Not Every Scrum Team Is Agile: Fake Agile
Fake Agile: Is every Scrum team agile? No, unfortunately not every Scrum team is actually agile. Let me explain:
Jean Michel Diaz
August 22, 2025
Fake Agile: Is every Scrum team agile? No, unfortunately not every Scrum team is actually agile. Let me explain:
What is Zombie Scrum? Zombie Scrum describes teams that retain the Scrum structure (rituals, roles, etc.) but lose the actual core –
Retrospectives have been widely used for years, especially in agile software development teams. But what exactly are retrospectives and
Successful one-to-one meetings are an important tool for managers to build a strong relationship with their employees and to motivate employees.
Written performance reviews for software developers in 2025? In a modern working environment where feedback culture and continuous development are paramount, written performance
When you lead different roles in IT software development in your area, there is a lot of feedback in one-to-one meetings and above
You have a new employee in your team, a new team member or a new direct report who reports to you
When introducing one-to-one meetings between managers and employees, the invitation email to team members is usually one of the most important steps.
Specific feedback on performance, often in the form of "performance reviews", plays a central role in the further development of software developers. In
As a team leader, you take on a lot of responsibility for your employees and your team. This checklist for team leaders will make it easier for you to keep
We have already written about the things that team leaders should definitely do in relation to their employees: Checklist
Many companies are changing their leadership model and transforming from traditional leadership to agile leadership of their employees. But what
The vast majority of literature on leadership assumes that teams are led face-to-face and not virtually
As a team leader or team lead, you take on responsibility for the team and its members in addition to – personnel responsibility.
At its core, the "Day 1 culture" embodies a mindset of constant innovation, agility and customer centricity. It goes back to the founder
Probably most companies claim to be "customer-centric" – but how many companies would consider themselves obsessed with the customer?
Amazon was one of the first companies to apply agile working methods on a large scale – without having to rely on
Table of Contents In retrospectives there is a lot of talk about – but the team also leads from the discussion in the retrospective
Anyone who has ever run a marathon knows why Sustainable Pace is a critical success factor: Once you've been too fast, you've been too slow.
An experienced agile team has probably conducted a few hundred agile retrospectives in their career. That's enough to be considered
Agile coaches, Scrum Masters & Co. love creative formats for retrospectives. Due to different questions during creative retrospective formats, teams often come to
In the context of agile working methods, many companies like to look at Spotify and turn their teams into squads, tribes and
Artificial intelligence is making tremendous strides. OpenAI's ChatGPT has proven to be a capable interlocutor in many situations and has quickly
Especially at the turn of the year, there are good opportunities for Christmas and New Year to adapt the format of the retrospective to the season.
Psychological Safety in Agile Teams – the facts from research, why it matters and how to measure and improve it as a Scrum Master or Agile Coach.
Here are our step-by-step instructions for conducting good retrospectives – for beginners as well as advanced users...
As a startup developing software for team development and retrospectives, we are often confronted with interesting definitions of retrospectives –
Difference between sprint review and retrospective In the last article we defined what a retrospective really is. We also have over
An agile retrospective is a widespread workshop format. The aim is to improve cooperation between (Scrum) teams...
Definitions of organizational culture In science and research, there are usually very abstract definitions of organizational culture. It sounds
Netflix has created a unique culture that encourages innovation. With these 4 retrospective formats, you can also inspire your team to innovate more.
Many teams worked completely remotely or in the home office during the Corona Pandemic. Some companies are slowly going “Back to
What is a retrospective? A retrospective is a meeting routine in which you regularly reflect on the teamwork in order to get out of it
There are many good check-in methods for starting a retrospective. In this post, I want three different retro check-ins
Both Scrum and OKR are currently very popular as frameworks in the agile community. Scrum is more about
Coordinating agile collaboration across team boundaries brings with it some challenges, especially when it comes to target control across several
Besides the fun and team building factor in a retrospective, the main purpose is to brainstorm and record meaningful action items.
Why Corporate Salaries Become Chaos Throughout our careers prior to founding Echometer, we have many examples
Studies show that in Germany alone half of the companies with more than 500 employees use agile working methods and
The journey of a start-up from an idea to a team with dozens of employees is exciting and full
Findings from the agile community as a stimulus When we started working on Echometer (our tool for agile retrospectives) in 2019
To build a globally competitive start-up, you have to recruit across national borders. Building a company is not easy. With start-ups
In the past, recruiting & talent management was a priority for HR managers, while agilists increasingly focused on change management
Many teams change the format and layout of their retrospective phases frequently to ensure variety and creativity
Our Echometer experience reports In our experience reports we show you how Echometer is used in practice by the users themselves
Experience report - The format How is Echometer actually used in practice? And by whom? We want these questions in
It can already be a challenge to facilitate retrospectives in a small team or group. Or with
In our last post, we presented the Lessons Learned Workshop as a format, with both the process and
As a team or organization, we all aspire to be at the top in the role of quality or innovation leader. Perhaps
The moderation and design of retrospectives is often left to trained Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches who already have a lot of experience with
Retrospectives are one of the most important meetings for agile teams to reflect on and further develop their collaboration. The frequency varies in
“Remote teams”, ie distributed teams, are the trend. So how do you deal with coordination and management in teams spread over several locations?
At first glance, agility sometimes seems contradictory. Managers in particular are faced with many contradictions. In this series of
At first glance, agility sometimes seems contradictory. Apparently, a structure is supposed to provide more flexibility. In this series of
Retrospectives should be entertaining and varied, but they should do one thing above all: advance teams. Share in this series of articles
When it comes to establishing agile work, the topic of agile values and principles must not go unmentioned. One
Many teams and sometimes entire companies are caught in the hamster wheel: Although everyone is kicking hard, things are not going well. The reasons
Somewhere in the world, ambitious and motivated teams are working on changing the world by using animal brains
Most companies have development programs designed to turn employees into managers. In such further training, for example
What trait often makes Chrome and Firefox users better employees? And why do agile transformations often seem to fail at the
In the last two articles, we introduced you to Pre-Mortems and Job Crafting, two exciting methods. To complete the line
Last time we introduced you to pre-mortems - a method that uses people’s psychological disposition,
In the context of agile working, many methods have emerged to simplify the implementation of agile principles and values. While
We look forward to being part of Christoph Kühnapfel's podcast "Future Rescheduling"! Find out how you work with Echometer professionals
We were honored to hold a keynote today on the psychology of agility at the Bertelsmann BeAgile Meetup in Gütersloh. If
An employee survey can provide a solid basis for improving the employer brand and ensuring employee satisfaction. Provided,
If Sherlock Holmes was the leader of a team, what would he do? Yes, that's right. He would attract ridicule if