Context: Agile maturity models (AMMs) have been proposed to provide guidance for adopting Agile practices. Evaluations of AMMs indicatethat they might not be suitable for industry use. One issue is that AMMs have mainly been evaluated against pre-defined sets of criteria, instead of industry practice.
Objectives: The objectives of this study are to: (1) compare current AMMs regarding their guidance for Agile adoption, (2) investigate the strategies for Agile adoption used by practitioners, and (3) investigate similarities and differences between (1) and (2).
Methods: We conducted a literature survey that included grey literature to identify strategies proposed by the AMMs. We also conducted a survey and 11 interviews to identify the strategies used by practitioners to introduce Agile practices. This study combines quantitative and qualitative analysis.
Results: From the literature survey we found 26 AMMs, whereof 12 provide explicit mappings of Agile practices to maturity levels. These mappings showed little agreement in when practices should be introduced. Based on 40 survey responses we identified three high-level strategies for introducing Agile practices: big-bang, incremental, and complex strategies. The survey andinterviews revealed that the guidance suggested by AMMs are not aligned well with industry practice and that Agile practices might already be in place before an organization starts a transition to Agile.
Conclusion: In their current form, AMMs do not provide sufficient information to guide Agile adoption in industry. Our results suggest that there might be no universal strategy for Agile adoption that works better than others.