Many agile transformations restrict team autonomy, leading to control and compliance instead of true ownership, adaptability, and meaningful engagement in value delivery.
Here’s the dirty secret behind many “agile transformations”:
The organisation claims alignment, but what they deliver is control.
They dictate priorities, assign tasks, predefine solutions, and then slap a “self-managing” label on the team.
This is a lie.
In Scrum, autonomy isn’t about teams doing whatever they want. It’s about teams deciding how they will meet their goals.
Alignment defines the why and what.
Autonomy gives the team ownership of the how.
Without autonomy, you create learned helplessness.
Teams stop thinking, stop improving, and stop caring.
You get compliance, not commitment.
If you want adaptive value delivery, you must let go of the how.
Align on goals — and then get out of the way.
What parts of your system are still holding a death grip on the how?
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.
Genus Breeding Ltd
Freadom
Illumina
Deliotte
Bistech
ProgramUtvikling
Hubtel Ghana
ALS Life Sciences
Graham & Brown
New Signature
Microsoft
Alignment Healthcare
Flowmaster (a Mentor Graphics Company)
MacDonald Humfrey (Automation) Ltd.
Lockheed Martin
Boeing
Sage
Akaditi
Ghana Police Service
Department of Work and Pensions (UK)
Washington Department of Transport
Washington Department of Enterprise Services
New Hampshire Supreme Court
Nottingham County Council
Freadom
Xceptor - Process and Data Automation
Big Data for Humans
Kongsberg Maritime
Teleplan
NIT A/S