Together with many success stories, promises such as the increase in production speed and the improvement in stakeholders' collaboration have contributed to making agile a transformation in the software industry in which many companies want to take part. However, driven either by a natural and expected evolution or by contextual factors that challenge the adoption of agile methods as prescribed by their creator(s), software processes in practice mutate into hybrids over time. Are these still agile? In this article, we investigate the question: what makes a software development method agile? We present an empirical study grounded in a large-scale international survey that aims to identify software development methods and practices that improve or tame agility. Based on 556 data points, we analyze the perceived degree of agility in the implementation of standard project disciplines and its relation to used development methods and practices. Our findings suggest that only a small number of participants operate their projects in a purely traditional or agile manner (under 15%). That said, most project disciplines and most practices show a clear trend towards increasing degrees of agility. Compared to the methods used to develop software, the selection of practices has a stronger effect on the degree of agility of a given discipline. Finally, there are no methods or practices that explicitly guarantee or prevent agility. We conclude that agility cannot be defined solely at the process level. Additional factors need to be taken into account when trying to implement or improve agility in a software company. Finally, we discuss the field of software process-related research in the light of our findings and present a roadmap for future research.

中文翻译：

---

是什么让敏捷软件开发变得敏捷？

与许多成功案例一起，生产速度的提高和利益相关者协作的改善等承诺有助于使敏捷成为许多公司希望参与的软件行业转型。然而，无论是由自然的和预期的演变，还是由挑战敏捷方法的创建者所规定的采用的上下文因素驱动，实践中的软件流程会随着时间的推移而转变为混合体。这些仍然是敏捷的吗？在本文中，我们研究了一个问题：是什么使软件开发方法变得敏捷？我们提出了一项基于大规模国际调查的实证研究，旨在确定提高或驯服敏捷性的软件开发方法和实践。基于 556 个数据点，我们分析了标准项目学科实施中感知到的敏捷程度及其与使用的开发方法和实践的关系。我们的调查结果表明，只有少数参与者以纯粹的传统或敏捷方式运营他们的项目（低于 15%）。也就是说，大多数项目学科和大多数实践都显示出提高敏捷性的明显趋势。与用于开发软件的方法相比，实践的选择对给定学科的敏捷程度有更大的影响。最后，没有明确保证或阻止敏捷性的方法或实践。我们得出结论，不能仅在流程级别定义敏捷性。在软件公司中尝试实施或提高敏捷性时，需要考虑其他因素。最后，