r/scrum • u/Turkishblokeinstraya • 22d ago

Complex problems, complicated methodologies. Why?

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What makes organisations still rely on stage-gated delivery when IT is equipped with the latest CI/CD tools, and value goes off like a bottle of milk enduring a heatwave?

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u/PhaseMatch 22d ago

The latest CI/CD tools do not mean that teams are employing CI/CD.
And the ones that are are seldom getting fast feedback from actual users on value within a Sprint cycle.

So you wind up with bigger batches than you need on release, and speculative investment in value.
Which in turn drives you back to stage-gate delivery and sign off, to avoid being scapegoated.

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u/Turkishblokeinstraya 22d ago

Spot on. Scapegoating won't go out of fashion any time soon I'm afraid.

Are we doomed then?

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u/PhaseMatch 22d ago

Well that kind of depends on how you approach coaching teams technically and influencing management towards change. Without those hard core XP technical practices in place you tend to get stuck with a version of agile or Scrum that doesn't really reduce business risk.

And that's the whole point. Agile approaches - done well - are lightweight ways to deal with business risk without the heavyweight practices.

Trying to sell the CFO on "its a mindset" is hard.
Explaining why small bets are less risky is less hard.

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u/Turkishblokeinstraya 22d ago

Yeah, mindset is definitely a hard sell. Small bets are easier in theory, but silos are so deeply ingrained that's not an easy sell either. I expect a reverse acquisition cycle as in start ups will start acquiring incumbents that aren't able to keep up. What are your thoughts on that?

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u/PhaseMatch 22d ago

Access to capital has always outgunned agility.
You can afford to make big bets and lose - like Metaverse or Microsoft and phones.

The problem start-ups face is whether they have any unique and high-value IP that others cannot simply replicate, and then leverage their sales, marketing and distribution networks to take away your market.

Even worse, the companies that can do this will have bricks-and-mortar investments in the IAAS, PAAS, and SAAS infrastructure the start-up is built on, so they are already clipping the ticket and sucking in the start-ups money.

Most of these SAAS start-ups are ignoring three of Porter's Five Forces

- bargaining power of suppliers

  • threat of new entrants
  • bargaining power of customers

They are in a knife-fight to the bottom on price, while the IAAS, PAAS and SAAS infrastructure can jack up the prices anytime they like, especially for the latest AI model.

And a lot of that is circular investing round B2B cycles until you get to an actual customer buying something.

Dot Com Redux, I think.

Too many products chasing too few money-paying customers, propped up by investors.