Executive Pressue

 

1. Smells

• Executive's demand the team commit to releasing a set of "minimum" features by a certain date.
• Executive's attend the team's meetings
• Executive's communicate directly with team members to remind them of deadlines

 

2. Discussion

 

Instead of trading time vs. features the team is being forced to sacrifice something else - usually quality. In addition since the commitment doesn't come from the team - they have no reason to support it.

 

3. Causes

 

4. Consequences

• Quality levels will be reduced.
• Morale will be reduced - with team members saying that nothing has changed since the waterfall days.

   

 

5. Prevention

 

6. Example Remedies

• Speak privately with the Executive and suggest that their approach is likely to have the opposite of the desired effect.
• Ask the Executive what they really need and use that to help guide the team.
• Get the Product Owner to negotiate priorities with the Executive.

 

7. Case Studies

 

Credit: this is based on material from "10 ways to screw up with Scrum and XP" by Henrik Kniberg. Personal Experience: Mark Levison