Are You in Agile Limbo?

Eduardo is a project manager with more than 15 years of consulting experience delivering projects/programs to all kinds of companies worldwide.

  Agile  

An agilist by heart, I am passionate about empowering and improving teams. Yet with nearly two decades of guidance from the Agile Manifesto, I still see awkward situations in the corporate environment—from startups to big companies—regardless of what method they use (Scrum, Kanban, Scrumban, etc.). All seem to be compelled to reproduce a single repeatable process, with a lot of set timeboxes and ceremonies. And from there…nothing!

Are you using an established agile framework in your company, but feel stuck and unable to improve your teams? Sprint by sprint, things got mechanical, and you have no real “way of working” (WoW)? Here are some questions to ask your team members to see if you are in “agile limbo”—and how to avoid it.

1. Do you know why we are doing this?
If the answer starts with…

• “Because I was told...”
• “Because you’re the boss...” or
• “Because this is what I’m here for...”

...you are on the wrong path. Any combination of these answers shows that your team really doesn’t know the reason its doing something.

Never underestimate the power of why. It is in the root of everything we do—we are always motivated by something. If you (or someone on your team) is motivated just by money, something is wrong. Make sure the motivation …

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