Assessment of Agile Culture

Abstract

Many software development teams are adopting agile methods like Scrum or XP, but these might not always be applicable, especially for teams outside software development. Nonetheless, every team might profit from adopting the agile mindset. However, teams need support in assessing and improving their current cultural agility. This work proposes a systematic process to enable such assessment and improvement in an effective way. Further, the approach makes use of a tool, which supports the evaluation of the team’s maturity regarding certain criteria derived from the agile principles. Both are demonstrated by examining an actual service desk team. The results are discussed and interpreted, leading to a set of specific suggestions for improvement. This demonstrates that regardless of the domain, teams can become more agile even without adopting agile methods, just by focusing on improving the culture.