Anna, you are too direct, too much not diplomatic, and too fast!
You’ve probably sat in a retrospective and felt like no one was saying the real thing. You’ve coached a team that’s “doing Agile” on the surface, but you know it’s all for show. You’ve watched leaders ask for transformation while subtly resisting every uncomfortable truth.
We talk about self-organization and empowerment, but the final word still often comes from someone three floors up. Scrum Masters are expected to “coach the team,” but rarely get to coach upward.
I once worked with a team where the PO carefully prioritized sprint goals, only to have a director override them every Monday morning. The team stopped engaging. Why bother?
Quick win for your sanity:
Draw the real org chart, the one that reflects power, not job titles. It will lower your frustration and clarify where change needs leverage.
Agile assumes safety. But many teams carry scars from past layoffs, toxic leaders, or failed transformations. Trust isn’t missing; it was actively dismantled. A developer pulled me aside after a retro and said:
I haven’t spoken up in meetings since the day my previous manager humiliated me in front of the client.
That moment had nothing to do with Agile and everything to do with culture.
Quick win for your sanity:
Ditch the cheerleading. Just acknowledge the hard stuff and do not try to change people’s mindset. See if you can change the structure or how they interact with each other.
Velocity was meant to be a team-owned metric. But it’s still used as a speedometer by managers. It becomes performance data. And pressure follows. A leader once asked me: “Can you get this team to hit 40 points next sprint? Their counterparts in Poland do 42.” My reply? “We can also lie about our estimates, if that’s easier.” (See where the first line of this article comes from?)
Quick win for your sanity:
Shift focus in standups and reviews from “how fast” to “what we’re learning.” Invite curiosity over speed and show it to stakeholders.
Agile coaches preach collaboration, but behind the scenes, status games, ego, and territorialism still thrive. Who gets credit? Who gets facetime with leadership?
I once saw two coaches argue over who would “own” a team’s retro format. The team watched. Guess how safe they felt afterward?
Quick win for your sanity:
Invite another coach to co-facilitate with you. Share the spotlight on purpose. It models what we ask teams to do.
We hold space for everyone. We’re supposed to “be the calm.” But coaching through dysfunction, resistance, and politics takes a toll. And no one asks how we are. I once found myself crying in an airport bathroom after a workshop. Not because it went badly, but because I had nothing left. And no space to say so.
Quick win for your sanity:
Find one peer you trust. Make a no-coaching, no-advice pact. Just listen. Let it be mutual and raw.
“Anna, you’re too direct, too much, not diplomatic, and too fast.”
I’ve heard that more than once. And maybe it’s true. But it’s also exactly what teams sometimes need: someone willing to say the thing that no one else will. Someone who stops pretending and starts reflecting. Someone who cares enough not to sugarcoat what’s holding people back.
In this post, I’ve shared five of the things we don’t talk about in Agile: power games, trauma, broken metrics, performative collaboration, and coach burnout.
then I invite you to come to my talk at Agile Tour Vienna 2025. And maybe, just maybe, you’ll get a little less lonely in all the cultural messiness we’re asked to navigate.
More on the topic:
Regular Tickets available until August 29, 2025
