Organization-Wide Agile Expansion Requires an Organization-Wide Agile Mindset Hidde van Manen and Hans van Vliet Computer Science Department, VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands hiddevanmanen@hotmail.com, hans@cs.vu.nl Abstract. While agile methods are widely used, large organizations still struggle with the implementation thereof throughout the whole orga- nization. The objective of our study is to identify factors that affect the expansion of agile software development in large organizations. We performed a multiple-case study to do so. We found agile software de- velopment in large organizations is more than implementing Scrum. In particular, we identified ”agile mindset” as a crucial topic that deserves attention when expanding agile methods in large organizations. Keywords: agile expansion, Scrum, agile mindset. 1 Introduction Since their origin in February of 2001, agile software development methods have become immensely popular. While Forrester research from 2010 indicated that agile methods were practiced in more than a third of all projects [1], this percent- age has kept growing strongly in the last few years and is now well over eighty percent of all projects [2]. Surely this cannot be the case in every organization? No. A quick internet search teaches us that large, international organizations all over the globe are still in the process of transforming their development organi- zation towards agile software development – and that this change is not realized overnight. An example is the U.S. Postal Service, which has spent well over three years rolling out agile in its organization and recently announced that agile has officially replaced the waterfall methodology in March 2013 1 . Agile Methods, when referred to in this paper, encompass software develop- ment methodologies characterized by a continuous readiness to rapidly realize change, pro-actively or reactively embrace change, and learn from change while contributing to customer value. In particular, Scrum, the development method- ology used in the environments studied in this paper, fits this definition. A focus on working code right from the beginning, delivery cycles of 2-4 weeks (so-called Sprints), and having business representatives on the team are but three practices to achieve the above benefits [3]. 1 http://fcw.com/articles/2013/06/13/usps-agile-development.aspx - accessed on June 25, 2013. A. Jedlitschka et al. (Eds.): PROFES 2014, LNCS 8892, pp. 48–62, 2014. c  Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014