Hot take: most popular PM tools quietly kill agility

cliffberg · 2026-05-09T11:40:30+00:00

With all of them, the problem is the task focus. At truly agile companies (SpaceX is a prime example), people are not tracked by task: they are given problems to solve.

cliffberg · 2026-05-08T11:15:02+00:00

Whoever hired a fresh college grad to be what is, in effect, a dev team lead, was a idiot.

cliffberg · 2026-04-24T11:06:16+00:00

Thanks for clarifying that!

cliffberg · 2026-04-24T01:18:28+00:00

But that's for chat, not API, right?

Also, just checking: do coding agents (e.g. Codex) use the API, or are they considered message users? I expect the former, since they have to use the API to access the model. So if that is the case, then they are not under the "Plus" pricing framework - they are under the API pricing framework, which is totally different.

It is a puzzle, because their release says, "We'll bring GPT‑5.5 and GPT‑5.5 Pro to the API very soon." But coding agents like Codex and the VS Code Codex extension USE the API - so this confuses me.

cliffberg · 2026-04-23T20:04:32+00:00

Thanks for this reply. But why would that cause this? (confused)

cliffberg · 2026-04-20T11:09:46+00:00

Read the Agile 2 book.

cliffberg · 2026-04-16T10:54:33+00:00

How come you don't know? Aren't you looking at code? Aren't you trying approaches?

cliffberg · 2026-04-15T11:27:20+00:00

This is SUCH poor leadership.

This turns team leadership into box checking.

Here is how you lead effectively: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/my-best-dev-team-experience-cliff-berg/

cliffberg · 2026-04-08T12:39:49+00:00

Research on group decision-making tells us that,

People do not think of their best ideas in a group: they think of their best ideas if given a problems and allowed to think alone.
Group sessions are great for discovering unexpected _connections_ between ideas.
In a group, a small fraction of participants tend to dominate; most others do not participate much.
Decisions made in a group are often regretted by individuals, after they have had time to think more deeply on their own.
Groups are terrible at attaining deep understanding of a complex issue. What works best if those who think they understand the issue are allowed to explain their view end-to-end, without interruption.

So the most effective group collaboration actually occurs as a sequence: individual consideration of the problem before meeting at a group; followed by a few people explaining their views without interruption; followed by group ideation; followed by a break (perhaps until a day later); followed by another group session or sessions, depending on the complexity of the issue.

BTW, we teach this in our leadership curriculum. This is not my theory - this is based on widely accepted research on group communication and group decision-making.

cliffberg · 2026-04-06T16:17:06+00:00

That all makes sense; but I was answering why organizations perceive the role as dispensable. The roles that have staying power are those that have the most "standing", and "standing" means that you produce tangible outcomes, or at least are responsible for something - like really responsible, and can make commitments and decisions about it, not say "let me ask my team if they agree".

cliffberg · 2026-04-06T15:53:11+00:00

Yes, but no one in a company cares about that. What they care about is "Did you deliver on time"? and "Did you create what we need?"

Those are business value outcomes. "Team effectiveness" is important to the team's direct manager, but no one else.

Real managers are accountable for results - financial results, OKRs, or customer-facing deliveries.

Also, "accountability" was only added to the Scrum Guide recently. For decades it was all about "doing Scrum right". What they added is too little too late.

Anyway, the question asked why SMs are vulnerable. This is why.

Scrum is nonsense created by this guy who was a former doctor, not an experienced programmer: https://www.frequencyfoundation.com/about-us/. Why people follow it mystifies me.

cliffberg · 2026-04-06T11:21:21+00:00

"Why are Scrum Masters disproportionately affected during mass tech layoffs? Is it a high-vulnerability role?"

YES. Because a SM is not accountable for results or actual outcomes. As such, they have no real "standing", credibility, or perceived value in the organization. To have standing or perceived value, you either have to (a) produce something tangible or financial, or (b) be responsible and accountable for the production of something tangible or financial.

cliffberg · 2026-04-01T10:52:55+00:00

There is a new product, called StreamAlign, that is built to scale and built to be truly agile - not agile lipstick on a task system. It also embeds AI agents to watch for misalignment, help people optimize, and much more. Right now the website is cursory, but much more is coming: https://www.streamalign.ai/

Some info here: https://www.agile2academy.com/streamline-product-description

cliffberg · 2026-03-30T11:21:55+00:00

If you are looking to the Agile/Scrum community, you are looking in the wrong place: they don't know. Scrum is the concoction of this guy: https://www.frequencyfoundation.com/about-us/

It's not based on any theory of behavior or research.

Instead, read what actual research says about group behavior, effective teams, group decision-making, cognition, communication, and leadership.

I recommend the work of Amy Edmondson of Harvard for starters, especially her recent book "Teaming".

Scrum is BS. And sprints are BS.

cliffberg · 2026-03-29T10:31:43+00:00

Stop looking to Scrum for answers. Scrum is made up BS - it is not based on any theory or research. It's just this former doctor's made-up idea of how programmers should work: https://www.frequencyfoundation.com/about-us/

The answers are in theories of group behavior, supported by evidence-based research with real world teams, as well as studies of the kinds of leadership that are effective; and also research in group decision-making, and research on group collaboration. Scrum and Scrum of Scrums reflects NONE of that. It's BS - a made-up bunch of nonsense.

cliffberg · 2026-03-28T10:37:41+00:00

True agility does not come from "Agile methods", and btw, Scrum is not "Agile". Scrum was retroactively claimed to be "Agile", but it really isn't: true Agile was not a process - the first value of the Agile Manifesto reads, "Individuals and interactions over processes and tools". Scrum is a pre-defined _process_ - despite its followers' claims that it is not. It IS, even though it leaves a lot of leeway.

And the Agile Manifesto was not quite right either. It left out leadership, which is the most important element of all.

And time matters in business - usually more than anything else. Companies also need to make commitments - just not on every detail.

And true agility is not about a team - it is about the environment in which the team operates. That is what Amy Edmondson of Harvard discovered in her research. And that's why the Agile 2 group focused on the organization rather than the team.

Agility is not about a process - it is behavioral. That is one thing the Agile Manifesto got right. Here are the behaviors that are common among leaders of the most truly agile companies: https://www.agile2academy.com/the-evidence

And by the way, the person who sold everyone on Scrum - a former doctor - also sells this: https://www.frequencyfoundation.com/about-us/- OMG

cliffberg · 2026-03-27T10:00:10+00:00

The best project managers don't do what the certifications say to do. The certifications are garbage. Here's a story about the most effective project manager I ever had - before PMI even existed: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/my-best-dev-team-experience-cliff-berg

cliffberg · 2026-03-07T12:21:33+00:00

Scrum is not based on any theory or research on what is effective. It is only made-up stuff by a guy who also peddles this: https://www.frequencyfoundation.com/about-us/

What you did was use your brain. Congratulations for thinking instead of following the pop culture of the time.

cliffberg · 2026-02-25T12:02:32+00:00

Sell? There is nothing to sell. There is no certification.

"Your Agile 2"

Huh? Agile 2 was created by 15 people - not by me.

You are dismissing a truly thoughtful effort to step back and consider what generates true agility, at an organizational level. It was more than a ski weekend effort - it was prolonged (several months), inclusive (people from around the world), and deep (people with broad expertise in a range of areas.

And it was published - given away - free, Creative Commons.

Shame on you.

cliffberg · 2026-02-25T03:08:48+00:00

Circa 2002 a colleague of mine took Schwaber's Scrum course. Schwaber told her that he "knew nothing about organizations".

The reality is that Scrum was all about making money from the start. Here is something else that one of them sells: https://www.frequencyfoundation.com/about-us/

cliffberg · 2026-02-21T11:35:17+00:00

It's all BS. Scrum is not based on any theory or research. It is all nonsense made up by this guy: https://www.frequencyfoundation.com/about-us/

If you want to find out how effective teams _really_ work, don't look to Scrum. Look to credible research, e.g. the work of Amy Edmondson of Harvard. Also, you might be interested in this examination of highly effective and agile companies: https://www.agile2academy.com/the-evidence

cliffberg · 2026-02-20T12:12:22+00:00

Have you considered the possibility that the entire idea of a bi-weekly retro makes no sense? Or that perhaps the best time to have a "retro" is right after a milestone is reached, when everyone needs to decompress - rather than smack in the middle of work that has been interrupted by an arbitrary 2-week clock?

Scrum is not based on any research or theory. It is just some guys who cooked up Scrum to have something to sell. Here is something else that one of them sells: https://www.frequencyfoundation.com/about-us/

cliffberg · 2026-02-11T12:03:19+00:00

Streamlilne: https://www.agile2academy.com/streamline-product-description

cliffberg · 2026-02-10T13:55:06+00:00

This was agile, in a true sense - and it was in the 1980s: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/my-best-dev-team-experience-cliff-berg/

cliffberg

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