You can not implement Agile or Scrum successfully by decree

TL;DR; Agile and Scrum cannot be made effective just by issuing mandates or using tools; their success depends on a culture of trust, openness, and willingness to improve. If your team fears blame or resists change, process changes alone will not help. Focus on building a supportive culture before trying to improve processes.

Published on 13 May 2025

Written by Martin Hinshelwood

1 minute read

https://nkdagility.com/resources/es3rfygczrI

You can’t implement Agile or Scrum successfully by decree.

You can’t mandate trust.

You can’t enforce transparency with a tool.

You can’t “install” continuous improvement through a Jira plugin.

Scrum is an observability pattern for value delivery. It exposes how things are actually working, not how you wish they were.

But the moment your team sees that something is broken, your culture decides what happens next.

If your people are afraid of blame, afraid of failure, or stuck in inertia, the signals will be ignored.

No retrospective, Daily Scrum, or burndown chart will fix it.

Want real agility?
Fix your culture before you fix your process.

Also published on: LinkedIn

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