Fighting Agile Theater, When Organizations Adopt the Ceremonies But Not the Mindset | Iryna Stelmakh

Iryna Stelmakh: Fighting Agile Theater, When Organizations Adopt the Ceremonies But Not the Mindset

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.

"Transparency can be uncomfortable, but without transparency, there is no real improvement." — Iryna Stelmakh

Iryna brings a challenge she calls "Agile Theater" — organizations that implement all the visible parts of Agile (the ceremonies, the boards, the terminology) while the underlying mindset remains unchanged. Decisions stay centralized, transparency is avoided, and problems are hidden. As she puts it: "Teams go through the emotions of Agile without actually benefiting from it."

But her real challenge goes deeper. Iryna shares a story about building trust with outsourcing clients. Five days into a new assignment on a project the company had worked on for over ten years, she received an email listing team members to be removed — with no explanation. It was a red flag: the absence of transparency signaled that the client relationship lacked the trust bridge needed for genuine collaboration.

Iryna's response was characteristically direct. She organized a call with stakeholders and discovered the client operated on quarterly budget cycles — these cuts could happen every three months. Instead of accepting the loss, she shifted the cut team members to other projects within the same account, turning the problem into an opportunity. A QA engineer moved to another project that needed one. A developer and two others got upsold into a team extension. Nobody ended up on the bench.

Then came the systemic fix: Iryna set up one-on-one meetings with each stakeholder across different divisions to stay informed in advance. Prevention over reaction — because, as she says, reactions cost more.

Self-reflection Question: In your current engagement, do you have direct relationships with the people who make budget and staffing decisions — or would a surprise email catch you completely off guard?

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About Iryna Stelmakh

Iryna Stelmakh is a Project & Delivery Leader and Agile Coach who helps leaders turn complexity into clarity. With 10+ years across US, Nordic, and Eastern European environments, she works at the intersection of business transformation and human systems, building resilient organizations and high-performing teams in complex contexts.

You can link with Iryna Stelmakh on LinkedIn.