PA
PERS
Section 1. Respondent demographics
Section 2. The relevant organizational context:
a. Which in most cases is only a part of the organization, a division or subsidiary, for example
b. The years when agile methods were used for the first time on small projects and on large projects. From the case studies and a general
knowledge of the context it is known that many organizations, but not all, implement agile methods first on small projects.
c. The level of maturity in the use of agile methods
d. The presence of an agile community of practice
e. The total number of projects and the proportion employing agile methods
Section 3. A specific large project that employed agile methods:
a. The level of knowledge of agile methods of people involved in this project
b. Types of deliverable, scope, and duration
c. Level of integration with other systems
d. Number and duration of sprints
e. Project organization:
i. Number and composition of development teams
ii. Other teams or committees
iii. Other individuals
f. Project initiation, activities related to architecture and to the planning of sprints before the beginning of software development per se, often
referred to as sprint zero
g. Agile practices employed
h. Benefits and disadvantages of agile methods and project performance
Section 4. The transition from traditional methods to agile methods.
From a general knowledge of the field, it is known that most large organizations had well-established traditional project management methods prior
to implementing agile methods and that in most cases the two are present. However, some organizations use agile methods exclusively. For these
reasons, section four of the survey was completed only by respondents in contexts where both methods are currently in use.
a. Decision rules for determining which projects use agile methods
b. Performance objectives that motived use of agile methods
c. Organizational objectives that motived use of agile methods
d. Strategy for implementing agile methods, including change management
e. Organizational characteristics that supported implementation
f. Organizational characteristics that are obstacles to implementation
g. Performance outcomes
h. Organizational change outcomes
i. New and changed organizational roles, particularly for project managers, ScrumMasters, and product owners
Table 2: Survey questionnaire (overview).
introduction of agile methods in organizations with well-established traditional methods. A total of 35 responses
to this final section were received; the
remaining 13 respondents, or 27%, are
in contexts in which all projects are
managed using agile methods.
The Case Study Organizations
All of the case study projects devel-
oped and/or made significant changes
to large complex systems with multiple
interconnections to adjacent systems.
All six organizations have introduced
agile methods into a context in which
well-established traditional project
management methods are in place.
The two financial services companies
have formalized structures and proce-
dures and a high degree of specialization.
The business processes in this type of
organization make extensive use of
complex computer systems, which are
interconnected internally and with other
organizations, including customer orga-
nizations and suppliers of information.
The software projects are all related to
the development and/or updating of
systems used by operational employ-
ees of the company, by employees in
other organizations that are connected
to their systems, and by online custom-
ers. In this type of organization, internal
business units are the project customers
from which product owners are drawn.
However, as stated in the literature and
shown in the results of this research, the
role of product owner is problematic.
Financial services is an important sec-
tor in which large-scale agile projects
are found; 26% of the respondents to the
survey are from this sector and it is the
second most common industry after soft-
ware reported in the VersionOne (2016)
survey.
