1. Agile Project Initiation Survey 2009
Scott W. Ambler
Michael Vizdos
Copyright 2009 Scott W. Ambler

2. Copyright 2009 Scott W. Ambler www.ambysoft.com/surveys/
How To Use These Slides
I have provided these slides, and the raw data behind them, so that others can use them in their own work.
You may reuse all, or a part of, this slide deck as long as you provide a clear reference to the source.
The suggested reference is: Results from Scott Ambler and Michael Vizdos’s August 2009 Agile Project Initiation Survey posted at
Some slides have notes
Copyright 2009 Scott W. Ambler

3. Copyright 2009 Scott W. Ambler www.ambysoft.com/surveys/
About the Survey
August 2008
Message sent out to several agile Yahoo groups mailing lists (extremeprogramming, agilemodeling, agiledatabases, scrumdevelopment, testdrivendevelopment)
Data, summary, and slides downloadable from
280 respondents:
18% were developers, 48% were in management or leadership roles
40% had years IT experience, 22% had 21+ years
49% worked in North America, 33% in Europe, 12% in Asia Pacific
24% had 3-4 years of agile experience, 23% had 5 or more years
We had a wide range of people, nearly half were non-developers.
People had a fair bit of experience, many had 10+ years experience in IT
Copyright 2009 Scott W. Ambler

4. Copyright 2009 Scott W. Ambler www.ambysoft.com/surveys/
Interesting Results
69% had a wide range of stakeholders
30% were in regulatory compliance situations
38% were on mission-critical projects
46% were co-located in a single room
77% developed a high-level schedule, and 12% developed a detailed schedule.
47% had a firm delivery date, and another 28% have promised an end date although it may change
Copyright 2009 Scott W. Ambler

5. Agile and Legacy Systems
Working with legacy in some way was calculated if the people were doing one or more of the three legacy options
Copyright 2009 Scott W. Ambler

6. Agile Approach to Initial Requirements
76%
High-level initial requirements modeling
30%
Detailed initial requirements modeling
12%
Have initial requirements models supplied to them
10%
Use enterprise models as a reference
Use industry models as a reference
88%
Do some sort of initial modeling or have initial models supplied to them
89%
Do some sort of initial modeling, or have initial models supplied, or leverage reference models
73% of agile teams are creating an initial, high-level estimate
18% of agile teams are creating an initial, detailed estimate
Copyright 2009 Scott W. Ambler

7. Agile Approach to Initial Architecture
70%
High-level initial architecture modeling
25%
Detailed initial architecture/design modeling
12%
Have initial architecture/design models supplied to them
14%
Use enterprise models as a reference
Use industry models as a reference
83%
Do some sort of initial modeling or have initial models supplied to them
86%
Do some sort of initial modeling, or have initial models supplied, or leverage reference models
Copyright 2009 Scott W. Ambler

8. Approach to Initial Estimation8%
No initial estimate at all 9%
High-level estimate based on traditional estimation technique
28%
High-level estimate based on agile estimation technique
36%
High-level estimate based on reasonable guess of experienced person(s) 5%
Detailed estimate based on traditional estimation technique 7%
Detailed estimate based on agile estimation technique 6%
Detailed estimate based on reasonable guess 3%
Don’t know
73% of agile teams are creating an initial, high-level estimate
18% of agile teams are creating an initial, detailed estimate
Copyright 2009 Scott W. Ambler

9. Copyright 2009 Scott W. Ambler www.ambysoft.com/surveys/
Justifying Agile Projects 81% had to justify their projects in some manner
81% calculated as 170/211 (211 is the number of respondents to questions before and after this one)
% is out of the total, so 62 people indicated that they had to estimate ROI so the % is 61/211=29%
Copyright 2009 Scott W. Ambler

10. Copyright 2009 Scott W. Ambler www.ambysoft.com/surveys/
Did you need to produce a vision document (or similar) as part of project initiation?
Apparently agilists write some documentation after all ;-)
Copyright 2009 Scott W. Ambler

11. Copyright 2009 Scott W. Ambler www.ambysoft.com/surveys/
How long did it take your project team to get started? (Average: 3.9 weeks)
Average calculated as a weighted average. >8 weeks was considered to be 10 weeks and <1 week considered to be half a week.
Copyright 2009 Scott W. Ambler