Future directions in agile research: alignments and divergence between research and practice

Editorial article Since the publication of Agile Manifesto in 2001, agile methods have transited from a grass- root initiative among enthusiastic advocates and developers to a mainstream software development approach adopted by both small and large companies worldwide. Meanwhile research on agile methods has grown rapidly and steadily into an established research area, evidenced by dedicated conferences (e.g., XP conference series, research track of previous Agile Conference series), special issues and sections in top Information Systems and Software Engineering journals. However, practitioners and consultants have largely driven the advancement in agile field, and agile research has lagged behind practice in the past. Has this situation changed as both agile methods and research community become increasingly mature? To be able to answer such questions, there is a constant need to check what interest agile practitioners and what agile researchers are investigating, to make sure that the states of the art and practice are aligned properly