State of Agile Survey Highlights Importance of Executive Support in Scaling Agile

ATLANTA, Feb. 26, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- VersionOne, recognized by agile practitioners as the leader in agile project management tools, today announced the results of the seventh annual "State of Agile" Survey. This year's survey highlighted the criticality of having executive sponsorship and involvement in scaling agile beyond a single team.  Without executive vision and leadership, support in removing obstacles, and team empowerment, organizations run a higher risk of missed opportunities for enabling timely delivery of innovative products and improved product development cycles.

"This year's survey highlighted a major disconnect between the perceived level of executive knowledge about agile and the importance of having executive-level buy-in for agile to truly succeed," said Robert Holler, CEO and president of VersionOne. "The results also found that in more than two-thirds of failed agile programs, respondents felt it was either because they failed to integrate the right people or did not effectively teach a team-based culture. For agile to truly succeed in an organization, everyone has to be dedicated to the initiative – especially the executive team."

While survey respondents highlighted executive support as being the most important success factor, the survey also revealed that only two percent of respondents felt that executives were knowledgeable about agile practices at all. Conversely, nearly 60% of the respondents believed knowledge of agile is limited to the ScrumMaster or Project Manager roles.

Additional findings from the 2012 State of Agile Survey include:

• Those who plan to implement agile for future development projects increased from 59 percent in 2011 to 83 percent in 2012
• The number of respondents using agile practices across 5 or more teams grew 15% (from 33% in 2011 to 48% in 2012)
• On average, respondents used between three and four different development tools, with a handful having used as many as 15

The seventh annual "State of Agile" survey was conducted between August 9, 2012 and November 1, 2012 and collected responses from 4,048 agile practitioners. Sponsored by VersionOne, respondents were recruited from dozens of software development industry channels. The data was then analyzed and prepared into a summary report by Analysis.Net Research.

Full survey results can be found at http://www.versionone.com/state-of-agile-survey-results/.

About VersionOne
VersionOne is recognized by agile practitioners as the leader in agile project management tools. By simplifying the planning and tracking of agile projects, we help teams deliver better software faster. Since 2002, companies such as Boeing, Cerner, Fiserv, GMAC, Lilly, Lockheed Martin, Merck, Motorola, Novell, Oracle, Qualcomm, SAP and Siemens have turned to VersionOne. Today tens of thousands of teams around the world use VersionOne. For daily VersionOne and agile development news follow us on Google+, Twitter, Facebook and our blogs.

Agile Made Easier @ VersionOne.com

SOURCE VersionOne

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