Deloitte: 80% of Polish companies use agile working methods
Agile methods of work are used by eight out of ten Polish companies, and more than 60% of it is used in the process of creating products, according to the report "Deloitte Agile Maturity Survey" prepared by Deloitte consulting company. The main advantages of this way of organizing work are, among others, the possibility of better adapting the product or service to the expectations of the customer and shortening the time needed to deliver them to the market.
Organizations using agile management methods now account for 80% of all surveyed entities. Adaptation of the agile approach most often affects product creation (64% of responses), management of the initiative portfolio, planning and decision-making (63%) and communication within the organization (52%).
"As the main reasons for switching to an agile work model, 67% of respondents indicated a desire to shorten the time needed to provide products and services to the market. Two-thirds of the answers concerned better product adaptation to customer needs, while the second one was to strive to strengthen cooperation between business and IT. The actual benefits obtained by using agile methods are the same, although their order is inverse - strengthening cooperation on the business line - 43% of respondents recorded, 40% more effectively respond to customer needs, while 35% more efficiently thanks to agile provide products and services to customers. Although the use of agile methods of work in Poland is a relatively young concept, from year to year we see a growing interest in scaling the agile approach. Organizations are increasingly recognizing the benefits of joint work of teams, faster and directly based on customer perspectives and business goals of making decisions and testing prototypes of built solutions. We expect that the agility scaled at the organizational level will be as much of the competitive advantage that agile was implemented at the team level 10-15 years ago," said partner, leader of Technology Strategy & Architecture Deloitte Anna Wiącek-Kocot.
Three-quarters of the subjects use agile practices for no more than 6 years. One in four companies uses scalable methods and 9% uses them across the organization. The vast majority (80%) decide to gradually implement these methods through, among others, pilot programs carried out in selected areas (e.g. development of a new product, business line or project). The phase introduction of changes allows to minimize operational risks and reduces risks to business continuity. According to the authors of the report, it is also equally important to be able to adjust the way of making changes in the next steps, based on the conclusions of the previous stages of the process, was emphasized.
Sited out of ten representatives of organizations operating in an agile model as the main challenge of the process of adapting change recognises the use of measures to assess the progress of transformation. The percentage of responses indicating a lack of understanding of the principles of agility and insufficient involvement by the leaders of the organization was almost half the lower (38%). Every third study from this group pointed to difficulties with changing the culture and habits of employees (33%). In the case of organizations that have not yet acted agilely, this percentage is more than double that is 69%. 58% of the responses, on the other hand, concern the lack of experience in agile work mode, and almost 40% indicate a lack of appropriate competences, it was reported.
The Deloitte report is the first publication describing the level of agile maturity among organizations operating in Poland. The basis of the study was attended by 536 specialists, middle managers and representatives of the management. They represented nearly 200 entities, diverse in size and industry.
Source: Deloitte and ISBnews
