I haven’t seen anything meaningful come out of the leadership in the Agile practice. It’s surprising no one can notice that the so called coaches and scrum lead managers are a bunch of nobodys adding absolutely no value at all other than theoretical stuff which they google every morning. Half of the coaches I know are looking for other jobs. The Scrum leadership has no idea what the platforms do just people twitching around platforms based on what the CFO and his stooges say.
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@bv+1jwcasgqq
It’s one thing for you to be ignorant. But to also be a liar shows your value which is zero. I bet you don’t work here anymore. Project management choices are supposed to be made in the initiation as to how the conduct and resourcing will be used and respond. You are the kind of person that would use a hammer to tighten bolts.
@Br As an agile enthusiast over the years in Collateral, it’s been brilliant to have coaches as thinking partners. It took a few months but we got our team motoring, and we like the metrics. No way we would go back to waterfall!!!
I have been at the bank for 22 years and I find the agile coaches in my platform to be practical and helpful. It is unpopular to say I drank the P-m and agile coolaid but it has been a breath of fresh air to move away from endless PowerPoints updates and actually getting things done.
The current disruption, known as P-M, has served as a much-needed wake-up call for the bank.
Agile practices have been in place long before P-M was introduced. Our previous approach combined elements of both Waterfall and Agile, creating a hybrid methodology that balanced structured design with iterative development. We maintained a long-term vision, ensuring designs were completed before moving into development and release, with phases often overlapping for efficiency.
Within this framework, task targeting and certain Agile principles helped keep teams focused and prevented unnecessary deep dives into minor details. Senior developers provided necessary interventions, offering objective guidance to keep projects on track—an approach that proved effective in the development world.
However, P-M has significantly disrupted this established model. A key challenge has been the abrupt transition away from long-standing methodologies and cultural norms, with little effort to facilitate the shift effectively. In doing so, experienced professionals who understand the current system have been sidelined through rigid rules and performance metrics that introduce an environment of uncertainty and fear.
Additionally, many coaches and scrum masters appear disconnected from on-the-ground realities. Their reliance on certifications and Jira-based analytics results in well-polished presentations rather than actionable insights. As a result, exaggerated claims go unchallenged, creating a misleading perception of success. The true cost of these perceived "achievements" far exceeds previous standards.
Despite these issues, senior management and executive leadership remain confident that P-M is delivering results—though it will likely take years before its true impact is fully realized.
Another major concern is the role of architects. While their theoretical knowledge is substantial, practical execution remains questionable. Idealistic concepts such as "build it and they will come" may work in fiction, but in our industry, a more pragmatic approach is essential. Currently, debate and theoretical discussions dominate, with little tangible progress. Leadership positions, starting at the director level, are filled with individuals who are highly opinionated yet disconnected from operational realities. They are paid handsomely but the true-value or ROI on this is highly questionable.
In the past two years, little true innovation has taken place. Even initiatives like Alts are merely rebranded versions of previous offerings. Platforms have been renamed but continue to provide the same core content and services.
Meanwhile, initiatives like Eliza are championed as groundbreaking solutions, yet many within the organization question their actual impact. The recent FYI presentations surrounding Eliza raise more skepticism than confidence.
Ultimately, this transformation has left rank-and-file employees—the true drivers of execution—uncertain about their roles and direction. Many revert to traditional Waterfall methods while ensuring compliance with Agile-related documentation requirements to protect their positions. The end result is a workforce navigating a system that neither fully embraces Agile nor leverages its benefits effectively.
A challenging situation, indeed.
I pray that I am wrong in my assessment but unfortunately it aint so.
@a8+1jwcasgqq:
"They are focused more on bureaucratic details of meetings and process rather than the success, definition and quality being done."
I practiced Agile for years before joining BNY and laid off last year after three painful years. It appalled to me the way someone running Agile "management" tried to squeeze Agile metrics left and right in a mandatory fashion, as getting metrics was far more important than anything else (i.e., think that project success = customer happy).
I watched too many SMs having to explain why something negative happened in his JIRA project. The excessive focus on metrics (metrics, metrics, metrics!) is a massive waste of time.
OP - you are rightly confused! And all the responses are valid. Seems like these coaches and scrum masters were hired to support Agile in theory. But in reality things are still conceptually Waterfall.
Ask any of these coaches to practically run any of the teams they apparently coach and they will run away with their tails between their legs.
What’s more is that these losers are also control freaks. They try to discredit all other project management practices while mo--nically claiming agile is everything. No imbeciles, it is not. Waterfall, iterative, adaptive, extreme all have their own merits and specialties to deal with situations based on cost, budget, team size, risks, long goals versus short sprints and of course business team and client involvement itself. This place is guaranteed to fail with going all out agile the same as P-O-M. It’s like saying every person in the world needs to wear 30 inch waist and 32 inch length pants. It doesn’t work this way. I am on calls with some of these so called agile coaches and they are worthless trash hounds. They are focused more on bureaucratic details of meetings and process rather than the success, definition and quality being done. Everything takes longer now and is far more mediocre. It is embarrassing to be an employee here.
The leadership in the scrum lead practice is so weak that none of the scrum leads know who to go to for help.
A number of years ago it was the 5 PE habits - just more mumbo jumbo garbage and a total waste of time
I sit near a bunch of these coaches and the stuff they spew is absolute nonsense.