There’s little question that most organizations are considering a move to Agile practices, but what’s holding back adoption?  Earlier this month, we released the results of research conducted over the past year as part of our “Agile Comes to You” seminar series. We surveyed approximately 1,000 developers, testers, product managers and other business professionals across the US and Europe, and findings shed new light new light on the obstacles software development organizations are facing as they move forward with Agile initiatives.

What obstacles hold back Agile Adoption?

The top obstacles identified by the survey included: capturing requirements (16%), lack of in-house experience (14%), and lack of automated tests (13%).  Other Agile pain points were challenges associated with teams spread across multiple projects (10%) and support for Agile with distributed teams (8%).  There are ALM tools available today designed specifically to help developers overcome these obstacles.  Development organizations can also implement a number of best practices processes to smooth the transition to Agile and accelerate adoption.  Following the survey results analysis, we’ll provide more details on the tools and approaches in a subsequent blog post.

The study also showed that pain points varied based on the extent of the organization’s Agile adoption: organizations in early and mature stages of Agile adoption both saw capturing requirements as a source of pain, while those organizations with some Agile processes implemented identified the lack of automated tests as their top issue.

In addition to spotlighting the obstacles to Agile adoption, AccuRev provided updated insights into interest in Agile.  Approximately 70% of those surveyed are currently implementing Agile practices – of this group, 23% are scaling, 37% are piloting, and 8% are already fully Agile enabled.

The full report of the Agile Adoption Pain Points Survey is available free for download at http://www.accurev.com/whitepaper/agile-pain-points-survey.

Here’s what others are saying about the survey:

Application Development Trends

Dr. Dobb’s Journal

We’ll have more insights to share based on what we’ve learned here, including next steps recommendations for organizations faced with these obstacles as well as the toolsets needed to implement and scale Agile.

SQE’s “Agile Comes to You” seminar tour has added new dates and locations for the month of April!  Due to great turnouts and positive feedback, AccuRev, Rally, AnthillPro and Coverity will continue their cross-country tour with upcoming stops in Colorado Springs and Minneapolis.

The half-day seminars are filled with Agile tools product demos, presentations from keynote speakers, Coverity, Rally, AccuRev and AnthillPro, and a question and answer session with a panel of Agile product experts.   Below is the panel from one of the most recent seminars in Seattle.



Attendees also learn about the new AgileCycle ALM suite of integrated software and services, designed to increase the speed and impact of Agile projects and enable Agile adoption.

Interested in Agile and want to check out AgileCycle? Join us in Colorado Springs on April 6^th or in Minneapolis on April 7^th.

April Tour Updates pic

Register here for Colorado Springs on April 6^th.

Register here for Minneapolis on April 7^th.

As an AccuRev blog reader, you’re welcome to attend our upcoming free webinar that will discuss the intersection of Agile development and governance:

Attend this Webinar and learn:

How Agile processes and compliance can coexist in harmony

What pragmatic ALM is and how it can help you solve today’s business challenges

How to manage multiple processes dependent on project requirements (Waterfall, Agile, etc.)

Best practices for optimizing tools and processes for both software development and release management.

When: Thursday, December 4 at 1:00 PM EST

Register: The Business Case for Pragmatic ALM: Agility with Governance