Are we too soft?

The #1 Reason Scrum Masters, Agile Trainers, and Agile Coaches Fail: Too Soft!

In the late 2000s and early 2010s, I was determined to bring Agile awareness to the PMI – Project Management community. I attended and presented a wide variety of chapters and events.

As the influence went slowly, I stopped around the mid-2010s. I decided to be more patient with the PMI community and give them more space for their Agile evolution.

During that time, I met Neal Witten. He’s a well-respected author, speaker, and consultant in the project management space. One of his famous, at least to me, presentation and writing themes was entitled—The #1 Reason Why Project Managers Fail: Too Soft.

It was a highly controversial topic at the time. I attended a presentation locally in North Carolina, and I recall that many project managers in the audience were offended by his depiction of their failures. I wasn’t close enough to the PM industry to validate Neal’s view, but he presented in such an authoritarian fashion that it all sounded quite plausible.

Neal’s article on the topic is available on the PMI website. It’s a one-page PDF and well worth reading.

Here’s a section from the article—

Let’s look at some examples of project manager actions (or inactions) that are indicative of too-soft behavior. Do you recognize familiar behavior here?

· Holds back from providing constructive criticism to project members

· Avoids escalating to higher levels of management project-related problems that are at an apparent impasse for resolution

· Unwilling to passionately defend the right project plan to the project sponsor, executives, or client

· Puts off insisting on and driving good project management practices throughout the project

· Delays asking for help when needed

· Lax in holding project members accountable for their commitments and actions

· Takes on too much work instead of assigning tasks to the appropriate project members

· Remiss in seeking out and obtaining needed project management training of both hard and soft skills

· Evades taking a position on an issue rather than alienating project members

· Avoids or excessively delays making key decisions.

Project success is about results: delivering a product that satisfies the customer and offers the organization an appropriate return on investment. The project manager’s job is to lead the project’s members in the pursuit of a successful project and product. In most cases, a project’s success is directly related to the impact the project manager had on the project team throughout the project.

This theme clearly had an impact on me since it’s stuck with me since it’s 1997 publication.

Agile 2025 Conference

I was lucky enough to be invited to speak at the conference this year. I went to Denver for the three-day event, connecting with old friends and making some new ones. The hallway conversations and the reconnection hugs were the highlight for me.

One of the consistent conversation themes was around—

1. What is the future of agile, Agile, and Agile Coaching?

2. Will we still have jobs?

3. What shifts do we need to make to be considered valuable?

4. What should we stop doing? Start doing?

5. It seems as if the Golden Age of Agile Coaching is over. Is it?

6. What is AI's impact on the roles of Product Owner, Scrum Master, RTE, and Agile Coach?

People were looking for my thoughts.

I’ve been noodling on these topics over the past few years, and I have had discoveries and have continuously shared my evolving thoughts. But I think I came to a clear and succinct conclusion at the conference. I began to share it in the hallway and private conversations. I’ll try to capture it this way.

The Agile Mindset is centered, among other things, on servant leadership and autonomous teams. That is, roles such as Scrum Master, Agile Coach, and RTE must take a softer view toward their teams. From an Agile Coaching perspective, that’s why so many coaches lean so heavily into the Professional Coaching stance; it amplifies this stance.

Since this was the first Agile Conference co-sponsored with PMI, quite a few Project Managers were in attendance. Collaborating with them reminded me of the Project Manager Mindset and Neal’s article. In my own words, it’s driving business results/outcomes, personal accountability, clear reporting of progress, and maintaining focus. To me, a distinct mindset is associated with Project Managers; let’s call it a PM Mindset.

For us, the balanced mindset of tomorrow needs to be an aggregate of the two—Agile Mindset and PM Mindset. In the context of this article, I’d couch it as Agile-Soft + PM-Hard Mindsets. So, what if we apply this thinking to Neal’s examples?

Applying Neal’s “Too Soft” to Our Context

I’ve taken the liberty of editing Neal’s examples to reflect more of our Agile context—

Let’s look at some examples of Scrum Master, Coach, and RTE actions (or inactions) that are indicative of too-soft behavior. Do you recognize familiar behavior here?

· Holds back from providing constructive criticism to the team.

· Avoids escalating to higher levels of management project-related problems that are at an apparent impasse for resolution.

· Unwilling to passionately defend the teams project or product development or value stream or train plan to the project sponsor, executives, or client.

· Puts off insisting on and driving good Agile practices throughout the project.

· Delays asking for help when needed (having mentor(s) and coaches).

· Lax in holding team members accountable for their commitments and actions.

· Takes on too much work instead of engaging with team members.

· Remiss in seeking out and obtaining needed Agile training of both hard and soft skills.

· Evades taking a position on an issue rather than alienating team members.

· Avoids or excessively delays making key decisions.

As an exercise, what other too-soft behaviors have I missed? Please add them via comments.

Conclusion

All of this is to say that I see Neal’s point today. In a nutshell, I think—

The #1 Reason Scrum Masters, Agile Trainers, and Agile Coaches Fail: Too Soft!

It’s as simple as that.

Sure, it’s a balancing act and situational. But in many situations, I want you to consider being harder. Much harder!

And, no, I’m not saying that you must be a brilliant jerk or an asshole in being a leader within your teams, your organization, or with your clients. But what I am saying is that you must have some skin-in-the-game. Period!

Stay agile, and a bit harder, my friends,

Bob.

1. https://www.wcu.edu/pmi/1998/N97DEC15.PDF

2. https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/project-failure-4955

3. https://nealwhittengroup.com/

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