Agile Trends Switzerland 2020

The agile approach continues to spread rapidly around the world. A stunning 89.8% of all teams have already adopted or are in the process of adopting an agile methodology. It is an impressive and considerable number. It also shows when you look at the number of people who have a Scrum Master certification. Around a million of them are Certified Scrum Master. Quite a smaller number of people are Certified Product Owners.

On the other hand, organizations are still struggling to build greater company-wide agility. Only a few have already adopted agility on their product portfolio (15.3%) or on the strategic level (8.2%).

The good news is that many companies have started whole transformation initiatives or are planning to do so in the near future.

Creating products with agile approaches is now mainstream. Only laggards are clutching on obsolete methods. The competitive advantage is now to implement an agile product value stream through the whole organization. Fast delivery to customers and pivot to disruptive changes are the new key for extraordinary growth and success. The rise of digital and Internet affine banking solutions is such a transformative example.

The collected data clearly show agile approaches are tremendously more successful by more than 10%. The agile approach seems to eliminate catastrophic development failures. It means an agile team has a 25% higher relative probability to be victorious than classical teams (50.5% versus 39.5%).

It is time to embrace agile product development. Drop waterfall approaches. Stop being a laggard.

The IT department is still the main driver for agile transformation. Going fully agile is challenging, and sticking with waterfall is no more an option. Leaving many companies stuck in a hybrid approach.

Swiss companies are often embracing Hermes ^[2] or SAFe. Both approaches are quite a poor choice to achieve a successful agile transformation. Read the technology radar of Thoughtworks for a detailed discussion why SAFe is a poor choice.

Satisfaction with the agile way of working is high; satisfaction with the transformation process is low. The focus is still on processes over people. The JIRA tool is omnipresent and workflows are documented in acribic details.

This has left many, about 40% to be exact, stuck in a hybrid approach, i.e., a combination of waterfall and agile. This is not necessarily a catastrophic thing if you manage to get the best of both worlds.

Kanban offers an easy start with agile and unlike Scrum is applicable to any process. As our numbers show, it is becoming more and more popular. Remember, it is not Kanban if it does not have WIP limits.

There is also a trend towards stable product teams that extend their responsibilities beyond those of just the development for a solution or service.

The conclusion of the main article is enlightening.

Agile approaches are steadily making progress in Switzerland. We have reached the level where late majority and laggards are slowly looking at the approach. Low-hanging fruits were collected. The next gains require deeper changes. Progress is slow and resistance is very high.

Collaborators are happy with the change and do not want to go back to the old world. However, the change often does not go beyond the first application of the methodology. The biggest obstacle for employees is, at the same time, the biggest challenge for leaders. A culture that promotes a learning and adaptable organization and its own agile way through the organization.

I am currently focusing on Software Craftsmanship and key agile values and approaches. The more people know about key principles, the better the adoption and the implementation will be. One decision was to teach and train bachelor students of technical universities in these principles to implement a grassroot approach. The hope is to foster a deeper adoption of agile key values and related practices.

We still advocate and promote

You can download Trends Benchmark Report 2020 from SwissQ ^[1].