20

Years passed since Scrum had been widely adopted in software world. I’m wondering if there is any efficiency survey done by more or less independent people/institutes. Obviously scrums gurus who travel around the globe giving lectures and training always find numbers of excellent showcases, however I’d rather listen someone who doesn’t sell Scrum.

By efficiency I mean total productivity (delivered value/cost), but not some internal characteristics like communications inside teams and so on.

Update based on discussion in comments:

One of the ways to do such survey/analysis could be based on comparison of similar projects developed with Scrum and without Scrum. I believe even 10 years ago there were projects similar to some current. Of course, it does not make sense if applied technologies are completely different, so these projects have to be implemented on same/similar technology.

m5ba
  • 475
  • 2
  • 9
  • +1 excellent question. I'm a little sceptical. Not against agile methods in general but against people blindly applying them. – Tamás Szelei Apr 15 '11 at 08:12
  • Yeah, we use Scrum too, and I wondered the same question... I also recall using RUP. After spending quite a lot of time reading about it I've come to the conclusion that virtually every development process can be seen as RUP :) – Dmitry Negoda Apr 15 '11 at 08:53
  • 1
    "widely adopted" isn't enough proof? What more do you hope to learn? We're not using scrum because it's stylish or because of a compulsion or regulation. It's widely adopted because it works. Please detail something you need to know more than "widely adopted". – S.Lott Apr 15 '11 at 10:55
  • 7
    @S.Lott "widely adopted" is not empirical proof of anything other than popularity, it is perfectly reasonable to ask for references that relate to delivered value etc. Waterfall or RUP could also be said to be "widely adopted", it would be interesting to see research comparing them all. – Steve Apr 15 '11 at 11:17
  • 1
    @S.Lott Many religions were widely adopted during humankind history. So it doesn’t really mean much. Scrum as a software development process is supposed to improve this development i.e. companies should spend less money for the same result now comparing to what was 10 years ago. Of course, it’s not easy to calculate efficiency since, everything is changing with time and projects are never exactly the same. But still I’m sure that it's possible to find some similar projects made 10 years ago and now. – m5ba Apr 15 '11 at 11:21
  • @Mark BLNKN: "similar projects made 10 years ago"? Perhaps you're kidding. Do you want someone to rebuild an ancient application using JDK 1.1 and VIM using Scrum and compare the level of effort to using Eclipse? I can't see how anything is comparable. Please define what information -- beyond "widely adopted" -- that you need. Since no one is compelled to use scrum, they must be happy. Or they'd stop using scrum. – S.Lott Apr 15 '11 at 11:37
  • 3
    @S.Lott: Smoking is widely adopted. No one is compelled to smoke. Smokers must be happy, otherwise they'd quit smoking. So smoking is healthy. – Joonas Pulakka Apr 15 '11 at 11:46
  • @Joonas Pulakka: Almost Correct. "smoking is healthy" is unjustified based on the facts. But that's a really bad analogy because smoking is not an economic behavior. Companies make economic decisions based on cost and value all the time. Widespread adoption of a technology tells you that many other people have done cost and benefit comparisons. I'm asking what specific, additional facts would be relevant here. Specifically. What is this "Efficiency" in the question? What does "Efficiency" mean in this question? – S.Lott Apr 15 '11 at 11:54
  • @S.Lott I'm not talking about technolgies. I'm talking about value delivered to the client. There are similar project in terms of what system/application actually does. In some cases even technologies almost the same. So if we found such project some done 10 years ago with RUP (or whatever) and some just recently with Scrum we should see the difference. – m5ba Apr 15 '11 at 12:05
  • @S.Lott efficiency = value / cost – m5ba Apr 15 '11 at 12:08
  • 3
    @S.Lott, I think cowboy coding is even more widely adopted than Scrum, but I don't see anybody claiming that that works. – Carson63000 Apr 15 '11 at 12:20
  • @Carson63000: "cowboy coding is even more widely adopted than Scrum". I think that's true. It does work. Many managers prefer it because shoddy quality now is someone else's technical debt later. It's not a good idea, but it's quite common because it is effective. – S.Lott Apr 15 '11 at 12:37
  • @Mark BLNKN: " In some cases even technologies almost the same." Can you name one that would serve as a basis for comparison? How do you measure "value delivered to the client"? Can you provide a specific metric that someone could actually collect? – S.Lott Apr 15 '11 at 12:40
  • @S.Lott 1)industrial data acqusition systems. Main purpose of the system - data recording, preliminary QC control. differnce between 10 years ago and know in ammount of data since hardware capability is growing. Programming technolies alomost the same 2) games 10 years ago it could be VC++ and DirectX the same now. Difference in the Graphic Cards capabilitioes, bit from poiint of view programming should not be very different. 3) Enterprise Managemnet types of application like SAP R3. – m5ba Apr 15 '11 at 13:12
  • @Mark BLNKN: Please update the question to properly define what you're looking for. All the comments are simply confusing at this point. – S.Lott Apr 15 '11 at 13:16

3 Answers3

6

Check The State of Agile survey by Version One.

This survey highlights the results of our fourth annual industry survey regarding the state of agile development. Survey data is based on 2,570 participants from 88 countries.

This is the closest document I know that matches your requirements.

However my personal opinion is that document is biased because most respondents are Agile practitioners. Also the company that conduct the survey is an Agile project management software vendor...

Like you, I think Agile is currently doing much more damage that benefits. Not because Agile doesn't work, but because it is not properly implemented, taught, coached, or simply... understood.

When properly understood and applied, Agile is the most powerful tool a software development team could implement.

1

Dont know if there was a specific survey about Scrum but here's one on Agile itself. Also take a look at this

DPD
  • 3,537
1

http://www.scribd.com/doc/46561305/Agile-Development-Management-Tools-Forrester-Q2-2010

Agile development Survey 2010 from Forrester

http://www.scribd.com/doc/45835357/2010-State-of-Agile-Development-Survey-Results

Version One Agile 2010 survey results (more updated than link above)

Agile Scout
  • 1,065