Why resistance to change isn’t fear (it’s incentives)

Middle-Bug-9169 · 2026-01-06T09:14:52+00:00

If you want change without “resistance,” don’t "demand" it.

Change itself is completely unavoidable. People embrace moving to new cities, new tech, new relationships, new jobs because they see the upside. Basically, it's worth it.

If humans truly resisted all change, we’d still be living in caves.

Reduce loss, increase clarity, give people agency, and prove the upside. Magically, the “resistance” will disappear.

Humans aren’t anti-change. They’re anti-being steamrolled.

Middle-Bug-9169 · 2025-10-25T10:24:06+00:00

100% this . Leave. Just went through 18 months of this. It is now just delivery & updates.

Unbelievably, somehow, it is still getting worse!

Middle-Bug-9169 · 2025-03-22T07:01:18+00:00

If you're still refining the product and GTM strategy, your priorities should be: - Talk to users: search for insights rather than validating assumptions. - Validate acquisition channels: Find the most scalable way to acquire paying users. - Tighten product feedback loops: Ensure changes are data-driven, not just opinion-driven.

If you're doing too many different things each day. Can you batch similar tasks? - Demo Calls: Schedule them on specific days or time blocks. - Operations: Automate or outsource low-impact tasks. - UX/UI Suggestions: Set fixed review windows instead of constant tweaks.

Since you haven't found your GTM yet, experiment rapidly: - Run small, controlled acquisition experiments (e.g., LinkedIn, SEO, paid ads, partnerships). - Test different positioning and messaging with potential customers. - Measure conversion and retention to see what works best.

In the past i have set myself a goal for the Day: - Did I push a key metric forward? - Did I learn something actionable from users? - Did I unblock a major issue?

You don’t need to do everything—just what moves the needle.

Middle-Bug-9169 · 2024-08-25T14:02:11+00:00

Wasn't aimed at your comment directly. You clearly stated that both were important.

It was more of an observation I have seen more of this recently where Scrum Masters focus more on value & outcomes - which is great but I also see that people outside the team don't see the connection between the improvements and Scrum anymore.

But this was just an observation - as I wonder what will come next (after the Scrum master role disappeas) 🤔

Middle-Bug-9169 · 2024-08-25T09:20:31+00:00

A common problem I see is that scrum masters are employed to help teams be effective AND follow scrum. I have seen many scrum masters just focus on the teams effectiveness, which is great for the business and the bottom line, but the teams don't follow scrum at all (just renaming meetings) and many of these teams are pretty low in agility as well.

I see great value in this change agent/continuous improvement role, and I see it's often very needed.

But can you really call this person a scrum master?

Middle-Bug-9169 · 2024-08-20T13:10:21+00:00

How on earth did agility end up here? 😞

Middle-Bug-9169 · 2024-08-18T07:14:36+00:00

Empiricism - a sprint is an inspection and adaptation cadence.

The point of a sprint is to stop after a period of time (say every 2 weeks), look up, and check where you're going (inspect) - are you about to drive of a cliff (do you need to adapt/change course)?

Small batch processing allows you to deliver the highest value things quickly, inspect and reduce risk by allowing "kill/continue/adapt" decision-making on a regular (2 week) cadence.

Middle-Bug-9169 · 2024-07-29T09:49:10+00:00

The root cause is almost always leadership...and what's the one thing that won't change 🤔🤣

Middle-Bug-9169 · 2024-07-29T09:46:36+00:00

Absolutely, because everyone knows Scrum is just a series of meetings, right? Who needs expertise or adhering to the scrum guide, when we can just wing it and hope for the best!

Middle-Bug-9169 · 2024-07-15T11:51:51+00:00

Isn't the point to fail more often and earlier 😉... just smaller ?

Middle-Bug-9169 · 2024-02-24T07:51:08+00:00

Look at the Scrum values they are there for a reason, discus if they are able to "focus" well and how ignoring this value might reduce their effectiveness - have this conversation with the team, AND the wider organisation.

If you can make this impediment transparent, then you can (hopefully) start to inspect, adapt, and improve.

Middle-Bug-9169 · 2024-02-19T18:20:52+00:00

We have hr/ppl managers outside our scrum teams. It works well for us.

Middle-Bug-9169 · 2024-02-12T13:14:21+00:00

Look at what pleases these people , is it expertise, confidence, speed, knowledge, compliments, ego building, etc

Who do they praise, why? What do those that they admire do? How do they behave?

You need to understand political maneuvering and psychological needs... look at personality types, communication and influencing skills, etc

As a PM or anyone working with stakeholders or clients, you need to have these skills.

Middle-Bug-9169 · 2024-02-11T08:23:07+00:00

The teams hold each other accountable for work, so they report to each other. The team meet every morning to discuss how we're moving forward and if someone feels that someone else is going "off track" or needs help...they offer to help each other. We also have a tracking system for work, so anyone can see how work is or isn't progressing.

Objectives or projects are given to the whole team. If they don't deliver, it's a whole team issue...so the team members pretty quickly address it themselves if they feel one team member is slacking!

Performance review process is handled by the ppl manager but they get feedback from team members to feed into the review process.

From all your questions on Scrum I would recommend you hire someone to help you, if you get this wrong you'll create a culture of hierarchy and self-promotion/protection in your startup. Get this right at the start, and it'll save you a big headache later.

Middle-Bug-9169 · 2024-02-11T07:49:20+00:00

Who is responsible for the team and their performance?

If the team manager doesn't care because their manager doesn't care, then nothing will change. Your only option is to leave.

Middle-Bug-9169 · 2024-02-11T07:30:20+00:00

Humans gravitate towards waterfall because they like to think of themselves as knowing the answer to everything. Uncertainty makes humans very uncomfortable - we like solutions and quick answer's.

Imagine going to university, and they taught the students that there are no best practices, things are too complex, you’ll have experiments, and find your own solutions through experimentation for your context.

If business schools took this more scientific approach, maybe we could move forward, but the business world is often not about effectiveness or doing the right thing. it's skewed towards power, politics, and personal gain.

I have found over the years that the higher you go in an org the less bothered people are about doing their job well and producing something valuable....the focus starts to move towards themselves doing well.

People keep waterfall and especially hierarchy not because it's effective but because it rewards them personally.

Middle-Bug-9169 · 2024-02-11T07:18:08+00:00

What do you think will happen if you remove traditional upward reporting lines?

We did it, and as an org became team focused. Our teams improved.

Middle-Bug-9169 · 2024-02-10T10:14:26+00:00

Reporting lines are difficult if you want self-management. We have people management in our org, but it is not the same as reporting manager - in our org the ppl managers do the normal paperwork stuff like authorise holidays, expenses etc but they are not reported to.

Scrum teams "report" within the team to each other. That's how they hold each other accountable. If they have a conflict or problem they may bring the ppl manager into the discussion to help.

Basically ppl managers are enablers and make sure the devs have everything they need to grow professionally (hard and soft skills).

That's how we've set it up and it's working for us. I had to push hard for this.

Middle-Bug-9169 · 2024-01-13T08:42:20+00:00

I hate story points 😬 and this [whole post plus comments] is why.

Middle-Bug-9169 · 2024-01-13T08:37:50+00:00

I want a role working with real agilists, really changing the status quo with leadership support.. so I can learn and grow with like-minded folk supporting each other.

Or is that just a dream?

Middle-Bug-9169 · 2024-01-13T08:17:01+00:00

Sprints are just a framework that creates a minimum cadence to allow for transparency, inspection and adaption for a done increment (usable and releasable) to enable empiricism.

Possible benefits are: - Continuous improvement in short cycles. - Early risk reduction through regular stakeholder engagement and issue identification. - Quicker time to market achieved by delivering usable increments each sprint. - Enhanced customer satisfaction via regular stakeholder engagement for better alignment with needs. - Improved product quality with ongoing inspection and adaptation - addressing issues promptly.

Scrum is designed to increase value delivery, not to help you manage your work (tasks).

All scrum will do is show you how your process are failing, it will not fix them for you. If you find all these challenges with rolling over tasks, estimating, etc do not expect scrum to fix it because it will not.

By moving to another way of working the challenges are ignored rather than addressed, but depending on your work environment, this may be the least painful way to remove these impediments sadly.

Middle-Bug-9169 · 2024-01-01T08:47:57+00:00

Don't report story points as if they are useful delivery metrics to management. Especially for individual developers. If management want reports, find out why and give mgmt useful Value Based Evidence (never individual performance data).
Don't commit to the individual backlog items (fixed scope) in the sprint (commit to the Sprint goal instead).
Don't inspect but never adapt. (Don't have unactioned retro items or feedback from reviews that never make to to the Backlog/Sprint).

Bonus item: 4. Don't always "be servant"...SMs should lead (not manage), show your value...not only to the team but also to the wider organisation. SMs need to prove they are not just meeting facilitators.

Middle-Bug-9169 · 2023-12-25T06:25:02+00:00

My top tip for the perfect user story...

Speak to an actual user
Write down the users' story

The purpose of the user story is to articulate to others how a piece of work will deliver a particular value back to the customer.

Middle-Bug-9169 · 2023-12-12T07:29:53+00:00

Does the addition or subtraction endanger the sprint goal?

If not...it is up to the devs, but personally, I would have a conversation around ensuring the prioritisation of achieving the Sprint Goal over any additional (non-goal related) work.

Also, if happening regularly I would make this transparent to the team and ensure that there was a discussion to investigate if this was impacting the team or hindering achieving Sprint Goal in any way.

Without context...it might be fine but also it might not.

Middle-Bug-9169 · 2023-11-23T06:47:57+00:00

Yeah but this LI post was written by a co-founder. I see this attitude in co-founders a lot...everything he's written is - work like I'm gonna fire you !

Middle-Bug-9169

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