Dealing with Difficult or Skeptical Teams

Not all teams embrace agile transformation with enthusiasm.

As an Agile Coach, you are likely to encounter teams that are resistant, skeptical or uncollaborative.

They may refuse to listen, be dismissive of suggestions, or simply not seem interested in improving. Addressing this situation requires patience, empathy and strategy.

It is not about imposing change, but about understanding the roots of resistance and gradually gaining the team's trust by demonstrating the value of the new ways of working.

Listening and Understanding the Causes of Resistance

The most important rule when dealing with a difficult team is to listen actively to understand the underlying causes of their resistance. The reasons can be varied:

Work overload: They may feel that any process change is an additional burden that will disrupt their already overwhelming workflow.

Fear of change: They may be comfortable with the current way of working and fear the unknown or loss of familiarity.

Bad past experiences ("Agile allergy"): They may have had a previous negative experience with poor Agile implementations, associating "Agile" or "Scrum" with chaos or inefficiency.

Showing genuine understanding of their issues and concerns, listening more than you talk, is the first step to building respect and openness.

Ask questions to understand why current processes are the way they are, differentiating between real needs and historical baggage.

Gaining Trust: Start Small, Demonstrate Value 🤏

Rather than proposing a radical transformation from the outset, it is more effective to start with small steps.

Suggest a small, manageable change that you know will bring clear and rapid value to the team, without requiring a large initial effort or commitment.

For example, slightly improve the way they do their stand-up, help them set up their management tool (such as Jira) more efficiently, or make it easier to solve a particular problem that affects them.

By demonstrating that you can help them in a practical and respectful way, you will begin to gain their trust and respect.

Once they see the benefits of small changes, they will be more willing to listen to more meaningful proposals.

Avoid Agile Jargon If It Generates Resistance

If you detect that the team has a negative reaction ("allergy") to specific terms like "Agile," "Scrum," or "User Stories" due to bad past experiences, a useful trick is to avoid using that jargon.

It's not the name that's important, but the underlying mindset and principles. You can replace the terms with more neutral descriptions or