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There are common reasons for why an Agile/Scrum implementation initiative will fail.  Awareness of these failure points reduces the likelihood that an organization will fall prey to one of these.

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Quick reference

Agile/Scrum Failure Points

There are common reasons for why an Agile/Scrum implementation initiative will fail. Awareness of these failure points reduces the likelihood that an organization will fall prey to one of these.

When to Use Agile/Scrum Failure Points

An organization is most susceptible to these failure points at the time of transition from a traditional project management approach to Agile/Scrum. However, some of these can occur at any time and will inhibit the success of Agile/Scrum when they occur.

Instructions

  • Agile/Scrum project management often fails at implementation because the organization fails to fully commit to Agile/Scrum.
    • Significantly difference in many aspects of project management.
    • Partial implementation leads to confusion about actions, documentation, roles, and expectations.
  • Project leadership roles and authority are quite different between traditional and Agile/Scrum. These must be clearly defined and enforced for a successful implementation.
  • A hybrid implementation is difficult because the differences between traditional project management and Agile/Scrum are significant.
    • An organization can operate with both approaches, but when a project is initiated, it must be clear which approach will be used.
    • Scope management is very different between the two methods.
    • Combining both approaches on the same project is almost impossible – I have occasionally done it by transitioning from Agile/Scrum to traditional at a major milestone. I have not seen it done successfully by transitioning back and forth.
  • Common reasons for success or failure:

 

Successful Agile/Scrum

Characteristics of Failed Agile/Scrum

Senior Management Buy-in
  • Senior Mgmt requires project management artifacts that are inconsistent with Agile/Scrum.
  • Senior Mgmt does not enforce timeboxes.
  • Senior Mgmt inserts itself into the middle of Sprints.
  • Senior Mgmt does not work through Product Owners.

Empowered Agile/Scrum Teams
  • Fear of failure by Scrum Teams.
  • Managers “second guess” Scrum Team member decisions and estimates.
  • Managers attempt to override Product Backlog prioritization.

Projects and Sprints are adaptable
  • Senior Mgmt, managers, or PMO treat “scope” as fixed.
  • Precise scope, schedule, and budget estimates are required for project approval and used to track project performance.
  • Specific work assignments are demanded by managers or Scrum team members.

Appropriate Upfront Planning
  • Scrum Master and Product Owner are assigned to roles without training or support.
  • Sprint is started before Product Backlog is prioritized.
  • Scrum Team members expected to multi-task Sprint and job.

Use of Agile/Scrum Project Management Tools
  • Traditional project management documents are required to be prepared and maintained.
  • Work Breakdown Structure used instead of Story Cards.
  • Document approval delays prevent/slow Sprint activities.

Projects Planned and Managed through Sprints and Releases
  • Tollgate structure requires decision points and gates that do not align with Releases and Sprints.
  • Sequential (Waterfall) methodology prevents cross-functional Scrum Team membership.
  • Projects are setup as giant Sprints, rather than series of Releases and Sprints.

 

Hints and Tips

  • You must keep a watch for many of these potential failure points. An organization may go all in for Agile/Scrum, but a year later there may be several new managers who came from outside the company and who don’t understand Agile/Scrum. They can begin to tamper with the process and create a failure.
  • Don’t be discouraged by problems, culture change is often a long process. Celebrate the successes and keep working on the implementation.
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  • 00:04 Hello, this is Ray Sheen.
  • 00:06 >> In this session on managing the Agile/Scrum process,
  • 00:09 I wanna talk about what can cause the implementation of Agile/Scrum to fail and
  • 00:14 what that failure looks like.
  • 00:15 Let's start with failures during the implementation of the Agile/Scrum
  • 00:20 methodology.
  • 00:21 Probably the worst thing you could do is to only try a partial implementation.
  • 00:26 Doing that will lead to total confusion.
  • 00:28 The two approaches are fundamentally different.
  • 00:31 The way they treat scope, schedule, and resource management on projects.
  • 00:36 Only doing a partial implementation will have everyone confused on what to do,
  • 00:40 who should do it, and how it should be done.
  • 00:43 What is not much better is a hybrid approach.
  • 00:45 Using traditional for some parts of the project and Agile/Scrum for others.
  • 00:50 Let me be clear.
  • 00:51 It is okay for an organization to use both approaches but not on the same project.
  • 00:57 If you think about the differences between traditional and
  • 01:00 Agile/Scrum you'll recall that scope management is fundamentally different.
  • 01:04 Agile/Scrum won't work unless you manage scope with a product backlog.
  • 01:09 But traditional project management falls apart if you try to work with a constantly
  • 01:12 changing and reprioritized product backlog.
  • 01:16 In addition, the project reviews and oversight is often very different.
  • 01:20 Keep in mind that the roles, responsibility, and
  • 01:22 authority of scrum team members and stakeholders changes so manage these
  • 01:26 closely during the implementation to ensure alignment and clear expectations.
  • 01:30 It's a different paradigm and everyone will need coaching.
  • 01:35 Let's now look at the contrast between the characteristics of a successful
  • 01:38 implementation and a failed implementation.
  • 01:42 First, successful implementation has senior management buy-in
  • 01:45 with the methodology.
  • 01:46 An unsuccessful implementation will we characterized by senior management
  • 01:50 insisting on project management artifacts that are common with traditional projects,
  • 01:55 like grant charts, but unnecessary with Agile/Scrum.
  • 01:59 Senior management will not enforce the timebox, but
  • 02:02 will assign other tasks to people while on a scrum team.
  • 02:05 They also try to insert themselves into the activities in the scrum team
  • 02:08 during the sprint asking for reviews, briefings on project activities.
  • 02:13 And finally, they bypass the product owners and try to work directly with scrum
  • 02:17 team members, changing stories, demo criteria, and even priorities.
  • 02:23 Another characteristic of successful Agile/Scrum implementation
  • 02:26 our empowered scrum teams.
  • 02:28 We contrast that with a failed implementation where teams are controlled
  • 02:32 by a fear of failure.
  • 02:33 This often occurs when managers, or others not on the scrum team, are allowed to
  • 02:37 second guess the work done by the teams and criticize their decisions.
  • 02:41 It's okay to review the decisions during the sprint retrospective.
  • 02:45 But if the stories meet the demo criteria, they're a success.
  • 02:49 Another unempowering action is when a manager overrides the project owner
  • 02:53 to move their story up to priority list.
  • 02:56 This destroys the credibility to the private donor, and
  • 02:59 inspires fear in scrum team that they maybe working on the wrong thing.
  • 03:03 As we have mention several times, the characteristics of successful Agile/Scrum
  • 03:07 projects is a very adaptable to change in business conditions.
  • 03:11 Where is the failed implementation is characterized by management training
  • 03:15 restores in the private back log.
  • 03:17 As fixed scope and no changes are allowed.
  • 03:20 Another indication of failure is if the project is required to provide precise
  • 03:24 estimates of scope, schedule, and resources at the time of approval and
  • 03:28 these are then used to measure performance.
  • 03:30 While a project goal objectives are appropriate at approval time,
  • 03:33 Agile/Scrum relies on adaptability
  • 03:36 to allow the scrum team to change their approach in order to reach the objective.
  • 03:41 One other indication of failure is when either the scrum team members or
  • 03:44 their managers demand a strict assignment of tasks to team members.
  • 03:49 This destroys the team accountability and creates division on the team.
  • 03:55 Successful Agile/Scrum does an appropriate level of upfront planning, so
  • 03:59 that the releases are defined, sprints are scheduled, and
  • 04:02 individuals are trained in time for the project.
  • 04:05 But failed implementation is marked by assignment of individuals to scrum master,
  • 04:10 product owner, or scrum teams with no training in their role.
  • 04:13 The product owner is not provided adequate time to gather the stories and
  • 04:18 prepare the product backlog before the start of the sprint,
  • 04:20 leading to high priority stories being identified during the sprint.
  • 04:25 And because of the poor planning the scrum team members are not able to free up
  • 04:29 their schedule for the sprint, and
  • 04:31 instead find themselves multitasking sprint and outside job tasks.
  • 04:37 Successful Agile/Scrum projects use the Agile/Scrum tools,
  • 04:41 such as stories, backlogs, Scrumboards and burndown charts.
  • 04:45 Failed Agile/Scrum implementation is characterized by the demand for
  • 04:49 the use of traditional project management tools and
  • 04:52 creation of artifacts that add no value to Agile/Scrum.
  • 04:55 In particular, there's the insistence of requirements, documents, and
  • 04:59 work breakdown structures that are used instead of story cards.
  • 05:03 All these traditional project management artifacts
  • 05:06 will often need to go through reviews and approval cycles which delay and
  • 05:10 derail the scrum team the last point I wanna mention,
  • 05:14 is that just like successful Agile/Scrum projects use the tools, they're also
  • 05:18 planned with releases and sprints as the organizing element of project management.
  • 05:23 Whereas failed implementation forces the project through a tollgate or
  • 05:27 stage gate process that is not aligned with sprints and releases.
  • 05:31 This creates confusion on deliverables and decision points.
  • 05:35 Add to that the sequential or
  • 05:36 waterfall traditional approach attempts to prevent cross-functional teams and
  • 05:40 integration from occurring as a regular part of the process.
  • 05:44 Probably one other type of failure that I've seen is when the organization tries
  • 05:48 to use Stagegate an Agile/Scrum only to make each stage a giant sprint.
  • 05:53 This sprint could be months long.
  • 05:55 And normally, the team is not dedicated, but matrixed, so
  • 05:59 it's violating several agile scrum principles.
  • 06:02 If the company must use stage gate, then use several short,
  • 06:05 focused sprints or releases within the stage, and
  • 06:08 take advantage of the power of the agile/scrum process.
  • 06:11 So watch out for the signs of failure.
  • 06:15 >> Manage your Agile/Scrum implementation well and
  • 06:17 I trust that your organization will reap the benefits of this approach.

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