Everyone loves to shout “give teams autonomy.”
What they forget is that autonomy without alignment is just local chaos.
In Scrum, alignment isn’t an optional management layer; it’s the strategic guardrail that keeps teams moving toward meaningful outcomes.
The Product Goal. The Sprint Goal. The Product Backlog ordering.
These are not paperwork artefacts — they are the heartbeat of alignment.
Without them, self-managing teams spin their wheels, deliver local outputs, and miss the mark on business outcomes.
It’s not the team’s fault.
It’s leadership failing to provide clarity of purpose.
Autonomy and alignment are not opposites.
Scrum, as a social technology, requires both.
If your teams are autonomous but disconnected from strategic goals, you don’t have agility — you have expensive local optimisation.
How are you ensuring your teams are aligned without suffocating their autonomy?
If you've made it this far, it's worth connecting with our principal consultant and coach, Martin Hinshelwood, for a 30-minute 'ask me anything' call.
We partner with businesses across diverse industries, including finance, insurance, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, technology, engineering, transportation, hospitality, entertainment, legal, government, and military sectors.
ALS Life Sciences
Hubtel Ghana
Slaughter and May
Slicedbread
Bistech
Freadom
Philips
Boeing
Illumina
Big Data for Humans
Cognizant Microsoft Business Group (MBG)
Microsoft
Qualco
Kongsberg Maritime
Capita Secure Information Solutions Ltd
Lockheed Martin
MacDonald Humfrey (Automation) Ltd.
Akaditi
Washington Department of Enterprise Services
Nottingham County Council
Ghana Police Service
Washington Department of Transport
Royal Air Force
New Hampshire Supreme Court
Schlumberger
Flowmaster (a Mentor Graphics Company)
Higher Education Statistics Agency
ALS Life Sciences
Bistech
Hubtel Ghana