You’ve got the ceremonies. You’ve got the Jira boards. But something still feels… off. Delivery is slow. Teams are overwhelmed. Leadership support is more slogan than substance. If you’re wondering whether your Agile transformation is truly delivering value – or just delivering theatre – this guide is for you.
Over the years, we’ve seen organisations of all shapes and sizes struggle with Agile adoption. While the symptoms vary, the root causes are often surprisingly similar. So, we’ve distilled the five most telling signs that your Agile adoption might be in trouble, along with real-world examples and actionable ways to reset course.
1. Agile theatre: Doing Agile without being Agile
What you’ll notice:
Your team has all the right ceremonies – daily stand-ups, sprint planning, retros. Maybe even a Jira board filled with colourful tickets. But delivery still feels like wading through glue. There’s frustration. Silos. Little momentum.
Why this happens:
Too often, Agile is treated as a checklist of practices, not a change in thinking. You can follow the motions but still cling to old habits – command-and-control leadership, fixed mindsets, risk-aversion. Retrospectives become a box-tick. Teams aren’t trusted to make real decisions.
A real example:
We worked with a large engineering firm where teams ‘did Agile’ strictly by the book. But delivery was still waterfall in disguise. Story points were (almost entirely) pre-determined by project managers. Sprints ended, but priorities hadn’t changed. The only thing Agile was the vocabulary.
What you can do:
Focus on mindset before mechanics. Create psychological safety so teams can challenge, experiment, and self-organise. Make retrospectives matter – act on them. And if you’re not sure where to start, an Agile Maturity Assessment can surface cultural gaps before they derail delivery.
2. Accountability fog: Everyone owns it, no one drives it
What you’ll notice:
Work gets discussed – a lot. But who actually owns it? Tasks bounce between teams, backlog items get stale, and key decisions stall for weeks. You ask who’s responsible, and everyone looks sideways.
Why this happens:
Agile encourages shared ownership, but that doesn’t mean no ownership. When roles like Product Owner or Scrum Master are ill-defined, or team boundaries unclear, momentum dies. Collaboration becomes diffusion and decisions take forever.
A real example:
In a FinTech scale-up, we saw two people unofficially sharing the Product Owner role. One was from operations, and the other from compliance. Each had different priorities, and teams were paralysed by indecision. As one dev bluntly put it: “We’re building Frankenstein’s backlog.”
What you can do:
Clarify roles, don’t blur them. Reinforce ownership without adding red tape. Organisations can also use an Agile Maturity Assessment to spotlight where accountability is slipping through the cracks.
3. Leadership support that lives on PowerPoint
What you’ll notice:
Leadership says they back Agile. They even mention it at the all-hands. But delivery teams still face the same blockers, where priorities change on a whim and you keep wondering if they even know what a sprint goal is.
Why this happens:
Too often, leadership treats Agile as something for the delivery teams to figure out. But without their active involvement – setting OKRs, shifting KPIs, championing transparency, and showing up – Agile loses oxygen.
A real example:
At a major enterprise client, every transformation slide deck featured the word “Agile”. But when blockers were escalated, weeks went by. The transformation budget was ringfenced – and untouched. One engineer put it best when she said in a retro “It feels like they’re rooting for us… but from a long, long distance.”
What you can do:
Make leadership a core part of the transformation, not the audience. Train them, coach them, involve them. Show them how investing in Agility – in practice – will return big on their investment. When they remove impediments and celebrate learning, the change sticks. And yes, we’ve seen the difference it makes, time and time and time again!
4. Workload chaos: Busy teams, zero flow
What you’ll notice:
Everyone’s working hard. Really hard. But nothing seems to move. Stories roll over. Sprints feel like a blur. Issues keep getting carried over, and retros turn into complaint sessions.
Why this happens:
Agile without limits becomes chaos. No WIP limits. No clear prioritisation. Teams say yes to everything and deliver nothing well. Burnout builds, and productivity plummets.
A real example:
At one of our newer clients, the team had 42 tickets in progress. Sprint planning had become sprint stuffing. When we introduced simple capacity planning and prioritisation workshops, following a few weeks of Agile Coaching and a couple of training sessions, throughput almost doubled – and morale lifted.
What you can do:
Limit work-in-progress, strengthen backlog refinement practices, and – frankly – train and empower your product owners to say ‘No’. A little structure protects your team’s focus and health. Coaching and training sessions from experienced Agile practitioners can accelerate this shift.
5. The death of continuous improvement
What you’ll notice:
“We skipped retro this sprint – again.” Familiar? You keep hearing the same problems every sprint. But nothing changes. People stop raising issues because, well… what’s the point?
Why this happens:
In high-pressure environments, reflection becomes a luxury. Teams stay in delivery mode, mistaking motion for progress. But without inspection and adaptation, Agile becomes mechanical.
A real example:
In one RegTech company, the team hadn’t done a proper retrospective in six months. When we coached them and facilitated one, frustrations poured out – but so did brilliant ideas. The team revamped their release process within a week.
What you can do:
Treat retrospectives as sacred. They are predictable opportunities that everyone knows allows them to reflect and share ideas to improve. Give these structure, safety, and follow-through (agreeing on Actions is arguably the most important outcome of a Retro). Bring in an Agile coach or neutral facilitator to reignite purpose and energy. And remind your teams that continuous improvement isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s the engine of agility.
Bonus watch-outs: Subtle signs that still derail progress
Product Owners without power
What you’ll notice:
Priorities change daily. Backlogs are murky. Teams ask, “Who’s making the call?” and no one has a clear answer.
Why this happens:
The Product Owner role is often misunderstood or poorly supported. Sometimes it’s split across multiple people. Other times, it’s assigned to someone without true decision-making power – especially in matrixed or enterprise settings.
A real example:
At a large, distributed logistics organisation we supported, the PO was only available two days a week. In their absence, stakeholders filled the vacuum – with conflicting directions. The result? Chaos.
What you can do:
Getting Product Ownership is not easy. You will need to invest in the role. Empower your Product Owners to make timely, value-driven decisions. Provide coaching and training if needed. In global teams, appoint local champions to keep alignment strong.
Scrum masters who default to project management
What you’ll notice:
Tasks are being assigned top-down. Scrum Masters act like schedulers. Team morale dips, and self-organisation disappears.
Why this happens:
Old habits persist. Former PMs are placed into Scrum Master roles without retraining. Without the mindset shift, they revert to control rather than facilitation.
A real example:
In a large systems integrator, the Scrum Master insisted on approving each task and assigning work. Developers joked they had two bosses. Delivery suffered – and so did trust.
What you can do:
Support Scrum Masters to lead through service, not control. They need to be their teams’ heat shields and servant leaders! Pair them with Agile coaches. Focus on enabling the team, not managing it. Good Scrum Masters grow teams – they don’t direct them.
Problems swept under the rug
What you’ll notice:
Impediments linger (and not for days.. for weeks!). Build failures are ignored. The team stays quiet, and Agile gets blamed when things go sideways.
Why this happens:
Agile exposes reality. But not every organisation is ready for that level of transparency or honest self-reflection. When honesty is met with blame, people disengage.
A real example:
One client had a ‘no surprises’ culture (admittedly driven by a couple of misinformed leaders). This translated to ‘don’t mention problems’. We uncovered blockers that had existed for months. No one had escalated them out of fear.
What you can do:
Create a culture where truth is welcomed, not punished. Build psychological safety where your team sees failed attempts and tasks as learning opportunities, celebrating them over perfection. Agile only works when people accept ‘failing fast’ and can speak up.
The bigger picture
Agile doesn’t fail loudly. It fades. Slips. Gets buried under well-meaning rituals and forgotten intentions. But – just like spotting red flags in a relationship – the signs are always there, if you know where to look and what to spot.
If you’re seeing one or more of these patterns, you’re not alone. We’ve helped tech Scale-Ups, engineering firms, software companies, public sector teams and start-ups reconnect with the ‘why’ behind Agile. Through training, coaching, Agile health checks and maturity assessments, we help reignite clarity, energy and momentum.
And remember: the best time to fix an Agile adoption problem was probably last sprint. The second-best time…? Today.
Need a fresh perspective on your Agile journey?
Our consultants are always happy to have a no-obligation conversation about your current challenges and what might help.
