20 Years of Agile: Widespread Adoption But Still the Same Growing Pains

How we can improve our team’s Agile approach

Photo by Leon on Unsplash

In the two decades since the 17 people came together and founded the Manifesto for Agile Software Development, we’ve seen and felt the changing tides of how software is being developed all around the world. Though the Manifesto itself wasn’t technically the cornerstone of this movement — Scrum and Extreme Programming, among others, were around even before — it provides for a good measuring stick for how far Agile has come.

Thanks to the 2021 edition of the State of Agile Report provided by Digitial.ai, we get some fresh insight into Agile’s growth, including where we can expect it to go and what kinds of challenges organizations still face in terms of adoption. Let’s examine what the survey data tells us, and then discuss ways we can continue to move the trend in a positive direction.

Agile’s Here to Stay

The State of Agile Report gives us a good bird’s eye view of the level of adoption up to now. These key points indicate that Agile isn’t going anywhere:

• 94% of respondents are using Agile, with 65% of organizations having significant experience in Agile (more than 3 years).
• 52% of respondents say that more…