Big ambitions but no budget or commitment to match

• Due diligence prior to taking on a role or contract
• Set clear expectations about tech budget / resources / hiring
• Clear roadmap scenarios based on budget / resources / hiring
• Escalate and highlight the promise versus current commitment

Stifled by fear from top execs and committees

• Need to shield the team from these politics
• Appoint someone who gets it to represent the team at board/committee level
• Build confidence through customer feedback and traction
• Keep the group onside and build more support / momentum inside the org

The ‘old guard’ blocking change

• Endeavour to get to know the people blocking
• Build an understanding of their motive
• Try to move forward with support but move forward regardless
• Create buy-in and support from more senior stakeholders / execs

Wooly and fluffy directions and desires from top execs

• Involve top execs in co-creation of roadmaps
• Ask direction questions that can be turned into SMART goals
• Create story maps based on discussions and get sign-off
• Keep the top execs closely involved during planning / review sessions

Perfectionism halting delivery

• Explain the lean startup approach
• Build a startup mentally and culture
• Aim for quality and to solve challenges but to ‘test’ assumptions
• Focus on solutions to problems not details of graphics / UI

Siloed ops and delivery (or other) functions

• Establish metrics e.g. time from done to release is 6 weeks
• Present systems issues and business impact to stakeholders
• Run a trial with Ops engineers in product/agile team
• Review new time from done to release

Agile teams being crippled by traditional management practices and business models

• Highlight agile as a business imperative
• Link it into any existing lean / continuous improvement activities
• Start with small trials to gain some traction and facts
• Bring ‘the business’ into the product/agile teams as sponsors (one team)

Uninformed non-technical committees driving technology decisions

• Establish a technology strategy board (mixture of business and technical stakeholders)
• Ensure that sign-off of new tech cannot be achieved without tech sign-off
• Empower teams to have the power to make or inform tech choices
• Build a clear tech roadmap that is signed off but can be evolved

Desire from execs for detailed estimates and costs for uncertain domains

• Provide some stats about inaccuracies of traditional estimation techniques
• Utilise forecasting techniques i.e. track cycle time, no. stories done over time
• Use budgets as a constraint to solve a particular challenge
• Break large programmes down into smaller deliveries to test assumption / market
• Deliver consistently little and often and the requests may stop