16th Annual State of Agile Report – SAFe is still the market leader

Friday, December 9, 2022. By Marshall Guillory

The newest Digital.ai State of Agile report has arrived with new flavor and style in its 16th increment [Annual State of Agile Report] The report was released this week on December 7th, 2022. As I have reported in the past four of five years on the annual State of Agile Report, I will compare and contrast the various scaling frameworks’ growth and shrinkage using the Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) and market share since the 9th Annual report period.

The report has some surprises as Scrum@Scale has rebounded from years of stagnation to show some growth. Though, overall Scrum@Scale still has negative running CAGR (-10%). The report shows some stability and patterns over the past five years in market offerings that led me to remove the bottom three offerings from the charts as statistically insignificant (Nexus, Spotify, Enterprise Scrum).

We are also observing a running trend with the Scaled Agile Framework for Lean Enterprises (SAFe) once again growing market share with an astonishing 43% growth for the period and a running CAGR of 12%. Over the past several years, I have noticed clear market leaders patterning and some interesting misses. Where is DAD? The noteworthy acquisition and integration of Disciplined Agile into the PMI has not moved the needle on market share or penetration into new domains. Does this mean that process expertise doesn’t translate into running a successful product and business?

Market share chart for scaling agile solutions/frameworks for reporting years

Once again, this year the most important news and trend from the report is the continued growth and dominance of the SAFe. Enterprises are still adopting SAFe at a remarkable rate, showing a leading indicator that companies are choosing to capture the benefits of structured guidance included in the Lean-Agile-Systems Thinking bodies of knowledge included in SAFe. People are still at the center of the Agile movement. The reports notes that cross-collaboration is one of the most important aspects of Agile ways of working. This makes sense when we consider the principles, practices, and guidance in the SAFe as its unique approach to big room planning, known as “Pl Planning”, is almost universally received as a positive experience.

According to 89%of respondents, high-performing Agile teams have:

People-centric values, clear culture, tools, and leadership empowerment.

16th Annual State of Agile Report

This report had 3,220 survey respondents which is up from previous years. No doubt due to the additional marketing provided by the community.


For the past five years SAFe has increased its’ market share significantly now landing at a record 53% and has enjoyed a healthy pattern of growth in CAGR up to 12%. Meanwhile, Scrum@Scale has seen a miraculous bump in market share while combined with Scrum of scrums but is still anchored by overall running negative CAGR. I suspect the questions and categorization are causing some inaccurate reporting. I hope that Digital.ai will separate out the two approaches in future reports. When and if they do for the 17th annual report I predict a much different outcome (lower) in market share for Scrum@Scale.

For comparison purposes, here is the growth/shrink from the 13th to 16th Annual reports.

The elusive enterprise agility is still a major setback for organizations. The market currently does not properly address the context of scale for large, complex enterprises. This is a growth area.

Only 15% of respondents were unsure of where their organization stands, but most organizations are still struggling to achieve enterprise agility.

Digital.ai – 16th Annual State of Agile Report

Summary share analysis:

  • Scrum of Scrums has mysteriously jumped to 28% market share with a -10% CAGR — when combined with Scrum@Scale. This discrepancy needs to be addressed in future reports.
  • Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD) lost its momentum with 0% increase in share. Perhaps due to the acquisition?
    • DA has a CAGR of -3%
  • Nexus remains effectively dead on arrival, still at 3% share and 0% CAGR (cannot divide by zero it turns out).
  • The SAFe® added 16% market share. 53% is still the market leader for structured guidance frameworks. 
  • LeSS stopped the bleeding and tapped into some growth mostly driven by negative ad campaigns on social media.
    • LeSS now has a share of 6% CAGR of 8%
    • With such a huge head start, why is LeSS not the market leader? 
  • Many other frameworks have negative CAGR as noted in the data set.

Notes:

  1. One of the current market leaders registered in the report in 2011, where the topic was “Agile Methods and Practices.” Fast forward to the 12th annual report, and the question on everyone’s mind is now “Scaling Agile?” I find this quite interesting. Is it a market indictment of disconnected methods and practices that fail to address organizational change in a holistic, meaningful way? It does seem to suggest so. It is also clear that “Scaling Frameworks” are also insufficient as a standalone tool used for organizational change. At least, it was that way for a long time.
  2. LeSS is using negative ad campaigns on social media to attack competing solutions

References:

“VersionOne 11th Annual State of Agile Report.” VersionOne, explore.versionone.com/state-of-agile/versionone-11th-annual-state-of-agile-report.

“VersionOne 12th Annual State of Agile Report.” VersionOne, explore.versionone.com/state-of-agile/versionone-12th-annual-state-of-agile-report.

“VersionOne 13th Annual State of Agile Report.” VersionOne, explore.versionone.com/state-of-agile/versionone-13th-annual-state-of-agile-report.

“Digital.ai 14th Annual State of Agile Report.” https://stateofagile.com/#ufh-i-615706098-14th-annual-state-of-agile-report/7027494

“Digital.ai 15th Annual State of Agile Report.” https://digital.ai/resource-center/analyst-reports/state-of-agile-report/

“Digital.ai 16th Annual State of Agile Report.” https://digital.ai/resource-center/analyst-reports/state-of-agile-report/

Data:

  9th Annual 10th Annual 11th Annual 12th Annual 13th Annual 14th Annual 15th Annual 16th Annual Growth/Shrink 13-14 Growth/Shrink 14-15 Growth/Shrink 15-16 9th to 16th Annual CAGR SCALED AGILE FRAMEWORK® (SAFE®) 19 23 28 29 30 35 37 53 17% 6% 43% 12% SCRUM OF SCRUMS/Scrum@Scale* 69 72 27 19 16 16 9 28 0% -44% 211% -10% INTERNALLY CREATED METHODS/Don’t Know/Other 25 17 13 10 27 28 19 15 4% -32% -21% -6% LEAN MANAGEMENT  18 9 4 3 3 3 2 8 0% -33% 300% -9% AGILE PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT (APM)  9 6 4 3 3 3 3 7 0% 0% 133% -3% LARGE-SCALE SCRUM (LESS)  3 4 3 5 3 3 3 6 0% 0% 100% 8% DISCIPLINED AGILE DELIVERY (DAD)  4 1 1 5 7 7 3 3 0% -57% 0% -3% NEXUS 0 0 1 1 2 2 3 3 0% 50% 0% #DIV/0! Spotify Model 0 0 0 1 5 5 5 7 0% 0% 40% #DIV/0! Enterprise Scrum 0 0 0 0 3 3 6 6 0% 100% 0% #DIV/0!                          

Wrap up

It is important to remember to avoid focusing on the tools. It is PEOPLE who change systems. Change leaders drive change in an organization and only through hard work and repetition are companies able to anchor new behaviors in the culture.

Come back next year for more analysis and commentary. What are your thoughts? Comment on my LinkedIn post.