SwissQ Agile Trends &Benchmarks Switzerland 2012Where are we now – where are we going to?

EDITORIAL

TRENDWAVE 2012

KEY MESSAGES

PROJECTS

EXPERIENCE

IMPLEMENTATION

OBSTACLES

FRAME OF SURVEY

TESTING AND REQUIREMENTS

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5

6

7

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SwissQ Agile Trends & Benchmarks 2012 2TABLE OF CONTENTS

“Agility: Flexibility takes over from planning”, the Financial Times predicted on 20 November 2007. This came true sooner than many expected. More than ever before, modern organizations are challenged to respond pro-actively to the fast changes of today‘s global and strongly interlinked world. Plans become waste paper before they even had a chance of being realized. The adaption of and the reaction to change is a top priority. This fast and continuous modification of business models also challenges the backbone of any company: the IT.

Agile approaches, in particular Scrum, have hit the nail on the head. In the last years, the “Lean & Agile“ approach significantly gained momentum. A lot is promised, a lot is set up, but the expectations are often not met. It seems that the reality is much more complex and laborious than books and shiny presentations let you believe. The report at hand is based on a survey with more than 300 participants and numerous interviews with IT-executives. Thus, it presents facts. It shows, where agility stands in Switzerland today, what difficulties the community faces day after day and which topics are being actively pursued.

The benchmarks depicted in a multitude of informative charts and diagrams form the backbone of this report and allow you to position your company in comparison to others.

In order to show the currentness of the examined topics, we use the SwissQ Trend Wave®. It shows in four phases how select topics will most likely develop over time and in turn allows you to appraise the influence of these trends on your business.

Whereas many are still indifferent to the agile movement, others already pay a lot of attention to Scrum. Topics like using Sprints or the roles of Developers and Scrum Masters are established and almost “daily business“.

Two of the main topics, which are currently being worked on intensively, are the Definition of Done and the Product Owner Role. The Definition of Done advanced rapidly by considering it as a quality gate and by incorporating acceptance criteria. The Product Owner is recognized more and more in his role as a key player and therefore is challenged to a greater extent. In the end it is his work which forms the basis for a successful product and for the acceptance by the end user.

An amassing of topics can be noticed in the growth-sector of the Trend Wave. The restricted view from just one Sprint to the next Sprint is slowly being replaced by transparent overall planning and efficient backlog management. Thus, the overall view of the product is becoming more focused. In addition to that, new ways of collaboration are being tried out in terms of place or discipline. Keywords on this would be: online collaboration and co-location, and accordingly embedded Scrum testers and agile requirements engineers.

In addition there are topics whose future trend development is not yet assessable. Or were you concerned with Management 3.0 before?

We wish you lots of interesting findings by reading the agile report and lots of fun on your way to more flexibility and agility.

Agility resounds throughout the land – there are those who adore it and there might be others who don‘t like it so much. Each to their own. However, how does the agile landscape look like in the Swiss IT Community? Let the Trends and Benchmarks of our current survey sink in, discuss about it and draw your own conclusions.

SwissQ Agile Trends & Benchmarks 2012 3EDITORIAL

INTRODUCTION – This topic has been identified and some companies are deploying initial implementations. However, it cannot be foreseen whether this trend will positively advance and whether testing will be considerably influenced.

GROWTH – This topic is more and more accepted and many companies are considering it. The first tools are being developed and consultancy firms offer services for the same. Often risks are associated due to limited implementation experience.

MATURITY – Most companies are working on the implementation or have already completed it. The knowledge of this topic is often widespread, resulting in sub-topics being raised.

DECLINE – The topic has already been implemented by most of the companies, with the exception of individual latecomers. Often, there is no more added value in acquiring further knowledge in these areas, since it will become obsolete shortly.

SwissQ Agile Trends & Benchmarks 2012 4TRENDWAVE 2012

INTRODUCTION GROWTH MATURITY DECLINE

TIME

PRIO

RITY

Management 3.0

Definition of Ready Portfolio Management

Agile Requirements Engineering

Priority PokerSelf-Organisation

ATDD

Cultural ChangeProduct Roadmap

Embedded TesterContinuous Build, Integration & Test

Online Collaboration

Test AutomationSoftware as a Service / Cloud Computing

Early FeedbackProduct Owner Role

Dashboards Definition of Done

End User Involvement

Scrum Master

Issue Tracking Tools

Developer Role

Sprints

4 5 6Whereas most techniques are used by more than 70 % of the respondents, there are still some techniques with a lot of catching up to do, like TDD, ATDD, Kanban or the Definition of Done.

Better handling of constantly changing priorities is considered to be one of the main reasons to implement agile methods, as well as increasing productivity and accelerating time-to-market.

More than half of the companies apply agile development practices. Thereof 84.5 % of the respondents use Scrum as their preferred agile method.

7 8 9The executives have major concerns: less forward planning, less predictability and less documentation.

Not the agile approach itself is the main obstacle but the required transformation of the organisation.

52 % of the respondents stated that agile projects fail because of lack of experience, 42 % because the corporate culture was not compatible with agile principles.

2 31 More than 50 % are not satisfied with the implementation of their agile approach. This is most likely explained by the lack of strategies to implement the agile methods.

67.6 % of the respondents use MS-Office Tools in the agile area, followed by JIRA with 31.0 % and HP QC with 28.2 %.

73 % of the respondents already carried out agile projects and therefore see themselves as experienced with agile methods. The only question is, how “experienced” is defined.

SwissQ Agile Trends & Benchmarks 2012 5KEY MESSAGES

Software Development ProcessMore than half of the companies use agile processes. Many of them are using a combination of different development processes e.g. agile in combination with waterfall.

SwissQ Agile Trends & Benchmarks 2012 6PROJECTS

Agile 51 %

Iterative 22 % RUP

16 %

Hermes 12 %

Waterfall 40 %

Agile Methods in Use

Tools in the Agile Context

Feature Driven Development (FDD)

0 % 20 % 40 % 60 % 80 % 100 %

SCRUMBAN

Others

Agile Unified Process

Extreme Programming (XP)

Own agile hybrid Version

Kanban

Scrum

15.5 %

16.9 %

84.5 %

0.0 %

8.5 %

9.9 %

11.3 %

14.1 %

0 % 20 % 40 % 60 % 80 %

CA Agile Vision

Inflectra Spira

Rally Software Development

Proprietary Development

Version One

Others

MS Team Foundation Server

Open Source

HP QC / ALM

Atlassian JIRA / Greenhopper

MS Office (Word, Excel) 67.6 %

31.0 %

28.2 %

19.7 %

16.9 %

15.5 %

5.6 %

5.6 %

2.8 %

2.8 %

0.0 %

of the respondents use Scrum as their favorite agile method.

84.5 %

Personal Experience in Agile Methods

of the respondents are already experienced with agile methods.

3/4

of the respondents have less than 2 years experience in agile projects.

2/3

SwissQ Agile Trends & Benchmarks 2012 7EXPERIENCE

54.9 %

23.9 %

2.8 %

Very experienced (many years of

practical experience)

Experienced (carried out

first projects)

Little experience(theoretical knowledge)

No experience

0 %

20 %

40 %

60 %

Use of Agile TechniquesAgile techniques like iterative planning, daily stand-up meetings, taskboards and retrospective meetings are already well in place. TDD, ATDD and Kanban are techniques which are of particular interest at the moment.

0 % 20 % 40 % 60 % 80 % 100 %

38.1 %

34.8 %

26.6 %

20.3 %

15.9 %

11.1 %

9.5 %

12.1 %

31.3 %

19.0 %

23.8 %

46.0 %

48.5 %

65.6 %

46.9 %

63.5 %

63.5 %

Iterative Planning

Daily Standup

Backlog Management

Taskboard

Retrospectives

Burndown Chart

Definition of Done

Velocity Chart

On-Site Customer

Co-Location

Test Driven Development (TDD)

Kanban

Acceptance Test Driven Development (ATDD)

89.6 %

82.1 % 13.4 %

80.6 % 6.0 % 9.0 %

75.8 % 6.5 % 16.1 %

72.7 % 7.6 % 15.2 %

67.2 % 6.0 % 22.4 %

57.8 % 14.1 % 21.9 %

Is used No more useUse is planned Is not an issue

18.3 %

Drivers of Agile Methods

IMPLEMENTATION SwissQ Agile Trends & Benchmarks 2012 8

Improving the handling of changing priorities

Improving collaboration between business and IT

Accelerating time-to-market

Increasing productivity

Minimizing risks

Improving team morale

Simplifying the development process

Improving development-disciplines

Increasing visibility of projects

Increasing maintainability andexpandability of software

Reducing costs

Managing distributed teams

Reasons for Implementing Agile Methods

Implementation Steps

0 % 20 % 40 % 60 % 80 % 100 %

Top Priority Very Important Important Not Important

8.7 % 20.3 % 33.3 % 37.7 %

7.2 % 23.3 % 44.9 % 24.6 %

11.6 % 21.7 % 39.1 % 27.5 %

11.9 % 26.9 % 34.3 % 26.9 %

4.3 % 37.7 % 39.1 % 18.8 %

7.2 % 34.8 % 36.2 % 21.7 %

7.2 % 39.1 % 39.1 % 14.5 %

14.5 % 40.6 % 36.2 % 8.7 %

13.6 % 42.4 % 39.4 % 4.5 %

28.6 % 31.4 % 27.1 % 12.9 %

17.4 % 52.2 % 21.7 % 8.7 %

15.9 % 62.3 % 17.4 % 4.3 %

Satisfaction with the Implementation

Everything runs smoothly - there are no problems

Expected benefit was fulfilled

Took longer than expected

Is complicated

Does not meet expectations

Implementation cancelled

52.1 %

39.4 % 38.0 % 36.6 %

0 %

20 %

40 %

60 %

19.8 %

Departmentmanager /Team lead

HeadDevelopment

Project manager

CEODeveloper

2.9 % 29.4 % 67.6 %

9.1 % 6.1 % 84.8 %

21.2 % 22.7 % 56.1 %

29.4 % 41.2 % 29.4 %

32.3 % 32.3 % 35.4 %

33.3 % 26.1 % 40.6 %

38.8 % 31.3 % 29.9 %

43.3 % 32.8 % 23.9 %

0 % 20 % 40 % 60 % 80 % 100 %

Expansion to suitable projects

Piloting the agile approachin a single project

Training and coaching the involved roles

Active involvement of business units (e.g. in the PO-role)

Naturally grown in separate teams

Extended pilot phase with several projects

Rollout to all projects (big bang)

Assessment of the organization

Yes To some extent No

41 %

4 %3 %

10 %

17 %

25 %

Main Reasons for the Failure of Agile Projects

The Biggest Concerns Main Implementation Obstacles

SwissQ Agile Trends & Benchmarks 2012 9OBSTACLES

41 %

37 %

32 %

31 %

28 %

24 %

23 %

16 %

13 %

10 %

9 %

7 %

0 % 20 % 40 % 60 %

9 %

No / less forward planning

Necessity to change management style

Less predictability

Less documentation

Less management control

Not / not easily scalable

Development team not ready for change

Insufficient discipline in development

Inconsistency with the regulatory standards

No concerns

Others

Less quality of the software

Quality of the development skills

55 %

39 %

37 %

34 %

31 %

28 %

25 %

23 %

9 %

0 % 20 % 40 % 60 %

6 %

Ability to change the organizational culture

General resistance to change

Availability of personnel with necessary qualifications

Projects are too big or too complex

Collaboration with the client (internal / external)

Lacking support of line management

Confidence in the scalability of agile methods

Not enough time for sustainable changes

Cost reasons

Others

No obstacles 0 %

Corporate culture is not compatible with agile principles (theory

and practice are difficult to reconcile)

45 %

External pressure to follow a traditional

approach

41 %

Lack of support from line

management Lack of /

insufficient training / coaching

37 %Lack of

cooperation between

organisational units

Lack of team motivation

35 %

23 %

Lack of experience with

agile methods

38 %52 %

SwissQ Agile Trends & Benchmarks 2012 10

ResponsibilitiesMore than 50 % of the respondents describe their job with more than one role. Especially test managers don’t work 100 % as test managers, but also take responsibility for other roles.

of the respondents mainly work in projects.

60 %of the respondents are line managers.

33 %

30 %

20 %

10 %

0 %

Test

Manag

er

Depa

rtmen

t / D

ivisio

n Man

ager

Requ

irem

ents

Engi

neer /

BA

Test

Engi

neer

Proj

ect m

anag

er

Teste

r

Requ

irem

ents

Manag

er

Softw

are

Engi

neerIT Employees

A bit more than half of the respondents work in companies with more than 500 IT employees.

FRAME OF SURVEY

0 %

IT

Finance, Insurance

Manufacturing

Public and semi-public companies

Traffic and Transportation

Telecommunication

MedTech

Others

10 % 20 % 30 % 40 %

36.1 %

28.4 %

7.4 %

7.4 %

5.6 %

4.0 %

3.7 %

7.4 %

0 %

2001– ...

501 – 2000

251 – 500

51 – 250

11 – 50

1 – 10

5 % 10 % 15 % 20 % 25 % 30 % 35 %

33.0 %

13.6 %

17.6 %

15.4 %

14.2 %

6.2 %

Industrial SectorMore than 60 % of the respondents work either in the IT or in the financial sector. Compared to the last years their proportion has decreased, demonstrating that the subject has arrived in other industries too.

Along with the first edition of the SwissQ Agile Trends & Benchmarks Report, SwissQ published already the fourth edition of the SwissQ Testing Trends & Benchmarks Report and as well the first edition of the SwissQ Requirements Trends & Benchmarks Report, in 2012. Do you want to know more? You can download the detailed reports with further analyses from www.SwissQ.it.

SwissQ Agile Trends & Benchmarks 2012 11TRENDS & BENCHMARKS REPORTS 2012 FOR TESTING AND REQUIREMENTS

Trends & BenchmarksRequirements 2012

Trends & BenchmarksTesting 2012

Investments increase

Investments remain constant

Investments decrease

Future Investments

Education and Training for Employees

Better Cooperation of Business and IT

Standardisation of theinternal RE-Processes

Elaboration / Definition of the RE-Role

Development of Templates and Guidelines

Hiring new RE-Employees

Establishing specific RE Tools

Establishing internal RE-Divisions/-Departments

Outsourcing RE-Activities

0 % 20 % 40 % 60 % 80 % 100 %

33 %

33 %

25 %

24 %

22 %

22 %

21 %

17 %

11 %

54 %

53 %

61 %

60 %

61 %

55 %

64 %

63 %

48 %

13 %

14 %

14 %

16 %

17 %

23 %

15 %

20 %

41 %Costs

increasedup to 10 % up to 20 % up to 50 % up to 80 % No statement

possible

Cost Savings by Test Automation

10.2 %

33.3 %

2.8 %

22.6 %23.7 %

7.3 %

ABOUT US

SwissQ supports its clients in the development and implementation of IT-solutions and assures that the end users get the functionality they really need. This is achieved by unambiguously determining requirements and risk-based testing the implementation.

Our vision is to improve the added value of IT through requirements management and software testing. Along with providing high-quality services, we pursue this vision by establishing independent platforms, like the Swiss Testing Day and the Swiss Requirements Day, which facilitate the exchange of know-how and experiences.

In addition to that we help bright minds to expand their knowledge in our trainings.

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