Recently, I conducted a LinkedIn poll asking:
First, a big thank you to everyone who participated.
Some results surprised me—especially the strong support for Daily Scrum and Sprint Planning. However, comments about these two events gave me an insight into a different way of interpreting a situation I only very briefly described (140 sign limit…). No shock that Sprint Retrospective dominated, as Agile coaches often favor it.
That said, my take differs. Here’s why, along with a thought-provoking insight from Diana Larsen that gets to the core of the challenge.
Why This Matters
You can’t implement Scrum by introducing just one event. Many found it hard to choose, and rightly so—Scrum only works as a whole.
However, organizations often resist adopting the “full package.” An Agile coach is a guide, and one of their roles is to help companies focus on key priorities. Starting something new can be overwhelming, so focusing on what matters most is crucial.
It’s not about being right
I am adding my perspective not to say what is right or wrong. Each participant likely had a unique context in mind when voting. And even if we had the same context in mind, different interventions may or may not work. The diversity of experiences is what makes these discussions rich and instructive.
That said, after seeing many organizations succeed or fail, here’s my (not so popular) opinion.
Sprint Review – Inspecting Impact is Key
If I had to choose just one Scrum event to introduce, it would be Sprint Review—the key moment where teams assess and discuss the value of their work.
Daniel put it well in his comment:
Let me illustrate this with two contrasting experiences from my career:
A Cautionary Tale: (Almost) Perfect Scrum, No Impact
In one company, all Scrum practices were meticulously followed for many years — detailed planning, strong collaboration, productive discussions, consistently delivering high-quality producing releasable increments. Technical excellence was impressive. However, a crucial element was missing: genuine user feedback.
Sprint Reviews involved management, who gave polite appreciation and occasional critiques. Developers never faced the tough reality: almost no one was using their product. Sprint Retrospectives were honest and constructive. The topic of suboptimal Sprint Reviews did appear; however, team requests didn’t lead to change. Unsurprisingly, that product no longer exists today.
A Startup Lesson: Real-World Feedback Triggers other Processes
At the beginning of my third startup, WorkHub, we had almost no processes but embraced Lean Startup principles. At one point we worked on a plan for several months and noticed the loss of a sense of progress. We recalled Steve Blank’s advice to “get out of the building.“
We paused our product development, created a testable prototype, and spent a day directly engaging potential users on trains. This wasn’t just useful to validate our assumptions—it transformed our work dynamics. We automatically had more retrospective-like conversations, developed a stronger sense of shared responsibility, and dramatically improved collaboration.
In fact, WorkHub no longer exists today either. A different challenge—ensuring that the value to paying customers outweighed the cost of service—was continuously assessed. Despite our efforts, we failed to push it into the positive realm. However, every time we received actual customer feedback, the team remained focused and learned from the process.
The Hardest but Most Valuable Step
This experience—how real-world feedback transforms all other processes—solidified my belief: the most painful yet necessary step in becoming more agile is establishing ways to obtain rapid, meaningful feedback on your work’s results.
And this is why, to me, defining intermediary results that one can receive feedback on (increments or slices) is a key discipline that isn’t discussed nearly enough. This is why I’ve written The Art of Slicing Work.
A Thought-Provoking Insight
My personal highlight was the thought-provoking perspective from Diana Larsen (co-author of the classic book: Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great).
Without a readiness to be surprised and to learn, none of the above events will have an impact. People will most likely pretend and put on a front, preventing any real discussions from taking place.
