Five Signs Your Team is “Doing Agile” Instead of “Being Agile”
Agility is more than ceremonies and sticky notes. It’s about mindset and adaptability. Here are five warning signs teams are just going through the motions rather than adopting agile:
Stand-ups feel like status reports, not collaboration
Ever started mentally checking out during your stand-up? Or maybe your stand-up always runs over time because everyone is listing out everything they did the day before and what they plan on doing today. Those are status reports. Stand-ups are collaboration meetings for the team, by the team. They are meant to be a quick sync on how the team is going to work towards their sprint goal together.
Backlogs are filled with tasks, not customer outcomes
I recently worked with a marketing team that had over 1500 tasks in their backlog. This is a marketing team of 7 people… How in the world are 7 people ever going to get 1500 tasks done? They won’t. Your backlog should be paired down to the work that is going to generate customer outcomes. This will help you prioritize and keep you from feeling like the weight of the world is on you.
Retrospectives don’t lead to real change
Retrospectives are your team’s key touchpoint to say, “this isn’t working, we should try something else.” If you ignore the continuous improvement aspect of a retrospective, your team will definitely not find success in agile, and you’ll end up wasting a lot of time. Be consistent in ending your retrospectives with clear actions, accountability, and due dates.
Leaders still measure outputs over outcomes
Ever heard the saying, “less is more?” Of course you have! Agile teams know that the focus should be on the outcomes of their work rather than the number of things they are getting done. In other words, maximize the amount of work not done. Stay focused on the things that will yield results rather than doing work for work’s sake. I’m looking at the leaders in the room. Trust your people to make strategic decisions about the work they do!
Teams don’t feel empowered to make decisions
Last, but not least, your teams should feel empowered to make decisions. When they don’t, they can fall into the trap of doing work for work’s sake rather than focusing on the work that will help drive your business forward. When they are trusted and empowered to make decisions in their particular area of expertise, your going to get more aligned and strategic campaigns and you will see your ROI increase!
Being Agile means embracing adaptability, learning, and customer value delivery. Executives can help by shifting metrics toward outcomes, empowering decision-making, and modeling continuous learning. If agility feels mechanical, it’s time to refocus on principles over process.
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