What Agile Stuff Are We Actually Doing?
When asked whether their organization had adopted an agile method such as Extreme Programming (XP) or Scrum, 41 percent responded that their organization had adopted one or more such methods. Table 3 summarizes the results. Although it is no surprise that XP and Scrum are popular options, other methods such as the Agile MSF, AUP, and in particular FDD had strong showings.
| METHOD | # RESPONDENTS |
| Agile MSF | 191 |
| Agile Unified Process (AUP) | 216 |
| Crystal Clear | 91 |
| Dynamic System Development Method (DSDM) | 26 |
| Extreme Programming (XP) | 954 |
| Feature Driven Development (FDD) | 502 |
| Scrum | 460 |
| Other | 171 |
I also asked whether the organization has adopted any agile development techniques, such as Test Driven Development (TDD) or pair programming, and the results were very encouraging: 65 percent of respondents indicated that they had adopted one or more agile techniques. Table 4 summarizes the results. It's interesting to note the high acceptance rates of quality-oriented techniques such as common coding guidelines, refactoring, regression testing, and TDD. I'm excited to see that agile database development techniques, such as database refactoring and database regression testing, are beginning to catch on.
