Eventually Company decides “agile will fix things”
Developers are told to work agile but the only stakeholder they talk to is the PO, who talks to PM, who talks to Sales, who talks to Customers
PM&Sales don’t want to deliver an unfinished/unpolished product so they give a review every sprint, by themselves, based on what they think the customer wants (they are Very Clever)
A year or two later the project is delivered and the customer is predictably unhappy.
Management says “how could this have happened!” and does it all over again.
as someone who has made it through multiple ‘agile transformations’ in large companies: that’s how it usually goes.
however, that is the problem with people being stuck in their way and people afraid of loosing their jobs.
PO is usually filled with the previous teamlead (lower management, maybe in charge of 20 ppl).
PM & Sales have to start delivering unfinished Products! how else are you going to get customer feedback while you can still cheaply change things? A lot of the middle management has to take something they would perceive as a ‘demotion’ or find new jobs entirely - who would have guessed that with an entirely new model you cannot map each piece 1:1…
Given these and many more problems i have seen many weird things: circles within circles within circles, many tiny waterfalls… some purists would call SAFE a perversion of agile.
the point is: if you want to go agile, you have to change (who would have thought that slapping a different sticker won’t do it?). the change has to start from the top. many companies try to do an ‘agile experiment’: the whole company is still doing what they do. however, one team does agile now - while still having to deliver in and for the old system…
I’ve seen so many companies force Agile without changing the management layer and style. Setting deadlines while demanding that teams work Agile. Insanity!
as someone who has made it through multiple ‘agile transformations’ in large companies: that’s how it usually goes.
however, that is the problem with people being stuck in their way and people afraid of loosing their jobs. PO is usually filled with the previous teamlead (lower management, maybe in charge of 20 ppl). PM & Sales have to start delivering unfinished Products! how else are you going to get customer feedback while you can still cheaply change things? A lot of the middle management has to take something they would perceive as a ‘demotion’ or find new jobs entirely - who would have guessed that with an entirely new model you cannot map each piece 1:1…
Given these and many more problems i have seen many weird things: circles within circles within circles, many tiny waterfalls… some purists would call SAFE a perversion of agile.
the point is: if you want to go agile, you have to change (who would have thought that slapping a different sticker won’t do it?). the change has to start from the top. many companies try to do an ‘agile experiment’: the whole company is still doing what they do. however, one team does agile now - while still having to deliver in and for the old system…
I’ve seen so many companies force Agile without changing the management layer and style. Setting deadlines while demanding that teams work Agile. Insanity!
That’s what we use in my company: a series of mini waterfalls