internet Services 3%
Retail 3%
Media & Entertainment 3%
Utilities 2%
Consumer Products 2%
Public Services 1% • Write-in responses were commonly
Education, Consulting, Aerospace,
Other* 8% Automotive, Hospitality, and Non-Profit.

Distributed Agile Teams

86% of respondents had at least some
distributed teams practicing agile.

VERSIONONE.COM #StateOfAgile 6
COMPANY EXPERIENCE
AND ADOPTION
Very little/no Moderately Very Extremely
knowledge knowledgeable knowledgeable knowledgeable

Personal Experience with

Agile Development Practices
11%
< 1 year
7%
1-2 years
28% 3-4 years
44%
5+ years

Company Experience
HOW MANY? HOW LONG? < 1 year
15% 19%
The length of
time respondents’ 1-2 years
25% 24%
& 32% 32%
94%
organizations have
been practicing agile: 3-5 years
2016
The percentage of respondents’
5+ years
28% 25%
organizations that practice agile
2016 2015

Percentage of
Teams Using Agile
60% of respondents stated less than half of
teams in their organizations are using agile
8%
All of our teams
32%
More than ½ of
58%
Less than ½ of
2%
None of our
practices. are agile our teams are our teams are teams are agile
agile agile

13%
I don’t know

DevOps Initiatives 16%

No DevOps
71% of respondents stated that they Initiatives
currently have a DevOps initiative
in their organization or are planning
one in the next 12 months.
Current DevOps
Initiatives

Planning DevOps
Initiatives

VERSIONONE.COM #StateOfAgile 7
 COMPANY EXPERIENCE AND ADOPTION

Accelerate product delivery 69%

Enhance ability to manage changing priorities 61%
Increase productivity 53%
Improve project visibility 43%
Enhance software quality 43%
Improve business/IT alignment 42%
Reduce project risk 37% Reasons for
Improve team morale 31% Adopting Agile
Enhance delivery predictability 30% Improving project visibility (43%) moved
up three places to become the fourth most
Improve engineering discipline 21% popular reason stated for adopting agile
Better manage distributed teams 20% this year and accelerating product delivery
increased from 62% last year to 69% this
Reduce project cost 18% year.

Increase software maintainability 18% *Respondents were able to make multiple

selections.

11% 7%
Enable greater
High level of
competency with adaptability to

60%
agile practices market with agile
across the practices
organization
Use agile practices
and techniques but
still maturing

Agile Maturity
MATURITY

The vast majority of respondents

(80%) said their organization was

16%
at or below a “still maturing” level.

Experimenting
with agile in

3%
pockets

Considering an
agile initiative

3%
No initiative
to achieve
enterprise agility

VERSIONONE.COM #StateOfAgile 8
BENEFITS OF AGILE

Benefits of Adopting Agile

Ability to manage changing priorities
88%
Project visibility 83%
Increased team productivity 83%
Delivery speed/time to market 81%
Team morale 81%
Business/IT alignment 76%
Software quality 75%
Project predictability 75%
Project risk reduction 74%
Engineering discipline 68%
Software maintainability 64%
Managing distributed teams 61%
Project cost reduction 56%

*Respondents were able to make multiple selections.

VERSIONONE.COM #StateOfAgile 9
AGILE METHODS AND
PRACTICES
<1% DSDM/Atern <1% XP
<1% Feature-Driven Development (FDD) <1% Agile Unified Process (AgileUP)
<1% Lean Startup 2% I Don’t Know
1% Lean Development
2% Iterative Development
5% Other

5%
Kanban
Agile
8%
58%
Methodologies Used
Scrumban Scrum and Scrum/XP Hybrid (68%)
continue to be the most common agile

8%
methodologies used by respondents’
Scrum organizations.
Custom Hybrid
(multiple
methodologies)

10%
Scrum/XP
Hybrid

Agile Techniques Employed

From 2015 to 2016, the use of Kanban grew from 39% to 50%; iteration reviews
increased from 54% to 81% and iteration planning went from 69% to 90%.

Iteration planning 90%

Daily standup 88%
TOP 5 AGILE
TECHNIQUES
Retrospectives 83%
Iteration reviews 81%
}

Short iterations 71%

Release planning 66%
Team-based estimation 62%
Dedicated product owner 55%
90% 88% 83% Single team (integrated dev & testing) 54%
ITERATION DAILY
RETROSPECTIVES
Frequent releases 50%
PLANNING STANDUP
Kanban 50%
Open work area 45%
Product roadmapping 38%
81% 71% Story mapping 35%
ITERATION
REVIEWS
SHORT
ITERATIONS
Agile portfolio planning 25%
Agile/lean UX 22%
*Respondents were able to make multiple selections.

VERSIONONE.COM #StateOfAgile 10
 AGILE METHODS AND PRACTICES

Epic Estimation Unit of Measure

When conducting epic estimation, more than half of
respondents said they used a point system.

51% 23% 13%

POINTS T-SHIRT SIZES HOURS

6% 6% 1%
SWAG OTHER GUMMY BEARS

Engineering Practices Employed

While the usage of XP as an independent methodology continues to
decrease (<1%), the practices associated with XP are still prevalent.

Unit testing 74%

Continuous integration 61%
Coding standards 56%
Refactoring 52%
Test-driven development 40%
Automated acceptance testing 36%
Continuous deployment 35%
Pair programming 32%
Sustainable pace 31%
Collective code ownership 31%
Behavior-driven development 16%
Emergent design 15%
*Respondents were able to make multiple selections.

Agile in Outsourced Dev Projects

51% of respondents are using agile practices to manage
outsourced development projects. Respondents were twice
as likely to say that the use of agile within their outsourced
projects was going to increase in the future.

VERSIONONE.COM #StateOfAgile 11
AGILE SUCCESS
AND METRICS

Success of
Agile Projects

98%
of respondents said that their
organization has realized
success from agile projects.

Challenges Experienced Adopting & Scaling Agile

While the vast majority of respondents and their organizations have realized success from
adopting agile practices, they recognize that there are challenges to scaling agile. The top
two challenges cited were organizational culture at odds with agile values (63%), and lack of
skills or experience with agile methods (47%).

Company philosophy or culture at odds with core agile values 63%

Lack of experience with agile methods 47%
Lack of management support 45%
General organization resistance to change 43%
Lack of business/customer/product owner 41%
Insufficient training 34%
Pervasiveness of traditional development 34%
Inconsistent agile practices and process 31%
Fragmented tooling, data, and measurements 20%
Ineffective collaboration 19%
Regulatory compliance and governance 15%
Don’t know 2%
*Respondents were able to make multiple selections.

VERSIONONE.COM #StateOfAgile 12
 AGILE SUCCESS AND METRICS

How Success Is Measured...

with Agile Initiatives?
Business value as a measure of an agile initiative’s success went from fourth in 2015 to
second in 2016. On-time delivery of projects and customer/user satisfaction remained in the
top three measures of agile initiative’s success as they have in the past few years.

On-time delivery 53%

Business value 46%
Customer/user satisfaction 44%
Product quality 42%
Product scope 40%
Productivity 25%
Project visibility 25%
Predictability 23%
Process improvement 21%
Don’t know 11%
*Respondents were able to make multiple selections.

How Success Is Measured...

with Agile Projects
While business value was cited as the second most popular measure (46%) of an agile initiative’s success, it ranked as the
eleventh most popular measure (23%) of an agile project’s success. Velocity (67%) continues to be the number one measure of
an agile project’s success.

Velocity 8% 7% 7% 7%
Iteration burndown
Release burndown
15%
Planned vs. actual stories per iteration 67%
Burn-up chart 15%
Work-in-Process (WIP) 16%
Defects into production
Customer/user satisfaction 16% 51%
Planned vs. actual release dates
Cycle time
19%
Defects over time
Business value delivered
20% 38%
Budget vs. actual cost 22%
Defect resolution
Cumulative flow chart 23% 37%
Test pass/fail over time
Scope change in a release 23%
Estimation accuracy 34%
Individual hours per iteration/week 23%
Earned value
26% 32%
Product utilization 28% 30%
Revenue/sales impact
Customer retention

*Respondents were able to make multiple selections.

VERSIONONE.COM #StateOfAgile 13
SCALING AGILE
28% SCALED AGILE FRAMEWORK® (SAFE®)

27% SCRUM / SCRUM OF SCRUMS

Scaling Methods
and Approaches 13% INTERNALLY CREATED METHODS

SAFe (28%) has overtaken SCRUM/SCRUM of

SCRUMS (27%) to be the most popular scaling 4% LEAN MANAGEMENT
method cited by respondents.
4% AGILE PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT (APM)

3%
LARGE-SCALE SCRUM (LESS)

1%
1% DISCIPLINED AGILE DELIVERY (DAD)

1%
RECIPES FOR AGILE GOVERNANCE IN THE ENTERPRISE (RAGE)

NEXUS

Top 5 Tips for Success with Scaling Agile

Executive sponsorship (48%), consistent process and practices (41%), implementation of a common tool across
teams (36%), and agile consultants or trainers (36%) continue to be cited in the top five tips for successfully scaling
agile for the past few years and likely points to the long-term importance of self-sufficiency when scaling agility. The
top cited tip this year, internal agile coaches (52%), was a new entry into the top five.

52% 48% 41%

CONSISTENT
36%
IMPLEMENTATION
36%
INTERNAL AGILE EXECUTIVE AGILE CONSULTANTS
PROCESS AND OF A COMMON TOOL
COACHES SPONSORSHIP OR TRAINERS
PRACTICES ACROSS TEAMS

Other important factors included: externally attended classes or workshops,

company-provided training program, online training, and webinars.

*Respondents were able to make multiple selections.

VERSIONONE.COM #StateOfAgile 14
AGILE PROJECT
MANAGEMENT TOOLS

General Tool Uses and Preferences

More than three-quarters of respondents are currently using a taskboard. Notable
changes in tool use from 2015 to 2016 were Kanban boards (+6% YOY) and
spreadsheets (-7% YOY).

2016 2015

CURRENT TOOL USAGE FUTURE PLANS TO USE

Taskboard 75% 82% 8% 10%

Bug tracker 71% 80% 10% 10%
Kanban board 69% 63% 11% 13%
Spreadsheet 67% 74% 5% 5%
Agile project management tool 63% 71% 17% 17%
Wiki 62% 68% 13% 12%
Unit test tool 61% 66% 19% 23%
Automated build tool 59% 66% 22% 22%
Continuous integration tool 52% 57% 27% 28%
Release/deployment automation tool 44% 50% 31% 34%
Requirements management tool 43% 51% 19% 22%
Traditional project management tool 43% 51% 5% 7%
Project & portfolio management (PPM) tool 35% 42% 25% 27%
Automated acceptance tool 35% 38% 36% 41%
Index cards 34% 43% 10% 11%
Story mapping tool 25% 33% 30% 32%
Refactoring tool 25% 30% 25% 30%
Customer idea management tool 16% 21% 26% 30%

*Respondents were able to make multiple selections.

VERSIONONE.COM #StateOfAgile 15
 AGILE PROJECT MANAGEMENT TOOLS

Use of Agile Management Tools

Fewer respondents cited using Microsoft® Excel this year (46%) then last year (60%)
and Google Docs dropped from (18%) last year to (14%) this year.

Atlassian/JIRA
53%
Microsoft Excel 46%
Microsoft TFS
22%
Microsoft Project 20%
VersionOne
20%
Google Docs 14%
CA Agile Central 13%
HP Quality Center/ALM
12%
In-house/home-grown 10%
Bugzilla 5%
LeanKit 5%
IBM Rational Team Concert
4%
HP Agile Manager
3%
Pivotal Tracker
2%
No tools at all
2%
Axosoft
1%
CollabNet ScrumWorks Pro
1%
CollabNet TeamForge
1%
Hansoft
1%
Target Process 1%
ThoughtWorks Mingle
1%
Other
14%

Respondents were able to make multiple selections.

VERSIONONE.COM #StateOfAgile 16
 AGILE PROJECT MANAGEMENT TOOLS

Recommended Agile Project Management Tools

Respondents were asked whether they would recommend the tool(s) they are using
based on their past or present use. For the fifth year in a row, VersionOne had the highest
recommendation rate of any other tool evaluated in the survey (87%).

VersionOne
87%
Atlassian/JIRA 81%
CA Agile Central
76%
LeanKit 75%
Microsoft TFS
63%
Target Process 62%
Axosoft 60%
Collabnet ScrumWorks Pro
60%
Pivotal Tracker 57%
Google Docs 56%
HP Agile Manager 52%
ThoughtWorks Mingle
46%
IBM Rational
39%
Microsoft Excel
37%
Microsoft Project
31%
HP Quality Center/ALM
30%
Bugzilla
25%
Collabnet TeamForge
25%
In-house/home-grown
25%
Hansoft 20%
Respondents were able to make multiple selections.

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Scaled Agile Framework and SAFe are trademarks of Scaled Agile, Inc.