Many software development projects are already agile.
Agility Promises benefits when dealing with complexity and dynamics which cannot be achieved with traditional structures and approaches. Many studies and surveys have proven the use of agile methods and practices in software development projects. They also show that many agile teams desire a cooperative and more agile organizational environment. The missing agility in the remaining organization is perceived as a barrier to successfully conduct projects. This survey discusses the relevancy of a holistic examination of agility in organizations. We motivate the need to look at agility beyond team level and propose to research on how such an agile enterprise and the corresponding organizational development can look like.
Many enterprises are challenged with increasing complexity of their products and markets. First insights show that agility in projects and technical organizational units only is not sufficient to achieve the anticipated flexibility and stability of the organization. Agile projects depend on a cooperative organizational environment that supports agility.
After revising well-known studies and surveys on agility, we detect a missing holistic and cross-departmental view on agility in the whole enterprise. Future work needs to research on what agile organizations look like and how much agility is already implemented on all levels of an enterprise. This survey study is planned to evaluate these aspects.