A Sad Story

A seasoned Director of Software Development was championing agile adoption at their company. It was a moderately scaled initiative, including perhaps 100 developers, testers, project managers, BA’s and the functional management surrounding them. They received some initial agile training, seemed to be energized and aligned with the methods, and were “good to go” as they started sprinting.  

Six months later things were a shambles. Managers were micro-managing the sprints and adjusting team estimates and plans. The teams were distrustful, opaque and misleading their management. There was virtually no honest and open collaboration—nor trust. They’d (re)established a very dysfunctional dance.

Funny thing is…