The FBI Sentinel project failed with a waterfall approach, wasting years and budget, but succeeded rapidly after switching to Agile and iterative Scrum methods.
The FBI’s Sentinel project was textbook waterfall. Big budget. Big bang. Zero value delivered after four years and hundreds of millions spent.
The solution? Throw it out. Build a basement Scrum Studio. Hand-pick 40 people. Give them space to work iteratively.
Within a year: $30 million. Working product.
Agile didn’t just save the project—it exposed the insanity of pretending waterfall ever worked at this scale.
If you’re still defending your 18-month Gantt chart, ask yourself: what would your stakeholders say after four years and nothing in production?
That’s not control. That’s negligence.
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.
Graham & Brown
Alignment Healthcare
Slaughter and May
Jack Links
Milliman
Workday
SuperControl
Qualco
Hubtel Ghana
NIT A/S
Microsoft
Healthgrades
Higher Education Statistics Agency
Emerson Process Management
MacDonald Humfrey (Automation) Ltd.
Philips
CR2
Illumina
Ghana Police Service
Department of Work and Pensions (UK)
Nottingham County Council
New Hampshire Supreme Court
Royal Air Force
Washington Department of Transport
Alignment Healthcare
Lean SA
Teleplan
Epic Games
Genus Breeding Ltd
Emerson Process Management
