Succeeding with Agile

Break the Habit of Redirecting a Team

Through years of being allowed to constantly redirect their teams, organizations have become addicted to doing so. Often teams are interrupted not because the product owner discovered a critical, sudden customer need or other valid interruption but because the product owner or other stakeholders failed to think ahead. They’ve become used to working this way and aren’t aware of the negative impact it has on their development teams.

I noticed this at one company that sold business-to-business services. Much of its business was created through relationships with partners. Adding a new partner involved five to ten hours of work from the development team. The team had come to view this work as unplannable because ...