Why Teams Struggle to Deliver Real Value—and How to Fix It
In this post, you will find out the common reason why teams struggle to deliver real value.
The best way to ensure you’re delivering value is to work smarter, not harder.
Here’s how:
Adopt a Value-Driven Mindset:
Stop comparing yourself to other teams or competitors. Their priorities aren’t yours. Instead, focus on the Product Goal and prioritize backlog items that deliver the most value to your stakeholders. Every increment should be meaningful and aligned with your long-term vision.
Maximize Value While Minimizing Effort:
Use this principle: For every unit of effort (e.g., a story point), aim to deliver at least 5x the value.
- If delivering a feature takes 2 points of effort, ensure it provides at least 10 points of value to stakeholders. (I’m not saying it’s easy…)
- Continuously refine your process to increase this ratio as your team improves.
- Learn more about User Stories.
Don’t Reinvent the Wheel:
Many teams dismiss these ideas as “not practical for us.” Instead of saying, “This won’t work,” ask, “How could we adapt this to work in our environment?” Agile is about inspecting, adapting, and improving—not making excuses.
Example
Let’s say a team plans to deliver a new reporting feature in the next Sprint. The team estimates it will take 5 points of effort. Instead of simply delivering the feature, they take a moment to ask:
- What specific problem does this solve for the user?
- Is there a way to deliver value with less effort?
Maybe the team realizes a smaller, simpler improvement—such as exporting data to existing tools—delivers the same value at 3 points of effort. This approach delivers the outcome faster, freeing capacity for other valuable work.
Why This Works?
- Stakeholders see value faster: This builds trust and satisfaction.
- The team improves over time: Effort decreases as efficiency and understanding grow.
- You avoid burnout: Teams focus on delivering impact, not just outputs.
Next Steps for those who Struggle to Deliver Real Value!
In the next Sprint Review or Retrospective, bring this topic to the table. Discuss:
- How can we measure value better?
- Are we focusing on outcomes or just outputs?
What’s one way we can improve the value-to-effort ratio next Sprint?
Let’s focus on delivering smarter and achieving more!
P.S. – This is what it feels like when your team and stakeholders start seeing consistent, meaningful results every Sprint…
