268% Higher Failure Rates for Agile, Right?

A story of self-fulfilled prophecy, or how the choosing of the metrics shapes your methodology and our addictions to old habits.

Prompted and edited by the author.

The motivation for this article came from the following piece:

268% Higher Failure Rates for Agile Software Projects, Study Finds

Note: Although the article is dated June 12, I actually found it on June 9.
Future me: Now it’s date June 4th 2024.

I must confess that I felt compelled to read it entirely, and the main reason was that the conclusion took me by surprise. I must admit that my own bias played a significant role here: I was surprised that a rigorous study found flaws in Agile when all my experience and previous knowledge suggested the opposite. However, it is true that I have repeatedly observed companies struggling to adopt Agile, and a partial adoption might be worse than none at all. So, what new insights does this article provide?

Impact Engineering

The first thing you discover is that the article is actually a promotional piece for a…