Version One have recently published their in depth Agile survey which shows some obvious (to me at least) facts, but also some interesting areas, both fit for discussion.

The total number of respondents were, 3016 with 2319 surveys completed, spanning 80 different countries.

Firstly for me the statistics that I expected are as follows:

• Lack of up front planning being the highest concern about agile development (45%)
• Ability to change organizational culture is citied as the biggest barrier to agile adoption followed by a general resistance to change
• A matching statistic is the “company philosophy” is cited as the biggest reason for agile projects failing
• The most used agile tool is Excel :)
• Only 17% utilise agile on ALL of their projects.
• The most important reason for adopting agile is to “Accelerate time to market”, very closely followed by “Enhance ability to manage changing priorities”

Now the more interesting results, for me at least are…

• Scrum is the most closely followed agile process at 49% version Scrum/XP hybrid at 22% and others at 29%
• The VP/Director of development being the role that champions agile within an organisation (25%).
• Only 31% of agile teams use an Analogue task board, yet 49% of teams use index cards – I wonder where they put them afterwards?
• The majority of respondents have been practicing agile for 2-5 years! I wonder in what form this would be?
• 57% of the agile teams are distributed. (individual members from a single team in different locations). My experience, in both the UK and Australia does not reflect this at all.

Head on over to the Version One site and download the full pdf report for free here (after registering)