Agile Project Initiation Survey 2009 Scott W. Ambler www.ambysoft.com/scottAmbler.html Michael Vizdos www.implementingscrum.com Copyright 2009 Scott W. Ambler www.ambysoft.com/surveys/

Copyright 2009 Scott W. Ambler www.ambysoft.com/surveys/ How To Use These Slides I have provided these slides, and the raw data behind them, so that others can use them in their own work. You may reuse all, or a part of, this slide deck as long as you provide a clear reference to the source. The suggested reference is: Results from Scott Ambler and Michael Vizdos’s August 2009 Agile Project Initiation Survey posted at www.agilemodeling.com/surveys/ Some slides have notes Copyright 2009 Scott W. Ambler www.ambysoft.com/surveys/

Copyright 2009 Scott W. Ambler www.ambysoft.com/surveys/ About the Survey August 2008 Message sent out to several agile Yahoo groups mailing lists (extremeprogramming, agilemodeling, agiledatabases, scrumdevelopment, testdrivendevelopment) Data, summary, and slides downloadable from www.ambysoft.com/surveys/ 280 respondents: 18% were developers, 48% were in management or leadership roles 40% had 10-20 years IT experience, 22% had 21+ years 49% worked in North America, 33% in Europe, 12% in Asia Pacific 24% had 3-4 years of agile experience, 23% had 5 or more years We had a wide range of people, nearly half were non-developers. People had a fair bit of experience, many had 10+ years experience in IT Copyright 2009 Scott W. Ambler www.ambysoft.com/surveys/

Copyright 2009 Scott W. Ambler www.ambysoft.com/surveys/ Interesting Results 69% had a wide range of stakeholders 30% were in regulatory compliance situations 38% were on mission-critical projects 46% were co-located in a single room 77% developed a high-level schedule, and 12% developed a detailed schedule. 47% had a firm delivery date, and another 28% have promised an end date although it may change Copyright 2009 Scott W. Ambler www.ambysoft.com/surveys/

Agile and Legacy Systems Working with legacy in some way was calculated if the people were doing one or more of the three legacy options Copyright 2009 Scott W. Ambler www.ambysoft.com/surveys/

Agile Approach to Initial Requirements 76% High-level initial requirements modeling 30% Detailed initial requirements modeling 12% Have initial requirements models supplied to them 10% Use enterprise models as a reference Use industry models as a reference 88% Do some sort of initial modeling or have initial models supplied to them 89% Do some sort of initial modeling, or have initial models supplied, or leverage reference models 73% of agile teams are creating an initial, high-level estimate 18% of agile teams are creating an initial, detailed estimate Copyright 2009 Scott W. Ambler www.ambysoft.com/surveys/

Agile Approach to Initial Architecture 70% High-level initial architecture modeling 25% Detailed initial architecture/design modeling 12% Have initial architecture/design models supplied to them 14% Use enterprise models as a reference Use industry models as a reference 83% Do some sort of initial modeling or have initial models supplied to them 86% Do some sort of initial modeling, or have initial models supplied, or leverage reference models Copyright 2009 Scott W. Ambler www.ambysoft.com/surveys/

Approach to Initial Estimation 8% No initial estimate at all 9% High-level estimate based on traditional estimation technique 28% High-level estimate based on agile estimation technique 36% High-level estimate based on reasonable guess of experienced person(s) 5% Detailed estimate based on traditional estimation technique 7% Detailed estimate based on agile estimation technique 6% Detailed estimate based on reasonable guess 3% Don’t know 73% of agile teams are creating an initial, high-level estimate 18% of agile teams are creating an initial, detailed estimate Copyright 2009 Scott W. Ambler www.ambysoft.com/surveys/

Copyright 2009 Scott W. Ambler www.ambysoft.com/surveys/ Justifying Agile Projects 81% had to justify their projects in some manner 81% calculated as 170/211 (211 is the number of respondents to questions before and after this one) % is out of the total, so 62 people indicated that they had to estimate ROI so the % is 61/211=29% Copyright 2009 Scott W. Ambler www.ambysoft.com/surveys/

Copyright 2009 Scott W. Ambler www.ambysoft.com/surveys/ Did you need to produce a vision document (or similar) as part of project initiation? Apparently agilists write some documentation after all ;-) Copyright 2009 Scott W. Ambler www.ambysoft.com/surveys/

Copyright 2009 Scott W. Ambler www.ambysoft.com/surveys/ How long did it take your project team to get started? (Average: 3.9 weeks) Average calculated as a weighted average. >8 weeks was considered to be 10 weeks and <1 week considered to be half a week. Copyright 2009 Scott W. Ambler www.ambysoft.com/surveys/