It Pays to Be Agile

Agile development approaches emphasize working software, customer collaboration, adaptation, and a strong commitment to achieving business results. In this article, we use the Human Capital Theory as the rationale for why IT professionals possessing agile skills garner salary benefits. We then employ a Human Capital Model to estimate the benefits. Further, we investigate two specific categories of IT job types: software application development professionals and IT professionals at the strategic level of organizations. Our Human Capital Model was fit using a data set from an online survey of IT professionals with 12,893 respondents. Our results confirm the Agile benefits with an overall salary premium of 22.6%. We also specifically discuss the various premiums across application development job titles as well as strategic positions. Based on our findings, we draw practical implications for both IT professionals and management.