Why we need Agile Maturity Survey

“At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior's accordingly.” -The Agile Manifesto

?The majority of companies are adopting some sort of Agile methodology when it comes to software development, Infrastructure Management etc . Nevertheless, research shows that an overwhelming percentage of organizations are not implementing agile principles and values correctly. Furthermore, many organizations go through numerous attempts to become Agile and keep failing. The main reason behind that is the lack of understanding of the organization’s current state of technology, process & people. This is where an Agile Maturity Assessment comes into play, by presenting a baseline that can act as a starting point for planning or just provide sufficient information to adjust.

“Assessment” can have a negative connotation and is often associated with judgment or critique. However, Agile Maturity Assessment is just a reflection of how the team compares against the best practices of the Agile framework. Agile Maturity Assessment paints a clear picture of what is working well, and what needs adjustment.

Agile Maturity Assessment (AMA) is an exercise/tool to help a scrum team improve their ability to be more agile over time. Converting to Agile requires adopting the values and principles of the Agile Manifesto. Thus, the assessment should be based on the adoption of Agile values, principles, concepts, and artifacts. Ideally, a team would want to keep track of all of them, however, in order for the team to be more focused and visualize their work properly, it is recommended to start with 5 to 7 key criteria for the assessment. Assess only items that can be acted upon and try to make it as simple as possible. The team will self-assess the level they are currently at on a scale from 1-5 for each one of the criteria selected for the assessment like Phycological safety of the team, leadership interest on agile, organization agility, tools and technique to make better agile transforming organization etc. The level for each criterion defines what steps the team can take to reach that level.

Agile transformations are complicated and it can take a long time to arrive at a place where the team is fully Agile. A team would need to understand where they are on their Agile journey. Therefore, it is important for an organization or team to be able to measure that progress, determine where they need to go, and the steps to voyage to the desired destination. Agile Maturity Assessment can serve as the map to navigate the team’s Agile journey to ensure that the team is on the right track. Moreover, it can serve as proof that the team is making progress.