The Project Manager's Guide to Mastering Agile, 2nd Edition

1Introduction to Agile Project Management

OVER THE PAST 20 TO 25 YEARS, there has been a rapid and dramatic adoption of Agile methodologies and this trend has significantly accelerated in the last few years:

The “15th State of Agile Report,” published by Digital.ai, comments:

• This year’s findings indicate significant growth in Agile adoption within software development teams, increasing from 37% in 2020 to 86% in 2021.¹

Business Wire (a Berkshire Hathaway company) comments:

• Driven by the global pandemic, Agile adoption rates double in non‐IT lines of business with continued, strong adoption in software development.
• More than 90 percent of respondents say their company practices Agile, with most saying either the majority of or even all company teams have adopted Agile practices.
• Rapid Agile adoption fuels an increase in adoption of other trends, including DevOps transformation and value stream management (VSM) initiatives for more than two‐thirds of organizations.
• Post‐pandemic, a vast majority of IT respondents expect to permanently work remotely, making Agile adoption critical to driving collaboration and success across a globally distributed workforce.²

These statistics indicate that Agile is not a fad, it is having a significant impact on the way projects are managed, it’s definitely here to stay, and it is significantly accelerating in recent years. This trend has a significant impact on the career direction of project managers who have come from a classical plan‐driven ...