TL; DR: Scrum’s Failure — Food for Agile Thought #389
Welcome to the 389th edition of the Food for Agile Thought newsletter, shared with 46,163 peers. This week, we delve into Scrum’s failure: Jason Godesky reminds us that few have ever worked in a true Scrum team, but many have in a Scrum cargo cult environment. Moreover, we delve into “bias and noise” and how they influence forecasting, and we learn how you can use Fluid Scrum Teams to manage multiple data products over various Sprints. Also, in shameless self-promotion, I want to point to the No Nonsense Agile Podcast that Murray Robinson, Shane Gibson, and I recorded recently. (Speaking of anti-patterns: There is also a new article on Jira and its perils if misused, see below.)
Then, we analyze the fundamental misalignment between the ‘business’ — focusing on one customer at a time — and ‘product/engineering,’ focusing on the overall impact for the installed base. Additionally, we point to the importance of embracing a learning mindset as the driver of innovation while process, vetos, institutional memory, and the vilification of failure work against it, and we share a practical and actionable list of recommendations to create a ProductOps handbook.
Finally, we suggest five experiments to help foster a safe working environment, from equal speaking time during meetings to celebrating failure, plus a new tool to ease the often challenging task of communicating project issues: the Definition of Broken. More tools are from John Cutler, who points to the free template library of the complete North Star metrics framework. Lastly, Nicole Abi-Esber and Juliana Schroeder claim that people underestimate how much others want to receive feedback.
Did you miss the previous Food for Agile Thought’s issue 388?
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🏆 The Tip of the Week: Scrum Anti-Patterns
and : 🎙 Scrum Anti Patterns
In shameless self-promotion, I want to point to the No Nonsense Agile Podcast that Murray Robinson, Shane Gibson, and I recorded recently.
🍋 The Lemon of the Week
No lemon this week.
➿ Agile & Scrum
(via Medium): Why Scrum Fails
Jason Godesky reminds us that few have ever worked in a true Scrum team, but many have in a Scrum cargo cult environment.
(via Medium): A Fresh Perspective on Forecasting in Software Development
Philip Rogers delves into bias and noise, and how they influence forecasts.
and (via inovex GmbH): Using Fluid Scrum Teams in Data Products Development
Tobias Maasland and Anna Weißhaar share how they use Fluid Scrum Teams to manage multiple data products over various Sprints.
🎓 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Professional Scrum Facilitation Skills Class — May 16, 2023
The Professional Scrum Facilitation Skills (PSFS) training by Berlin Product People is a guaranteed one-day official Scrum.org class for advanced Scrum practitioners and agile coaches, including the industry-acknowledged PSFS certification. This PSFS training class is in English.
Enjoy the benefits of an live-virtual immersive class with like-minded agile peers from 09:00 – 17:30 o’clock CET.
Learn more: 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 Professional Scrum Facilitation Skills Class — May 16, 2023.
👉 From time to time, we can offer last-minute seats for training classes at cost to individuals who do not have access to a corporate training budget. If you like to be notified about these opportunities, please register here.
🎯 Product
: The Chocolate Cake Problem
Rich Mironov analyzes the fundamental misalignment between the ‘business’ — focusing on one customer at a time — and ‘product/engineering,’ focusing on the overall impact for the installed base.
: Staying Scrappy
Deb Liu points to the importance of embracing a learning mindset as the driver of innovation, while process, vetos, institutional memory, and the vilification of failure work against it.
and : D.I.Y. Product Ops Handbook
Antonia Landi and Lara Orrico share a practical and actionable list of recommendations.
📯 Jira Anti-Patterns
If you ask people to come up with popular attributes for “Agile” or “agility,” Scrum and Jira will likely be among the top ten featured. Moreover, in any discussion about the topic, someone will mention that using Scrum running on top of Jira does not make an organization agile. However, more importantly, this notion is often only a tiny step from identifying Jira as a potential impediment to outright vilifying it. So in March 2023, I embarked on a non-representative research exercise to learn how organizations misuse Jira from a team perspective as I wanted to understand Jira anti-patterns.
Read on and learn more about how a project management tool that is reasonably usable when you use it out of the box without any modifications turns into a bureaucratic nightmare, what the reasons for this might be, and what we can do about it.
👉 Learn more: Jira Anti-Patterns.
🛠 Concepts, Tools & Measuring
(via Corporate Rebels): Here are 5 Proven Practices to Boost Psychological Safety
Joost Minnaar suggests five experiments to help foster a safe working environment, from equal speaking time during meetings to celebrating failure.
: Definition of Broken (DoB): A Tool for Improving Communications and Outcomes
Mike Griffiths suggests a tool to ease the often challenging task of communicating project issues.
: Amplitude North Star Template Library
John Cutler points to the free template library of the complete North Star metrics framework.
🎶 Encore
(via Behavioral Scientist): Give More Feedback—Others Want It More Than You Think
Nicole Abi-Esber and Juliana Schroeder claim that people underestimate how much others want to receive their feedback.
(via Boundaryless): The Trilemma of Organizational Unbundling
Simone Cicero and Emanuele Quintarelli explain what organizational unbundling is and why it is critical for the future of organizations.
📅 Scrum Training & Event Schedule
You can secure your seat for Scrum training classes, workshops, and meetups directly by following the corresponding link in the table below:
| Date | Class and Language | City | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 February 19, 2026 | Guaranteed: Hands-on Agile #72: Become Your Organization's AI Champion: A Crowdsourced Playbook (English; Live Virtual Meetup) | Meetup | FREE |
| 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 March 10-11, 2026 | Guaranteed: Professional Scrum Master—Advanced Training (PSM II; English; Live Virtual Class) | Live Virtual Class | €1,299 incl. 19% VAT |
| 🖥 💯 🇬🇧 March 19 to April 16, 2026 | Guaranteed: AI4Agile BootCamp #6 (English; Live Virtual Cohort) | Live Virtual Cohort | €499 incl. 19% VAT |
| 🖥 🇩🇪 March 24-25, 2026 | Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German; Live Virtual Class) | Live Virtual Class | €1,299 incl. 19% VAT |
| 🖥 🇩🇪 April 22-23, 2026 | Professional Scrum Product Owner – AI Essentials Training (PSPO AIE; German; Live Virtual Class) | Live Virtual Class | €799 incl. 19% VAT |
| 🖥 🇩🇪 May 19-20, 2026 | Professional Scrum Product Owner Training (PSPO I; German; Live Virtual Class) | Live Virtual Class | €1,299 incl. 19% VAT |
See all upcoming classes here.
You can book your seat for the training directly by following the corresponding links to the ticket shop. If the procurement process of your organization requires a different purchasing process, please contact Berlin Product People GmbH directly.
📺 Join 4,000-plus Agile Peers on Youtube
Now available on the Age-of-Product Youtube channel to improve learning, for example, about the Scrum’s failure:
- Hands-on Agile 47: How much Product Discovery Is enough? The Confidence Meter Explained with Itamar Gilad.
- Hands-on Agile 46: The Agile Fluency Model ® with Diana Larsen.
- Hands-on Agile 44: Honey, I Shrunk the Backlog with Allan Kelly.
- Hands-on Agile 43: Outcome-Based Product Planning with Jeff Gothelf.
- Hands-on Agile 42: Lean Roadmapping and OKRs with Janna Bastow.
- Hands-on Agile 38: The Product Owner with Roman Pichler.
✋ Do Not Miss Out and Learn more about Scrum’s Failure — Join the 12,000-plus Strong ‘Hands-on Agile’ Slack Community
I invite you to join the “Hands-on Agile” Slack Community and enjoy the benefits of a fast-growing, vibrant community of agile practitioners from around the world.
If you like to join all you have to do now is provide your credentials via this Google form, and I will sign you up. By the way, it’s free.
Help your team to learn about Scrum’s failure by pointing them to the free Scrum Anti-Patterns Guide:
