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Home > Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast > When Leadership Says "Just Make It Work" in Agile | Renee Troughton
Podcast: Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast
Episode:

When Leadership Says "Just Make It Work" in Agile | Renee Troughton
Category: News & Politics
Duration: 00:14:48
Publish Date: 2025-10-13 10:05:00
Description: Renee Troughton: How to Navigate Mandatory Deadlines in Scrum

Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Agile and Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes.

"I said to the CIO at the time, we're not going to hit this. In fact, we'll be... I can actually tell you, we're gonna be 3 weeks late... And he said: ‘Just make it work!’"

Renee shares a powerful story from her work on a mandatory legislative compliance project where reality clashed with executive expectations. Working with a team new to Agile, she carefully established velocity over two sprints and projected the delivery timeline. The challenge intensified when sales continued promising bespoke features to clients while the deadline remained fixed. Despite transparently communicating the team would miss the mandatory date by three weeks, leadership demanded she "just make it work" without providing solutions. Renee found herself creating a misleading burn-up chart to satisfy executive confidence, while the organization played a dangerous game of chicken—waiting for another implementer to admit delays first. This experience taught her the critical importance of courage in conversations with leaders and the need to clearly separate business decisions from development team responsibilities. Sometimes the best we can do is provide transparency and let leaders own the consequences of their choices.

In this episode, we refer to the seminal book on large projects: The Mythical Man Month, by Frederick Brooks.

Self-reflection Question: When faced with unrealistic demands from leadership, do you have the courage to maintain transparency about your team's reality, even when it means refusing to create false artifacts of confidence?

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