SAS (www.sas.com) is the largest privately held software company in the world and a long-time leader in
analytical software and business intelligence. SAS employs over 13,000 staff in 55 countries, serving
customers in 135 countries with an enviable level of customer loyalty. SAS has been awarded the number one
place to work by Fortune®1
, earning a spot in the Top 10 for the past 16 years. Internationally, SAS frequently
is cited among the very best of places to work, including the No. 1 ranking for the 2012 Great Places to Work
from among the World’s Best Multinational Workplaces2
.
The company’s corporate values are straight-forward. All are equally important, and each one in its own way
contributes to the SAS R&D agile transformation.
Approachable
Customer-Driven
Swift and Agile
Innovative
Trustworthy
In 2007, the SAS Research and Development (R&D) organization launched a series of pilots to gauge if Agile
Scrum could contribute to our ongoing success. Now with nearly 2,000 in global R&D formally equipped with
training, tooling, and support, SAS has learned that Scrum works and works well. SAS R&D is adapting to
achieve greater benefits for the company and its customers. Implementing Agile Scrum has allowed SAS to
make systemic changes to core development processes. Agile Scrum has increased the amount of time that can
be dedicated to development; it ensures development is working on the right things.
Because of the unique cultural values at SAS, R&D teams were empowered to adapt Agile Scrum practices to
suit their needs and preferences. While anecdotal evidence suggested that Agile Scrum was achieving desired
results, its sponsors within R&D wanted to verify the relationships between project results and agile practices.
The research documented in this paper consists of questions pertaining to team size, amount of experience,
education, and other demographics. The research then isolated specific results one would expect to find in the
delivery of any change-process such as morale and productivity. In the last section of this research, internally
documented agile best practices were used to identify 38 specific practices to gauge adoption and maturity