Jon Cheris

The company hired me to lead their "Agile Transformation." I don't know what Agile means. Nobody does. That's why it works. I make $425,000 a year. To move sticky notes. From left to right. On a board. The board is digital now. The sticky notes cost $80,000 in Jira licenses. Progress. Day one, I said "we need to break down silos." Everyone nodded. Silos are bad. I don't know why. But destroying them is a career. My career. I introduced "squads." Squads are teams. But disrupted. We disrupted the teams into teams. Different names. Same people. Same problems. But Agile problems now. Agile problems are strategic. A senior engineer asked what we're actually changing. I said, "The mindset." He asked what that means. I said, "It's a journey." He asked where we're going. I said, "Toward agility." He asked what agility means. I pointed at the sticky notes. They were moving left to right. That's velocity. We have velocity now. The VP of Engineering said two-week sprints don't fit their work. I said, "That's waterfall thinking." Waterfall is bad. Like silos. I don't know what waterfall is. But I know it's bad. She stopped talking. Waterfall accusations end conversations. We had a retrospective. In the retro, we discussed what went wrong. Everything went wrong. We put it on sticky notes. Then we moved the sticky notes. Into a column called "Parking Lot." The Parking Lot is where problems go to die. It's full. We don't look at it. That's agile. Velocity is up 40%. I defined velocity. I also defined the points. I also defined the stories. We're crushing it. At the things I made up. To measure. Ourselves. The CEO asked for ROI. I showed a chart. The chart went up. Charts should go up. This one did. I didn't label the Y-axis. Nobody asked. Leadership is confidence. We do standups now. Every day. We stand. For 45 minutes. Standing is agile. Sitting is waterfall. My legs hurt. But we're transforming. The transformation is now "Phase 3." Phase 1 was assessment. Phase 2 was implementation. Phase 3 is "continuous improvement." Continuous means forever. Forever means job security. I'm very secure. My contract was extended. Three more years. For "cultural impact." The culture is confused. But impacted. Agile transformation isn't about being agile. It's about transforming. Continuously. Toward more transformation. The destination is the journey. The journey is billable.