June 2026, by Ulf Schneider

Why Agile Works

Play as a team with a bucket of balls

  • Count the number of balls touched by everyone in the team within a single iteration (1 min play)
  • You cannot pass the ball to your left-hand or right-hand neighbor
  • A ball dropped to the floor cannot be counted anymore
  • Play five iterations (each: 2 min planning, 1 min play)

How was it for you?

Did you feel safe in the group?

Would you have expected the outcome?

If you had the planning time of all iterations combined,

would you have achieved the same outcome?

Feeling safe and getting feedback enables progress

Dealing with uncertainty

The Stacey matrix

Uncertainty requires learning

Iterative process

A cycle takes 1 to 6 weeks.

The iterative process

is a learning machine

The iterative process

is a vehicle to limit work in progress

The iterative process

makes planning more simple

The iterative process

is a container for self-organization

The iterative process

is a safety net

Limiting

work in progress

Write down line by line

and measure your time

→

multitask

abcdefghi

123456789

Write down column by column

and measure your time

↓

multitask

abcdefghi

123456789

Which approach is faster?

Which approach reduces errors?

Limiting work in progress will

increase quality and speed up your work

Learning improves when we reduce work in progress and get faster feedback.

Where should decision-making live in such a system?

Leverage self-organization as a force of life

Taylor tub

Complexity exceeds any single person’s understanding

Learning happens where the work happens

Fast adaptation requires local decisions

Self-organization means decisions are made where the team is doing the work.

Let’s summarize

When uncertainty is high, teams need

- rapid feedback,

- iterative learning,

- focused work, and

- self-organization

That’s Agile. Enjoy!