Abstract: In today’s increasingly governed financial industry, there is a growing reliance on the application of Agile software development practices, aimed at increasing responsiveness, collaboration, and speed of value addition. Although such practices yield flexibility, rapid feedback, and gradual improvement, their application within the financial industry is confronted with unique issues such as organizational hierarchies, existing infrastructure, and regulatory requirements. However, with the increasing adoption, there still appear to be fewer empirical insights into such practices in terms of perceptions within employee circles, especially in the emerging markets. To fill this knowledge gap, this research focuses on exploring employee perceptions of Agile practices within the Turkish banking industry through a structured survey conducted with 105 Agile practitioners. Findings highlight the importance of team unity, transparency, and customer satisfaction as key drivers for effective Agile adoption. At the same time, this research identifies the remaining obstacles, such as a lack of documentation, inconsistent Agile training, and difficulties in aligning Agile principles with the banking industry requirements for compliance. Specifically, this research, through its empirical insights from a developing country, provides valuable contributions to the existing knowledge body on Agile transformation, as well as valid implications for the banking sector that seeks effective scaling of Agile practices.

Keywords: Agile methodologies, Banking, Employee perception, Agile adoption, Türkiye, Software development, Regulated industries

Pages: 755-765