When asking nearly 4,000 agile users in the IT industry what they’ve seen by implementing agile development there was an astounding amount of positive feedback. Considering that 94% of organizations are using agile it’s obvious it has major benefits, so what are those actual improvements that companies are seeing by adopting agile? Here’s the breakdown: |
Managing Changing Priorities
The largest improvement seen across the board by agile users was the ability to manage changing priorities. 87% respondents saw improvement in their process. This only makes sense because the foundation of agile development is being able to adapt to changes in requirements during the cycle.
Productivity
Increased productivity in workers correlates to increased output, which would result in higher revenue. That’s why the fact that 84% of respondents saw an increase in team productivity is reason enough to be agile. Having a more efficient and productive team is one of the greatest benefits a project lead could want.
Visibility
82% of respondents said that project visibility improved, and this is certainly a huge benefit. Agile allows all members of the application lifecycle to manage and follow the status of a project from stakeholders, to team members, and product owners. Agile teams update their work daily so project managers no longer have to wait for weekly roundups to check in on the overview of a project.
Motivation
Amazingly, changing the structure of a software development method has the power to boost morale! Yes, 79% of respondents answered that they saw an increase in team morale and motivation. That can be a hard thing to adjust so any positive influence on motivation is certainly something to keep around.
Predictability
Teams are more capable of better predicting delivery dates and making deadlines, with another 79% of respondents saying they saw this get better with becoming agile. Once a team becomes accustomed to practicing agile it becomes easier to achieve predictable deliverability, but this isn’t something to expect right out of the gate when switching to agile because a team will need a few sprint cycles to learn the rhythm before hitting their stride.
Quality
78% saw an enhancement in software quality itself, which is a great statement. This makes sense considering the older and more traditional models of waterfall approaches where schedule pressures could lead to compromised quality of work. Waterfall models have fixed scopes and fixed dates and when something occurs that wasn’t accounted for it throws off the timeline.
Speed
Businesses are usually in a rush to get their products to market as soon as possible because this could mean they miss the peak of the market. If a product took an extra month or two to release then that could leave them irrelevant. This is why a lot of businesses turn to agile- 77% saw a faster time to market, which is a very big deal.
Those were only the top seven benefits that were reported, but there are many more. Just from hearing the first seven it's a wonder that only 94% of the industry has adopted agile. Below is the full list of responses given by respondents when asked for actual improvements they saw through the use of agile.
The largest improvement seen across the board by agile users was the ability to manage changing priorities. 87% respondents saw improvement in their process. This only makes sense because the foundation of agile development is being able to adapt to changes in requirements during the cycle.
Productivity
Increased productivity in workers correlates to increased output, which would result in higher revenue. That’s why the fact that 84% of respondents saw an increase in team productivity is reason enough to be agile. Having a more efficient and productive team is one of the greatest benefits a project lead could want.
Visibility
82% of respondents said that project visibility improved, and this is certainly a huge benefit. Agile allows all members of the application lifecycle to manage and follow the status of a project from stakeholders, to team members, and product owners. Agile teams update their work daily so project managers no longer have to wait for weekly roundups to check in on the overview of a project.
Motivation
Amazingly, changing the structure of a software development method has the power to boost morale! Yes, 79% of respondents answered that they saw an increase in team morale and motivation. That can be a hard thing to adjust so any positive influence on motivation is certainly something to keep around.
Predictability
Teams are more capable of better predicting delivery dates and making deadlines, with another 79% of respondents saying they saw this get better with becoming agile. Once a team becomes accustomed to practicing agile it becomes easier to achieve predictable deliverability, but this isn’t something to expect right out of the gate when switching to agile because a team will need a few sprint cycles to learn the rhythm before hitting their stride.
Quality
78% saw an enhancement in software quality itself, which is a great statement. This makes sense considering the older and more traditional models of waterfall approaches where schedule pressures could lead to compromised quality of work. Waterfall models have fixed scopes and fixed dates and when something occurs that wasn’t accounted for it throws off the timeline.
Speed
Businesses are usually in a rush to get their products to market as soon as possible because this could mean they miss the peak of the market. If a product took an extra month or two to release then that could leave them irrelevant. This is why a lot of businesses turn to agile- 77% saw a faster time to market, which is a very big deal.
Those were only the top seven benefits that were reported, but there are many more. Just from hearing the first seven it's a wonder that only 94% of the industry has adopted agile. Below is the full list of responses given by respondents when asked for actual improvements they saw through the use of agile.
Taken from data by nearly 4,000 agile users in the IT industry questioned by the annual State of Agile survey