VersionOne, an all-in-one enterprise agile solutions company, recently released its 12th annual State of Agile report. This report has become the largest, longest-running, most widely cited agile survey in the world and helps give technology professionals more insight into agile trends, best practices, and case studies to help them successfully implement agile transformations.
TechBeacon, an online software development and IT operations magazine, recently published a comprehensive summary of some of the key highlights and takeaways, including:
- Customer satisfaction is the top measure of success
- Agile adoption has tripled within organizations
- DevOps initiatives continue to rise
- Organizational culture is what matters
- Don’t get wrapped up in the mechanics of agile
“If IT managers aren’t focusing on their ultimate goals, which are customer satisfaction, better delivery of the solutions, and business value, it’s easy to become wrapped up in the mechanics of the practices.” – Barry Smith, AIM Senior Consultant
TechBeacon also interviewed a small group of agile practitioners, including AIM Senior Consultant Barry Smith, to evaluate the business impact of the survey’s findings. Smith focused on the idea that leadership shouldn’t get wrapped up in the mechanics of agile:
“Overall, the State of Agile survey highlights the dichotomy between what businesses are trying to achieve and what they are doing with agile, said Barry Smith, senior agile solutions consultant at AIM Consulting.
“If you look at the benefits of adopting agile, it’s largely about better functionality in their IT organizations for their software development,” he said.
What businesses want to be measuring are customer satisfaction, business value, and the ability to deliver solutions in a timely manner to their customers. But all of the metrics around projects or the benefits the IT managers focus on the mechanics of the delivery, Smith said.
That’s not completely wrongheaded—businesses need to get the mechanics right to achieve those higher-level goals— but there’s a significant disconnect between those two, he added.
He said his customers are saying that agile is getting better IT/business alignment, “and in some respects that’s the case, because of faster delivery and perhaps more engagement with the stakeholders.”
