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The Great Agile Paradox: Why We Can’t Seem to Let Go of “Finalizing the Plan”
The Agile Compass
by Matthias Orgler
Hello Reader,
last week we talked about why Product Owners shouldn’t spend so much time writing user stories. This week we’ll look at the paradox of well knowing how much waste big upfront planning is, yet still insisting on doing it.
Before we dive into why we can’t let go of planning to plan the plan, here are other articles you might have missed:
Overcoming Resistance to Change in Agile Transformations: A Guide for Agile Coaches and Leaders
Unlocking…
How to Boost Team Collaboration with User Stories – Not Just Writing!
Alright, do you measure the effectiveness of product owners by how much time they devote to writing great user stories? Many do – more or less explicitly. But there is a hard truth: The better the Product Owner, the less time they spend writing user stories 😱!
How to Overcome Resistance to Change in Agile Transformations
Let’s tackle an issue most agile practitioners grapple with: Resistance to change. Why it happens and what you can do about it.
Unlocking Innovation and Autonomy: The Critical Role of Psychological Safety in Agile Teams
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Rapid Experiments vs. Big Upfront Planning
What is better: An iterative approach with rapid experiments and lots of failures, or a cautious big upfront planning trying to sketch a perfect solution while avoiding risks? While we Agile Coaches talk a lot about this topic, it helps to look at real world cases of...
Why do we plan agile transformations as waterfall projects?
Why do we plan agile transformations as waterfall projects? It sounds hilarious, yet I‘ve seen it over and over again: Agile transformations are planned as a project with big upfront planning and a strict timeframe. We need to understand: 😲 An Agile transformation is...
Why do some management boards think agility wouldn‘t affect them?
Why do some management boards think agility wouldn‘t affect them? Don‘t limit your agile transformation to the “delivery organization“! You cannot require Product Owners and Product Managers to create clear priorities and goals … and then have 10 “most important“...
How to easily destroy agility
If you don‘t set clear goals & priorities on top management level, you‘ll stir unhealthy conflict & confusion in teams. It‘s not uncommon for managers to spend half of their workday resolving conflicts that bubble up to them. Many of these conflicts stem from...
Warning: A hybrid agile/waterfall organization should NOT be your goal.
A hybrid agile/waterfall organization should NOT be your goal. An agile/waterfall hybrid is a temporary state that exists during transformations. It‘s not the state you‘re aiming for. Agility and waterfall come with different values and beliefs. You cannot simply...
🫸 Stop arguing over frameworks and methodologies!
These are NOT what makes you agile. 🌱 The grass is always greener on the other side. Debating whether scrum or kanban or something else is better will not get you anywhere. Sure, some are a better fit for certain circumstances; but if you arent‘t agile, neither choice...
How long is your backlog?
If you start having trouble finding stories – or wondering whether the story is already in there somewhere – your backlog is probably too long 😅 The idea of a product backlog is that of a short-term buffer. A backlog lasting about 6 weeks is good; a backlog lasting 6...
How to slow down your business
If you can change direction every 2 weeks 🐆, but you only decide to change direction once a year 🐌, you‘re not agile. Agility is far too often confined to the delivery organization. But without agility on the portfolio level, you‘re not actually using that delivery...
Your budgeting kills agility!
Agility is much more than teaching teams to deliver in sprints. If your goal is to tackle the challenges of today, you'd better become agile on all levels. Traditional budgeting often works somewhat like this: 👏 Management decides to pursue a business opportunity🤦...
Are you sweating over picking the right agile framework?
Whether you use SAFe, LeSS, Scrum, Kanban … is NOT the important success factor for agility. Just as picking the best electric guitar is not gonna make you a rock star. 🎸 Frameworks and models are just 20% of what makes you agile. What really makes or breaks agility?...
Are you afraid of user feedback?
While sprint reviews or system demos are meant to focus on feedback from users, so that you can deliver more value… …some PMs and POs are afraid that user feedback could challenge their plans/backlogs. What I see play out almost every week is the struggle to adopt an...
Have the damn guts to walk out on a meeting!
Take responsibility for your own productive time! Agility is about autonomy. Autonomy means you‘re responsible for your time. Sitting through meetings just because somebody invited you is not a responsible use of your time. 👉 Have the courage to decline meeting...
Transparency is damn misunderstood by many!
🚨 Transparency doesn't mean that management can see everything the team does. Transparency means: 👉 The team can see everything management does. 👉 The team can see everything it does itself (reflection). Transparency is supposed to EMPOWER teams, not to control them!...
A sprint review or system demo without stakeholders is useless.
How many times have you seen sprint reviews without stakeholders? I must admit, I have seen this far too often in my life. And it's a waste of time! Why is it useless? First we have to ask, what the purpose of a review is. I often get answers like: 🤔 to see the...
Leadership is a relationship 🙌
Leadership is not something one person does! It's a relationship between leader and follower. A leader without a follower is not a leader. If you want to be a great leader, ask the people who you want to follow you what they expect from you. Then act accordingly....
Agility is NOT what many companies move towards with their transformation
The meme shows a typical evasive move commonly camouflaged as “Agile Transformation“. Sometimes it‘s a deliberate evasion technique, sometimes it‘s subconscious. What makes you agile is not a set of roles or the implementation of a framework. What makes you agile is a...
The simple 7-step guide for awesome Retrospectives 🙌
Retrospectives often end up as “letting off steam” or “endlessly discussing problems” events. That’s not helpful. Retros should help a team continuously improve! They should feel positive and have impact 🚀 Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough;...
Want faster time-to-market? Increase your decision-making speed!
Want faster time-to-market? Increase your decision-making speed! Many delays in building products come from long decision-making processes. In this time and age, hardly any company can afford to have a slow decision-making process. Some factors slowing down decision...
What makes or breaks an Agile Transformation?
Is it the framework you pick? Is it the tools you use? Is it how many teams dutifully exercise their sprints? I often see significant focus on choosing a scaling framework, teaching people how to do method xyz and picking "agile" tools. 🤔🤨🧐 But that is only...
From Explosions To Success: How Some Leaders’ Approach To Failure Fuels Innovation
I know many leaders who wouldn't have congratulated their people on the explosion of a big project on launch day. The quality of good leadership is to recognize your role and your goals! "Mr. Musk offered congratulations to the SpaceX team on Twitter. “Learned a lot...
Without a goal, Sprint Plannings are wasted time 😳
Sprints need a goal! Just handing out unconnected stories to developers is NOT agile. Product Owners are not only responsible to create and have a product vision, they're also responsible to COMMUNICATE that vision to the developers. 🛑 Stop handing out tasks to...
Almost done – how to ruin your agility with unfinished user stories at the end of a sprint in Scrum!
What to do with an almost finished story at the end of the sprint? Finish it? Carry it over? Put it back? Count 90% of the story points? 100%? 0%? We cannot predict the future. Unexpected things will happen and void our plans – no matter how thorough we plan. That is...
Agile Team Rehearsals: Proven Tactics to Boost Efficiency and Collaboration
"An important success factor for bands are rehearsals and sound checks to deliver a good performance. How do agile project teams "rehearse"?" This was a wonderful question from the audience at my talk "Music & Agility". I want to reply with this article. When...
The Surprising Benefits of Walking Meetings
Who said that meetings have to happen in a room or at a desk? Like with so many things in life we hardly ask about why we do meetings the way we do. And there is a lot to be said about meetings, but I want to focus on one innovative technique today: walking meetings....
Agile Requirements Game (aka Draw the Requirements Game)
Teaching teams the importance of face-to-face communication, feedback loops and a close relation with the client can be hard. Games help to feel and understand why this is so important. This article teaches you a little agile game you can play with your teams and coachees.
Top Reasons Agile Transformations Fail (and How to Avoid Them)
So many companies struggle with their move to agility - why is that? Chances are you know or are part of a company whose agile transformation got stuck half-way and failed to deliver the big promises of agility. At this point you may doubt whether agility really works...