Fighting Agile! - When and why agile fails

“Agile? *Yawn* We've tried it. Doesn't work for us.” Have you heard that before? Is Agile or Scrum already a “burnt term” in your company?

Let's talk about how and why it came this far and why agile fails at the #ITMeetup in #Bruchsal on September 19th 2024.

Transcript

2. Fighting Agile! When and why agile fails 2024-09-19
3. Robert Károly Scrum Master Agile Coach @rokatainment@sueden.social @rokatainment.bsky.social @rokatainment
4. Fighting Agile! When and why agile fails
5. Disclaimer Triggerwarning…
6. Success?!
7.  Marketing measue  “Agility makes successful“  “that’s what everyone does now“  “we won’t geht the employees otherwise“  Save on documentation and planning  Reduce communication / process efforts  Having to commit as little as possible  Devlop faster or more → Competitiveness of products False motives
8. Agility Design scope of the agile manifesto Design scope of known agile methods Dogmatic agility “Felt agility“ Source: https://entwickler.de/agile/agile-anti-patterns-001/
9. Complexity The more the better!
10. Complexity  (Unnecessary) generic implementation  Technology on stock  Solving same issues differently  „Surrounding complexität“ e.g.  Meeting-Madness  Booking-Madness  Tooling-Madness  technical restrictions  For additional complexity you get extra ♥ by the team!
11. Basic principles The root of all evil
12. What we want  At any time …  … deliver the thing with of highest value right now.  … react promptly to changes on the market.  ... deliver the best possible quality.  Feedback …  … often & early.  … by real users.  … as baseline for development.  As few as possible …  … deal with things, keeping us away from development.
13. What we Scrum Masters do to address that  Maximize …  … value of the product for the user.  … time we develop.  … focus on defined goals.  ... automatization.  … space for innovation.  Minimize …  … waste.  … interruptions.  … surrounding complexity.  … “manual tasks”  … risiks.  Maximum efficiency + effectiveness while keeping adaptability and quality -> Competitiveness.
14. Basic principles  Selforganization  Autonomy  Empowerment  Purpose  Mastery  Intrinsic motivation  Values  Mindset  Culture → The implications are far-reaching!
15. Agile team
16. Anti-Pattern Tested and proven.
17. „I believe in miracles“
18. Code Factory
19. Thinking in projects instead of products
20. Users from afar
21. Analysis paralysis
22. Filling out capacities
23. Backlog Black Hole
24. Relabeling roles John Doe Acme Corp. rojectmanager Product Owner
25. Agile Theater Act
26. How-To How it works instead
27.  A team needs  Trust  Respect  Empathy  Stability  “Safe space“  Lern & reflect  Psychological & emotional safety  Give the team a agile coach / scrum master and get out of their way! Where happens the magic?
28.  Have feelings  Have a private life  Have good and not so good days  Make mistakes  Have fears …  … saying “I can’t do that.“  … saying “I don’t know how to do that.“  … saying “I’ve made a mistake.“  … showing vulnerabilities  Positive error culture  FAIL: First Attempt In Learning  Treat humans as humans Humans
29. Individuality vs Uniformity
30. Innovation?
31. When do we feel respected?
32.  Most problems fit in one of three buckets … 1) The team has not fully understood Scrum and agile principles & values 2) The organizaion has not fully understood Scrum and agile principles & values 3) The team is dysfunctional  Solution 1. Find out which your team/organization is guilty of 2. find out in which bucket it falls 3. solve the underlying problem Conclusion
33. (Organizational)culture The last bastion...
34. Glass ceiling
35. “Only the lived out culture counts. Written down wishes and dreams are worthless.“
36. “You don‘t create a culture. Culture happens. It‘s the by-product of consistent behavior.“ - Jason Fried
37. “People will never forget how you made them feel.“ - David Neal
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