Lack of understanding and long implementation times are the key challenges being faced by UK businesses in adopting agile, a survey by CA Technologies has revealed.

Agile software development is an alternative to the traditional waterfall approach. According to the survey, 82% of IT decision makers believe there are still challenges to widespread adoption in their organisations.

Looking at the main challeneges faced by businesses, 36% cite a lack of understanding of agile as a concept, 34% refer to the time taken to implement a truly agile approach and 33% stated that agility does not fit with their current business culture.

This is in contrast to only 15% of respondents who beleieve that cost and budget constraints are hindering agile adoption. However, 70% expect investment in agile to increase in the future with more organisations adopting and benefitting from it in 2016.

Leading the revolution are the IT departments, where agile adoption has increased in the past 12 months for 42% of the survey’s respondents. But only a third of IT departments are expected to deliver more frequently, while 24% are under pressure to keep up with the competition.

CA Technologies Agile Coach (EMEA) Andrew Sales said: "This research highlights the real benefits that adopting agile practices can bring to IT departments and how an agile approach can be the answer to many of the pressures they are facing."

Approximately 25% of respondents said they saw agile adoption in areas other than IT, with 49% expecting this to happen in the next 12 months. However, only 30% believe agile has expanded across their organisation.

According to the survey of 150 UK IT decision makers, only 18% of respondents say their organisation is currently fully agile, with a further 62% of respondents stating that their organisation is agile to an extent.

A survey by Gartner and Software Advice has found that 48% of project managers surveyed use agile software primarily for projects not related to software development; 90% of respondents say workflow tracking improves efficiency more than any other agile functionality.

"What we need now is a greater understanding of agility from other parts of businesses and cultural buy-in – particularly at senior management level. Interestingly it’s not a lack of money, but a lack of understanding that is holding back that change. Agile can be the catalyst that allows businesses to embrace benefits such as delivering more frequently and keeping up with the competition, but only if they are open to it," Sales added.

A survey undertaken by HP last year termed agile as the ‘new norm’ which was slow to start but quick to dominate.

Two-thirds (67%) of the 601 development and IT professionals surveyed by HP described their company as either "Pure Agile" or "Leaning toward Agile", while 24% indicate that they use a "hybrid" approach combining certain agile practices with waterfall.

Although agile approach was introduced around 15 years ago, most organisations have begun adopting the project management reports only in the past five years, with a significant inflection point in agile tools adoption occurring during 2009 and 2010, HP said.

In yet another recent survey, CA Technologies has found that DevOps is being adopted by UK businesses but main areas are being neglected.

According to the survey, 67% of the organisations have implemented DevOps but only 11% have done so across at least six different business areas.

 

Photo: courtesy of FreeImages.com / Arjun Kartha.