Forward Financing Innovation, Technology & Agility

What practices do you follow to avoid agile fatigue on your team? How or where did you learn these practices?

In my experience, agile fatigue often arises from rigidly following a framework. Forward’s organization is agile, adhering to Scrum, but each team operates differently. The beauty of agile is empowering teams to find their own success. So, how do you determine what makes your team successful? I focus on three methods: observe, ask and experiment.

Each team measures sprint success differently, so identify your key metric, be it completed tickets, story points or shipped features. Monitor this metric and observe changes over time. When trends emerge, seek feedback.

My preferred feedback method is the sprint retrospective. Every other week, the team discusses successes, challenges and future concerns. To combat agile fatigue, it’s crucial to get insights directly from the team. We set ground rules for sprint reviews, ensuring openness and honesty. After identifying potential issues, we brainstorm solutions as a team and experiment with them. We “timebox” each solution and assess its effectiveness together.

While we completed formal Scrum training and adhere to core principles, we’ve adapted our approach over time to find what works best for us.

How have these practices helped boost team morale and work performance?

A few months ago, our team noticed that our daily stand-ups were losing effectiveness. We would review the sprint board, and each member provided a standard update: What did you do yesterday, what will you do today and what are your blockers?

This approach led to several issues. Team members often worked on different projects, so their updates weren’t always valuable for the entire team. Some tasks required multiple days of effort, meaning daily updates didn’t change, and the meeting disrupted the developers’ workflow. These issues resulted in overall disengagement during a meeting meant to encourage collaboration and problem-solving.

After gathering feedback in a sprint retrospective, we decided on a few changes. Updates should focus on what impacts other team members. Team members should not be required to provide an update if there hasn’t been a material change in progress. Asynchronous stand-ups should occur every other day to reduce context switching and maintain efficiency. On synchronous stand-up days, we include a non-work-related agenda item.

Since implementing these changes, our team has been more engaged, and the benefits extend beyond standups, making us more productive overall.

What advice would you give to other product leaders eager to avoid agile fatigue on their teams?

The best advice I can share is not to try and mirror another team’s or organization’s process just because they found success. The most successful teams forge their own path based on their personnel, experience and goals. Successful product leaders constantly solicit feedback from the team and adjust accordingly.