This 16th edition of the annual State of Agile survey is marked by a profound influence of post-covid practices. We learn that the emergence of hybrid work environments (telecommuting, flex-office, back to the office in early 2022...) and hybrid events have influenced agile methods.
We have decided to take the logic of the report and summarize it to give you the essential information to remember.
State of Agile trends
According to 89% of respondents, the values to have for a successful agile team would be empathy, a clear company culture, good tools and accountable leaders.
We also learn the top reasons for agile adoption in 2022 (multiple responses possible):
It also shows how agile projects are prioritized among most respondents. (multiple answers possible):
Companies and their experiences with agility
Agile is no longer just for development teams. In 2022, more and more teams are adopting agility as part of their day-to-day work. This is the case in more and more marketing, R&D and human resources teams. (Editor's note: it was in 2022 that the marketing team of Blue Soft adopted agility in its processes)
Agility is being deployed in more and more sectors, but this is also the case geographically.
For 4 out of 5 respondents, the teams are geographically dispersed. This is also the case at Blue Soft where teams are spread throughout France, Switzerland and Belgium and where it is not uncommon to work with people from other agencies.
It is also not uncommon to see several methods, or a mix of several methods, cohabiting within the same team. The hybridization of methods continues to make its way.
State of agile: The satisfactions of agility
From the point of view of the people
Agility enables increased collaboration for 69% of respondents and better alignment with real business needs for 54%. Finally for 39%, the benefit is a better working environment.
7 out of 10 respondents say they are satisfied with agile practices in their organizations.
Agile methods also promote at least two good practices. Increased communication within the team and a continuous improvement approach.
From the point of view of tools and technologies
The most used software in the teams:
- Atlassian Jira: 66%.
- Mural / Miro : 42
- Microsoft Excel: 34%.
- Microsoft TFS / Azure DevOps / Visual Studio: 23%.
The most used methods:
- Scrum
- Kanban
- SrumBan
In agility at scale:
- SAFe
- Scrum of Scrums
- Lean Management
What doesn't work well according to the State of Agile report
From the point of view of the people
With the democratization of methods within companies, 42% of respondents regret a lack of management participation in agile practices, 40% regret a lack of knowledge on the subject and 40% regret resistance to change within the company.
Overall, participants point to a risk when leaders and teams do not fully understand agility, hence the importance of change management.
From the point of view of tools and technologies
Tools used in the past still coexist with agile tools. V-cycle, agile and iterative methods coexist within organizations (42%). This leads to a lack of consistency in delivery due to the complexity it creates. It's never easy to be successful when you have to fight on several levels at once.
For 40% of respondents, agility is not used continuously in the team. It is therefore potentially in conflict with the corporate culture.
What's next?
Work organization is currently at the heart of employees' and companies' concerns. The 16th edition of State of Agile presents 3 interesting statistics:
Only 2% of respondents are in the office all the time, while 17% are fully telecommuting. 51% are mostly telecommuting and occasionally in the office.
When it comes to enterprise-wide agility, more than a third say they want to use it, but are slow to adopt it. That's less than one in five companies actively using it in their organization.
There is still a long way to go to fully integrate methods into organizations, not to mention projects that do not necessarily lend themselves to them.
This study is based on the responses of 3220 people between July and August 2022.
To see the complete study, click here
