This section provides examples of how companies have benefited from Comparative Agility™. For each case study, we provide a brief overview of the company or project situation, an overview of the results from the Comparative Agility survey, and actionable outcomes that followed.
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Case Study 1 – Network ISV
This company had been adopting Agile over a six month period. During this period, the company had realized business benefits in terms of more reliable, shorter, milestone releases and slightly improved quality (as measured by defect introduction rate). However, those with visibility across the full adoption effort noted that the adoption of Agile had been "uneven," and wanted to take the adoption effort "to the next level." They believed that with improved agility there were many areas in which additional business value could be added.
The goal of taking the Comparative Agility Assessment was to better understand the areas on which the company should focus next. Based on the results of their assessment, the company decided it needed to emphasize improvements in its technical practices. In this area the company was lagging behind many of its competitors. As an initial step, the company decided to obtain specialized technical practices training and coaching.
Case Study 1 – Details of Network ISV
In this case study, 19 individuals completed surveys. The statistical means and standard deviations across all of the surveys were computed and used in the comparative analysis. The two graphics below describe how well this company is performing along each of the seven dimensions of the Comparative Agility survey. The company’s data was compared against approximately 300 surveys in the Comparative Agility database. Here is what we see.
Along the Teamwork dimension, this company is performing marginally better (~0.1 standard deviations) than the database of companies. Along the Requirements and Planning dimensions, this company is performing statistically equal to the database of companies. Along the dimensions of Technical Practices and Quality, this company is performing measurably worse (~-0.5 standard deviations) than the database of companies. Culturally, this company is performing statistically equal and in terms of Knowledge Creating, this company is performing measurably better (~+0.5 standard deviations) than the database of companies.
The following two graphics provide the next level of details (the Characteristics Level) regarding the company’s Technical Practices score. For all characteristics except Continuous Integration, this company is performing worse than the Comparative Agility database of companies.
As a result of the detailed information provided above, this company decided to focus first on improving its Technical Practices. Its personnel believed that if they could make material improvements in areas such as automated unit testing and test-driven development that the overall quality of their software releases would improve noticeably.
As a next step, this company secured training and coaching in these testing areas and began an aggressive program of training and coaching its Scrum team members.