State of Scrum 2017-2018: the future is Agile!

At the beginning of new year, Scrum Alliance, the largest certifying body in the Agile community, released State of Scrum 2017-2018, an annual report which summarizes Scrum and Agile practices and predictions around the world.

More than 2,000 Scrum professionals responded to the survey, representing 91 countries and 27 industries and the report this year shows Agile transformation firmly on the horizon for organizations all over the world.

Approximately half of respondents – 53 percent – report current involvement in an Agile transformation, and of those not currently involved in an organization-wide Agile transformation, 56 percent anticipate one in the future, which is not surprising.

Other key findings from the 2017-2018 report include:

• 97 percent will continue to use Scrum in the future. 
• 85 percent say Scrum continues to improve quality of work life.
• ScrumMaster is the most popular certification, selected by 84 percent of respondents.
• 78 percent use “Scrum and Other” approaches to Agile, and the diversity of frameworks increased from the previous year. 

Active senior management sponsorship and support is the number one motivator to undertake an Agile transformation, and enterprises look to executive leadership to spearhead Agile initiatives.

While many respondents anticipate change to come and suggest it is necessary to reach business goals including improved satisfaction with products delivered, better time to market, better quality and improved staff morale, 57 percent say organizational design and culture is what holds Agile transformation back.

This definitely resonates with my personal experience in coaching and transitioning enterprise departments: company culture can make or break an agile transition.
Yet few transitioning organizations do anything much to purposefully change their culture.
Culture is seen as fluffy and intangible, and changing it is risky. Having dozens of Scrum teams is very tangible and an easy KPI, but distributing authority to teams is a bit scary and also difficult to measure.
My experience tells me that this perspective is due to a lack of knowledge about:

1. what culture is
2. the strong impact it has on behavior
3. how you make it visible 
4. how you change it.

For instance most leaders say that their biggest problem is knowing and understanding what is happening on the factory floor. Yet very few leaders and few companies spend effort on actually observing people and their interactions.

If you want to talk and learn more about any of these four topics, I will be happy to help.

To learn more about Scrum Alliance and the State of Scrum, please visit http://info.scrumalliance.org/State-of-Scrum-2017-18.html