What Curling Can Teach Us About Agile - Mike Cohn

With the Olympics underway, I’ve been watching a few events I don’t normally pay much attention to—like curling.
At first glance, curling looks almost comically simple. Someone slides a stone down the ice. A couple of teammates run alongside it frantically sweeping the ice with brooms. The stone glides… and somehow ends up exactly where they want it.
But the more you watch, the more you realize curling isn’t about making a perfect throw.
It’s about making adjustments after the throw.
And that’s what makes it a great analogy for agile.
For a long time, traditional software development treated projects as if teams only had one chance to get everything right. The goal was to write the requirements document, create the design, then implement everything exactly according to plan. If you did enough planning up front, the thinking went, you could get it right the first time.
The problem is that software development rarely works that way.
Even if you have smart people and a solid plan, you’re still operating on uncertain “ice.” Customers don’t always know what they need until they see it. Stakeholders often describe what they want in ways that are incomplete, or ambiguous, or shaped by assumptions that turn out to be wrong. And developers—no matter how experienced—can misunderstand what they hear.
That’s not incompetence. That’s just reality. Communication has friction. Uncertainty is built in.
In curling, the team knows that too. They can’t control the ice. They can’t assume the stone will behave exactly the same way every time. Conditions vary. The surface isn’t perfectly predictable. If the players just stood there and watched the stone slide, hoping it ends up in the bullseye, they’d lose most of their matches.
So instead, they sweep.
Sweeping doesn’t completely change the outcome. It doesn’t teleport the stone to the target. But it nudges the stone’s speed and direction. It helps the team adjust to what’s happening in real time.
That’s what agile does for software development.
The plan is like the initial throw. It matters. You need to aim. Once the stone is moving, you don’t get to stop everything and start over—you can only respond. But agile recognizes that aiming once isn’t enough.
The best teams don’t aim once—they keep aiming.
They build something small, show it, listen, learn, and adjust. They use feedback to steer the product toward what users truly need—not just what they said they needed, but what they meant. The known needs and the unstated ones.
In other words, agile isn’t about getting everything right up front.
It’s about staying close enough to reality to make course corrections while they’re still cheap.
One of the biggest mindset shifts agile asks of us is to stop treating change as failure. In the old model, change meant the plan was wrong. It meant rework. It meant someone made a mistake.
But in agile, change is often a sign that learning is happening.
Curling teams don’t apologize for sweeping. They don’t view it as an admission that the throw was bad. Sweeping is part of the game. It’s what turns a decent throw into a great result.
Agile teams do the same thing. They don’t just launch work and hope it glides perfectly to the finish line. They inspect, adapt, and steer as they go.
That’s how you succeed with agile.
And in the meantime, enjoy the Olympics.

How to connect with AgileDad:

- [website] ⁠https://www.agiledad.com/⁠

- [instagram] ⁠https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/⁠

- [facebook] ⁠https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/⁠

- [Linkedin] ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/

The Scrum That Actually Worked

In 1996, Chrysler — a Fortune 500 company with resources to hire the best talent and buy the best tools — had spent two years and millions of dollars building payroll software.

It hadn’t printed a single paycheck.

The project was called C3: Chrysler Comprehensive Compensation. It was supposed to unify payroll for 87,000 employees across multiple divisions. It had executive sponsorship from CIO Susan Unger. It used Smalltalk, an object-oriented programming language that promised to solve exactly the kind of tangled legacy problems Chrysler faced.

How to connect with AgileDad:

- [website] ⁠https://www.agiledad.com/⁠

- [instagram] ⁠https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/⁠

- [facebook] ⁠https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/⁠

- [Linkedin] ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/

The Concept of Scrum Fluid Teams

Fluid Scrum Teams are a concept introduced by Willem-Jan Ageling, where a stable group of individuals (e.g., 20 members) self-organize into smaller, temporary teams each Sprint to address specific objectives. This approach allows for flexibility and adaptability, as team compositions change based on the current needs of the projects at hand.

How to connect with AgileDad:

- [website] ⁠https://www.agiledad.com/⁠

- [instagram] ⁠https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/⁠

- [facebook] ⁠https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/⁠

- [Linkedin] ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/

The February Blanket - A Story of Mae

Every February in the little mountain town of Silver Hollow, winter wrapped everything in silence. The trees stood bare, the sky hung gray, and people rushed from their cars to their front doors, shoulders hunched against the cold.

But one February, a woman named Mae decided she was tired of waiting for spring to make things warm again. Her husband had passed away three winters before, and the evenings had grown painfully quiet. So she picked up her old knitting needles — the same ones he’d bought her years ago when money was tight but love was plenty — and began to knit.

Every night after dinner, she’d sit by the window and watch snowflakes tumble through the streetlight glow. One stitch became ten, ten became a hundred. Over the weeks, the yarn took shape — a thick, colorful blanket big enough for a stranger to wrap up in. When it was finished, she folded it neatly, wrote a small note — “If you’re cold, take this. If you’re lonely, you’re not alone.” — and left it on the park bench downtown.

The next morning, the blanket was gone. Mae smiled, imagining someone out there a little warmer because of her. That night, she cast on a new blanket.

How to connect with AgileDad:

- [website] ⁠https://www.agiledad.com/⁠

- [instagram] ⁠https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/⁠

- [facebook] ⁠https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/⁠

- [Linkedin] ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/

Are Agile Frameworks Really Agile? - A Blind Article Review

Have you ever read an article before and just scratched your head and wondered to yourself... WHY?

How to connect with AgileDad:

- [website] ⁠https://www.agiledad.com/⁠

- [instagram] ⁠https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/⁠

- [facebook] ⁠https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/⁠

- [Linkedin] ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/

How Much Are Meetings Hurting You? - Mike Cohn

I’m emailing because we keep seeing the same issue surface in different organizations, even where teams are experienced and committed.
If something isn’t working, it will usually show up in your meetings first. That’s because work habits show up in real meetings, under real pressure.
If planning, reviews, retrospectives, and daily scrums aren’t working, agile won’t work. That’s where priorities get set, decisions get made, and trade-offs happen (or don’t).
After seeing capable teams benefit from an objective view of their meetings, we designed:

Meeting Observation & Recommendations (MOR)

• It isn’t more training (many teams don’t need ‘more’ training; they need direction)
• It doesn’t require your team to step away from work
• And it’s not about catching people out

It’s about removing the constraints that are holding your team back.
You can read about how it works here:
 Meeting Observation & Recommendations
This is a fast way to see what’s actually getting in the way, and find out what to change next.
If you’re accountable for delivery and feel like agile should be helping more than it is, this might be worth a look.

Agile Meetings Playbook:

https://agiledad.com/documents

How to connect with AgileDad:

- [website] ⁠https://www.agiledad.com/⁠

- [instagram] ⁠https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/⁠

- [facebook] ⁠https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/⁠

- [Linkedin] ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/

The Three Paths Scrum Opens

I have watched teams celebrate their “perfect Sprint.” Every ceremony attended. Every artifact updated. Every role filled. And yet their product no closer to solving the user’s problem than it was three Sprints ago. They’d mistaken the map for the journey.

How to connect with AgileDad:

- [website] ⁠https://www.agiledad.com/⁠

- [instagram] ⁠https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/⁠

- [facebook] ⁠https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/⁠

- [Linkedin] ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/

The Agile Manifesto - 2026

Please visit:

https://agiledad.com/documents

to download your very own copy!

How to connect with AgileDad:

- [website] ⁠https://www.agiledad.com/⁠

- [instagram] ⁠https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/⁠

- [facebook] ⁠https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/⁠

- [Linkedin] ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/

The Heart That Outlived Time - The Story of Valentines

Imagine ancient Rome, nearly two thousand years ago. Streets echo with the clang of armor, the scent of incense, and the whispers of love forbidden.

There lived a humble priest named Valentinus. He wasn’t a rebel or a warrior—just a man who believed deeply in love. At that time, Emperor Claudius II had outlawed marriage for young soldiers, claiming that single men fought better than those bound by family. But Valentinus saw love as sacred, not sinful. So, in secret, beneath flickering candlelight, he performed weddings for young couples who refused to let the emperor’s decree define their hearts.

Each ceremony was an act of defiance—and of faith. Eventually, Valentinus was caught and imprisoned. But even behind bars, he kept sharing kindness. The legend says that before his execution, he befriended the jailer’s blind daughter and sent her a note signed, “From your Valentine.” A gesture so simple, so human, it echoed through centuries.

How to connect with AgileDad:

- [website] ⁠https://www.agiledad.com/⁠

- [instagram] ⁠https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/⁠

- [facebook] ⁠https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/⁠

- [Linkedin] ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/

How To Deal With Difficult People In A Group?

I can only + 💯 this. Expecting a difficult group often creates one. Your body language, attitude, and language signal what you expect. Participants pick up on that quickly and start protecting themselves. Those signals then reinforce each other, making the group harder to work with.

On a sidenote. What is a “difficult person” anyway?

• Someone asking many questions. That might be curiosity, not resistance.
• Someone not willing to participate. Perhaps instructions aren’t clear.
• Someone constantly seeking attention. Enthusiasm with no outlet
• Someone whispering to someone. Maybe there’s no space for interaction.
• Someone interrupting you. Perhaps you talk too much and too long?

How to connect with AgileDad:

- [website] ⁠https://www.agiledad.com/⁠

- [instagram] ⁠https://www.instagram.com/agile_coach/⁠

- [facebook] ⁠https://www.facebook.com/RealAgileDad/⁠

- [Linkedin] ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/leehenson/