Agile initiatives expanding in the enterprise – but lots more work to be done

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Agile is expanding within the enterprise – but there is plenty more that can be done to improve organisational initiatives.

That’s the key finding from enterprise software development firm CollabNet. In the company’s latest State of Agile report – the 12th iteration – which collected almost 1,500 responses from various industries in software development, 97% of respondents’ organisations practiced agile development methods. Of that number, 52% said that more than half of their teams were using agile practices in their organisation.

Those who have taken the plunge cite improvements in their ability to manage changing priorities – cited by 71% of those polled – compared with better project visibility (66%), greater alignment between business and IT (65%), and quicker delivery speed and time to market (62%). Greater team productivity and team morale were also highly cited.

DevOps initiatives are also on the rise, with almost half (48%) saying they have an initiative currently underway with 23% at the planning stage. The most popular method of assessing the success of DevOps initiatives was accelerated delivery speed, cited by 58% of those polled, ahead of improved quality (51%) and an increased flow of business value to users (44%).

Yet only 12% of those polled said their organisations had a high level of competency across the organisation, with an even smaller number (4%) saying agile practices were enabling greater adaptability to market conditions.

Plenty still needs to be done, therefore, to get organisations up to speed. “The need to manage the entire value stream, from strategic planning to customer delivery, and to have the proper feedback loops in place, will be critical going forward,” the report notes. “This will require the organisational culture, skills, and tooling to allow for managing and measuring the flow of business value across the entire value stream.

“To achieve this, enterprises will need to truly unify their agile portfolio planning, agile project management, and continuous delivery efforts.”

You can read the full report here.

Read more: Finding the right Agile formula: Making CI, CT and CD work together

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