Summary of findings for Women in Agile thesis defense presentation. Increasing women's involvement in the Agile community. by Natalie Warnert #WomenInAgile May 2015 www.nataliewarnert.com www.womeninagile.com

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Increasing Women’s Involvement in
the Agile Community
Natalie Warnert

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Agenda
 Introduction and Purpose of Research
 Background and Context – What is Agile?
 Research Methods
 Findings
 Recommendations & Strategy
 Conclusion
 Questions

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Purpose of Research

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Research Question
What are the reasons that prevent female Agile
practitioners from achieving higher levels of
involvement in the Agile community, and what
strategies can overcome them?

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What is Agile?

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What is Involvement?
External to daily job responsibilities
 Blogging
 Conference attendance
 Submitting to present at conferences
 Submitting work for publication
 User group attendance, membership, participation
 Earning certifications

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Context – Initial Literature Review
Agile
• Expertise
• Involvement
• Culture
Societal
• Stereotypes
• Environments
• Perceptions
Individual
• Mind-set
• Priorities
• Standards

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Method
 Interviews with women in the Agile community (7)
 Qualitative data
 Survey of the Agile community (103)
 Quantitative data
Female
60%
Male
40%
Survey Gender
Distribution

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The Interviews

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Reasons that prevent women from
achieving higher levels of involvement
 Competing priorities for time
 Organizational and career reasons
 Lack of confidence, fear of perception from others
 Intimidation from lack of diversity
 Some event or interaction has deterred my
involvement interest
 I am not interested in being more involved

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Survey Questions
 What prevents you from being more involved in the
Agile community?
 When you think about the Agile community, in your
opinion why are men more involved than women?

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Yes
60%
No
40%
Company Provides Financial
Support for Involvement
Career or Organizational Reasons
Involvement Level and Company
Support (Men and Women) T-Test
Involvement
with
Financial
Support
Involvement
without
Financial
Support
Mean (0-10) 5.31 4.12
Observations 52 33
P(T<=t) one-
tail 0.0378

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Lack of Confidence, Fear of
Perception from Others
“I received comments at multiple conferences I’ve
gone to along the way that, ‘you’re not just a pretty
face ‘and then when I start talking, people think that
‘wow she actually knows what she is talking about’.”
(personal conversation, February 2015)
 Men (Individual): 24%
 Women (Individual): 19%
 Men (Perception of women): 43%
 Women (Perception of women): 37%

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Intimidation from Lack of Diversity
“You’d go in and you are the only female, I can see how a lot of
people might drop out and be deterred from that fact. It’s not like
in a college setting, where there’s three women and 28 guys, and
the professor can call on you and boost your self-esteem and say
that you’re just as smart as everyone else in the room, there isn’t
that community across states and in the country. I think it’s a little
more probably intimidating for women to look at all these people
writing these blogs and articles, and they seem super smart and
you compare yourself to them.” (personal conversation, February
2015)
 Women (Individual): 9%
 Men (Perception of women): 60%
 Women (Perception of women): 33%

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Competin
g Priorities
for my
time
Organizati
onal/Care
er
Reasons
Lack of
Confidenc
e, Fear of
perception
from
others
Intimidatio
n from
lack of
diversity
Some
event or
interaction
has
deterred
my
interest
I am not
interested
in being
more
involved
Men and
women
are
involved
equally
Men (Individual) 94% 39% 24% 3% 6% 9%
Women (Individual) 84% 35% 19% 9% 9% 11%
Men (Perception of Women) 60% 30% 43% 60% 47% 3% 10%
Women (Perception of Women) 59% 31% 37% 33% 9% 4% 19%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Men vs. Women – Reasons for lack of
involvement

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Men and Women are Not Equally
Involved
Mean Difference in Men and Women’s
Involvement Levels: T- Test
Women’s
Involvement Level
Men’s
Involvement
Level
Mean (0-10) 4.47 5.67
Observations 57 36
P(T<=t) one-
tail 0.0317

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Increase Involvement

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Strategy Questions
 What support or actions have helped you or would
help you to become more involved within the Agile
community?
 What support or actions do you think would help
encourage women to become more involved in the
Agile community?

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Research Findings: Strategies to
Support Women’s Involvement
 Immediate:
 Extend a personal invitation to participate
 Mid-Range:
 Increase company support to participate
 Promote and seek out diversity in Agile community activities
 Encourage and facilitate networking among women
 Long Term:
 Increase early recruitment efforts of girls/women in Science
Technology Engineering & Math (STEM) fields

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Immediate: Extend a Personal
Invitation to Participate

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Mid-Range: Encourage and
Facilitate Networking Among
Women
“All these men are typically reaching down to pull up
other men like, ‘Hey let’s talk about this project. Do
you want to go get a beer?’ It’s going to be really weird
for me to go get a beer with another married person.
I’m a married person. He’s a man. I’m a woman. That
just doesn’t have good optics and so there are really
no women to reach out and look for sponsors.”
(personal conversation, February 2015)

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Long-Term: Early Recruitment in
STEM fields
“I did a few classes for elementary school kids where
we brought in computers and I tore them apart and I
let them look at them, and then ask me any questions
they had about the computers. At fifth grade level, 24
kids signed up. Not a single girl…I don’t understand
how we’re losing the girls.” (personal conversation,
February, 2015)

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Recommendations
Agile
• Expertise
• Involvement
• Culture
Societal
• Stereotypes
• Environments
• Perceptions
Individual
• Mind-set
• Priorities
• Activities
• Standards
Change
Perceptions

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Future Research
 How do men perceive themselves?
 Will these strategies be successful?
 What are the benefits of involvement?
 How do perceptions affect involvement and
interaction?

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My Commitment

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