Five Agile Practices

As Agile continues to mature, new practices naturally emerge. While this evolution is healthy, some practices take teams away from true Agility. These are often referred to as Agile anti-patterns—ways of working that appear Agile on the surface but undermine the core principles.

Here are five of the most common anti-patterns and how to resolve them.

1. Long-Term Planning

Scrum teams, when following the Scrum Guide, generally think one or two Sprints ahead. There is no requirement for long-term planning in Scrum. However, many organisations have commitments linked to quarterly or annual delivery timelines, and so naturally push teams toward longer-term planning.

A common example is PI Planning / Big Room Planning, where teams align around priorities and goals for the upcoming quarter. This can be useful if treated correctly.
The problem arises when managers treat these plans as fixed commitments, slipping back into command-and-control behaviours and holding teams rigidly accountable to dates.

The solution lies in the Agile Manifesto value:
“Responding to change over following a plan.”

And the related principle:
“Welcome changing requirements, even late in development.”

Long-term plans should remain forecasts, not commitments, and should evolve as priorities change.

2. Scrum Master as the Sole Facilitator

A common industry habit is to assume the Scrum Master must facilitate every Scrum event. While a Scrum Master can facilitate, the Scrum Guide simply says they ensure events are productive, positive, and kept within the timebox.
It does not say they must run them.

There are good reasons to share facilitation:

1. Team members develop confidence and facilitation skills, increasing overall maturity.

2. The Scrum Master avoids becoming a bottleneck.

3. Events don’t collapse when the Scrum Master is on leave.

Scrum Masters can strengthen their teams by coaching others to facilitate, rotating responsibilities, and building capability across the team.

3. Stakeholders Joining the Events

Stakeholders are strongly encouraged to attend the Sprint Review, but their presence in other Scrum events can be harmful.

I’ve seen Daily Scrums slowly turn into status meetings as stakeholders expect updates on every work item.
I’ve also seen Retrospectives shut down because the team no longer feels psychologically safe to speak openly.

Both the Scrum Master and Product Owner need to help stakeholders understand:

• The Sprint Review is their event.

• Other events are for the Scrum Team only.

• Transparency can be achieved by improving visibility of work and metrics, without disrupting Scrum events.

When stakeholders understand the purpose of each event, interactions become healthier and more productive.

4. Expanding the Definition of Ready and Definition of Done

The Definition of Ready (DoR) helps guide the team on what items are ready for a Sprint.
The Definition of Done (DoD) ensures completed work meets the standard required to be part of the increment.

The problem comes when these definitions start to include phrases like:

• “Solution Architect review”

• “Management sign-off”

• “Approval from XYZ committee”

At this point the team is drifting back to Waterfall, re-introducing phased gatekeeping before work can progress.

To stay Agile:

• Keep DoR and DoD lightweight.

• Avoid turning them into bureaucratic checkpoints.

• Uphold Agile values of collaboration, flexibility and flow.

5. When Tools Become King

Tools such as Jira or Trello support transparency and visibility, and are fully aligned with Agile principles.
The issue arises when teams focus more on tool hygiene than collaboration—Scrum Masters acting as “Agile Police”, obsessively cleaning data and enforcing rules that distract from delivering value.

This loses sight of the first value of the Agile Manifesto:
“Individuals and interactions over processes and tools.”

Tools should support teamwork, not replace it.

Conclusion

Agile will continue to evolve, and new practices will emerge. But to keep Agile truly Agile, teams must regularly look back to the foundations: the Agile Manifesto, its 12 Principles, and the guidance in the Scrum Guide.

By recognising and addressing anti-patterns early, teams can maintain focus on collaboration, flexibility, and delivering value.