Denver, CO, — SCRUM ALLIANCE®, the largest, most established and influential professional membership organization and certifying body in the Agile community, today released the annual State of Scrum report, finding Scrum driving Agile transformations at companies of all shapes and sizes.
“Top-down doesn’t cut it anymore. As our world continues to change, Agile business structure will not only become invaluable but nonnegotiable,” said Scrum Alliance interim CEO and global business process expert Lisa W. Hershman. “Agile and Scrum present a significant opportunity across industries and roles for companies to work better and create joyful, efficient, and productive workplaces. The 2016 State of Scrum report shows that successful businesses — of all types — use Scrum.”
Scrum Alliance is a nonprofit association with more than 500,000 certified practitioners worldwide. Of those members, more than 2,000 respondents from 76 countries, primarily in North America (52%), Europe (26%), and Asia (11%), participated in the State of Scrum survey for 2016. The resulting report shows:
- 62% have an in-house Scrum coach.
- 82% believe certification has helped their Scrum practice.
- 83% say Scrum improved the team’s quality of work life to at least some extent.
- 86% hold a daily Scrum meeting.
- 89% of Agile users use the Scrum approach.
- 98% plan to use Scrum moving forward.
The report highlights and details changes in the culture and use of Scrum practices. Seventy-two percent of participants work in industries outside of IT and software development, such as finance and banking, healthcare, education, insurance, government, media and entertainment, retail, and manufacturing. Departments as varied as operations and production, research and development, sales and marketing, finance and accounting, human resources, and consulting all reported running Scrum projects.
Sixty-nine percent of respondents worked at companies with 500 or more employees, and nearly all companies (95%) represented had annual revenue over $1 million (with 40% over $1 billion).
While IT and software remain the primary departments using Agile and Scrum, represented by 71% of respondents, Hershman noted, “We are beginning to see the start of a company-wide integration of Scrum values and practices.”
CIOs, CTOs, and executives from the Forbes Technology Council cite the benefits of Agile as including faster feedback, ability to adapt to change, early identification of problems, flexible prioritization, and team purpose. Although down from 80% in 2015, delivering value to the customer continues to be the most important outcome for Scrum projects. Second to delivering customer value, more than one-half of respondents value the flexibility and responsiveness of Scrum when completing projects.
Despite the prioritization of these critical organizational values, more than half of respondents said their organizations struggle when adapting Scrum to their culture, and over 40% report challenges in aligning projects, clearly defining metrics, and transitioning from Waterfall. Two-thirds of participants report that Scrum created at least some tension with the rest of the organization (down 4% from 2015), but 70% of survey participants blame adherence to top-down, command-and-control approaches to management for that tension.
Learn more about Scrum Alliance and the State of Scrum report.
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About Scrum Alliance
Founded in 2001, Scrum Alliance® is the largest, most established and influential professional membership and certification organization in the Agile community. Scrum Alliance is a nonprofit association with more than 500,000 certified practitioners worldwide. Its vision is to "Transform the World of Work" with a mission to guide and inspire individuals, leaders, and organizations with practices, principles, and values that create workplaces that are joyful, prosperous, and sustainable. For more information, please visit scrumalliance.org.
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