Investigating the applicability of Agility assessment surveys: A case study

•Research literature does not suggest a practical approach for assessing/profiling Agility of software development teams or organizations.•We examine the applicability of online surveys created by practitioners in an industrial case study with three teams.•Surveys use different insufficient definitions for Agile, which leaves Agile as a context-dependent concept.•Practitioners define Agile for their context and assess it accordingly.

ContextAgile software development has become popular in the past decade without being sufficiently defined. The Agile principles can be instantiated differently which creates different perceptions of Agility. This has resulted in several frameworks being presented in the research literature to evaluate the level of Agility. However, the evidence of their actual use in practice is limited.ObjectiveThe objective is to identify online surveys that assess/profile Agility in practice, and to evaluate the surveys in an industrial setting.MethodThe Agility assessment surveys were identified through searching the web. Then, they were explored and two surveys were identified as most promising for our objective. The selected surveys were evaluated in a case study with three Agile teams in a software consultancy company.ResultsEach team and its customer separately judged the team's Agility. This outcome was compared with the two survey results in focus-group meetings, and finally one of the surveys was agreed to provide a more holistic assessment of Agility.ConclusionsDifferent surveys may judge Agility differently, which supports the viewpoint that Agile is not well defined. Therefore, practitioners must decide what Agile means to them and select the assessment survey that matches their definition.