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.
Illumina
Jack Links
Xceptor - Process and Data Automation
Hubtel Ghana
MacDonald Humfrey (Automation) Ltd.
CR2
Freadom
ProgramUtvikling
SuperControl
Milliman
Slaughter and May
Big Data for Humans
Capita Secure Information Solutions Ltd
Higher Education Statistics Agency
Boxit Document Solutions
New Signature
Emerson Process Management
NIT A/S
Ghana Police Service
Washington Department of Enterprise Services
Washington Department of Transport
Royal Air Force
New Hampshire Supreme Court
Nottingham County Council
Kongsberg Maritime
Illumina
Slaughter and May
Philips
Xceptor - Process and Data Automation
Boxit Document Solutions
