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Cargo Cult AgileIs Your Organization Getting Agile Wrong?
A Quick Poll to Check Your Organization‘s Agile Health
Berlin, March 17th, 2016
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You’re Agile, Yet Sort of Stuck?A common problem nowadays.
“Agile practitioners” are increasingly entering the coaching market without experience beyond a 2-day training or reading a Scrum book.
The result is called Cargo Cult Agile: The “rules” are followed to the letter, without understanding why, thus making Agile as a philosophy looking bad.
Here are 25 questions that allow a quick poll to check the Agile health status of your organization and probably spark a discussion on what and how to improve…
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What Is the Purpose of the Poll?
The purpose of the whole exercise is to start a conversation about what part of your agile
transition is going well and where action needs to be taken.
The poll supports this approach in several ways:
• It is anonymous—no one will hold back, contrary to retrospectives as a competing format to
gather feedback.
• The poll delivers data, it’s no longer a gut feeling, and hence a good basis to start talking to
the management.
• It is very affordable.
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How to Run the Poll?
That is simple:
Just count the number of ‘yes, this applies’ for all
25 questions…
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Question 1/25
(Product) vision and strategy are not
communicated
Download a printable PDF here: https://age-of-product.com/cargo-cult-agile-state-agile-checklist-organization/
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Question 2/25
Roadmaps with fixed release dates are
provided for a year ahead by the CTO
Download a printable PDF here: https://age-of-product.com/cargo-cult-agile-state-agile-checklist-organization/
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Question 3/25
No one from the organization
is talking to customers
Download a printable PDF here: https://age-of-product.com/cargo-cult-agile-state-agile-checklist-organization/
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Question 4/25
CTO and stakeholders insist on every change to
be approved by them in advance
Download a printable PDF here: https://age-of-product.com/cargo-cult-agile-state-agile-checklist-organization/
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Question 5/25
Offline boards are banned for
confidentiality reasons
Download a printable PDF here: https://age-of-product.com/cargo-cult-agile-state-agile-checklist-organization/
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Question 6/25
Product owners are bypassed by stakeholders
talking directly to the CTO
Download a printable PDF here: https://age-of-product.com/cargo-cult-agile-state-agile-checklist-organization/
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Question 7/25
Stakeholders decide on shipping product
increments, not the product owner
Download a printable PDF here: https://age-of-product.com/cargo-cult-agile-state-agile-checklist-organization/
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Question 8/25
Projects are shipped only when completed,
but not in iterations
Download a printable PDF here: https://age-of-product.com/cargo-cult-agile-state-agile-checklist-organization/
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Question 9/25
Stakeholders are prevented from
talking to the Scrum teams
Download a printable PDF here: https://age-of-product.com/cargo-cult-agile-state-agile-checklist-organization/
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Question 10/25
The product backlog is defined by a
product council or committee
Download a printable PDF here: https://age-of-product.com/cargo-cult-agile-state-agile-checklist-organization/
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Question 11/25
Features of doubtful value are being pushed
through, e.g. to secure bonuses
Download a printable PDF here: https://age-of-product.com/cargo-cult-agile-state-agile-checklist-organization/
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Question 12/25
Sales is promising non-existent features to
close deals w/o including the product owner
Download a printable PDF here: https://age-of-product.com/cargo-cult-agile-state-agile-checklist-organization/
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Question 13/25
Deadlines or fixed schedules
are still in use for noncritical issues
Download a printable PDF here: https://age-of-product.com/cargo-cult-agile-state-agile-checklist-organization/
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Question 14/25
Product management isn’t granted access to
business intelligence to make
informed, data-driven decisions
Download a printable PDF here: https://age-of-product.com/cargo-cult-agile-state-agile-checklist-organization/
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Question 15/25
Stakeholders communicate to product and
engineering in the form of
requirement documents
Download a printable PDF here: https://age-of-product.com/cargo-cult-agile-state-agile-checklist-organization/
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Question 16/25
Product owners spend time mostly on the
creation and administration of user stories
Download a printable PDF here: https://age-of-product.com/cargo-cult-agile-state-agile-checklist-organization/
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Question 17/25
Sprint backlogs are changed on short notice
after the sprint started
Download a printable PDF here: https://age-of-product.com/cargo-cult-agile-state-agile-checklist-organization/
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Question 18/25
There is a dedicated Scrum team even for
bugs and minor change requests
Download a printable PDF here: https://age-of-product.com/cargo-cult-agile-state-agile-checklist-organization/
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Question 19/25
Scrum ceremonies are never attended by any
stakeholders
Download a printable PDF here: https://age-of-product.com/cargo-cult-agile-state-agile-checklist-organization/
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Question 20/25
Velocity matching commitment is the main
metric to measure the success of Scrum
Download a printable PDF here: https://age-of-product.com/cargo-cult-agile-state-agile-checklist-organization/
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Question 21/25
Developers are not participating in
user story creation
Download a printable PDF here: https://age-of-product.com/cargo-cult-agile-state-agile-checklist-organization/
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Question 22/25
Scrum teams are changing in size and
composition, depending on the number of
simultaneously running side projects and
task forces
Download a printable PDF here: https://age-of-product.com/cargo-cult-agile-state-agile-checklist-organization/
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Question 23/25
During stand-ups, the team members are
reporting to the Scrum master
Download a printable PDF here: https://age-of-product.com/cargo-cult-agile-state-agile-checklist-organization/
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Question 24/25
Retrospectives are held regularly,
but no changes follow
Download a printable PDF here: https://age-of-product.com/cargo-cult-agile-state-agile-checklist-organization/
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Question 25/25
Scrum teams are not cross-functional and
therefore depending on other teams or
departments
Download a printable PDF here: https://age-of-product.com/cargo-cult-agile-state-agile-checklist-organization/
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Interpreting Poll Results
Now, count the number of ‘yes, this applies’
—your total should be < 25—
and progress to the next slide…
Download a printable PDF here: https://age-of-product.com/cargo-cult-agile-state-agile-checklist-organization/
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Interpreting Poll Results (2)
0–2 boxes: I’d like to talk to you how you managed to do that. Care for a Skype-call?
3–5 boxes: Well done! You’re on a good way.6–8 boxes: There is room for improvement. Lot’s of it.9–14 boxes: If you haven’t very recently embarked on your
agile voyage, then it is time to change your approach.
15–20 boxes: Okay, start over with agile–it is not working in the current set-up within your organization.
21–25 boxes: You either haven’t started going agile yet. Or you are sugar-coating command & control structures to look “agile”. It won’t work, by the way.
Download a printable PDF here: https://age-of-product.com/cargo-cult-agile-state-agile-checklist-organization/
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What Is Your Experience?
Please share your experience:
Cargo Cult Agile: The ‘State Of Agile’ Checklist For Your Organization
https://age-of-product.com/cargo-cult-agile-state-agile-checklist-organization/
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