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Hey, it’s Kushagra. Welcome to this week’s AtlasMoth drop.
Scrum moves fast.
But does it move smart?
This week, we’re zooming out on Agile from glossy plans to stiff sprints, flow killers, and glow-ups. It’s not Agile that broke the vibe. It’s the rules we stuck to.
We’re exploring what happens when the design is boxed in, why loops > launches, and how to build stuff that hits without burning the spark.
How do you really feel about Agile today? |
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We used a stiff plan.
I made each screen in PSD.
Sent it to devs.
Then hoped it would ship right.
It never did.
I hit a wall.
Found "Agile."
Blew my mind.
Tried to get my boss on board.
He said no.
So I quit.
Found a crew that lived Agile.
Sprints, squads, speed.
I was hyped.
But real quick, that hype crashed.
My spark felt boxed in.
Two weeks. One task.
No soul. No full flow.
Just bits.
I once shaped the whole thing.
Now I begged for room to tweak.
Talked shop with devs.
Fought for each choice.
Made me miss the big pic.
Missed the craft.
Missed the vibe.
Agile moved fast.
But I felt stuck.

I arrived at my new job full of hope like Anne Hathaway in “The Devil Wears Prada", just to discover that it wasn’t as perfect as I had imagined.
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But hey, not all bad.
With time, I saw the good.
Dev chats made things move fast.
They had hacks I missed.
Big brain stuff.
Fixing slip-ups mid-sprint?
A breeze.
Turns out, the beef was not with Agile.
It was with Scrum.
Scrum is all go, no flow.
Speed kills the spark.
No room to play or test.
And the worst part?
No talk with real folks.
No clue if the thing works.
So nah, not Agile.
The grind came from its rules.
Good news?
Agile says: "People > plans."
So we changed it.
One team chat at a time.
We mixed in some Think work.
Some Lean vibes.
Made space for the art.
Now, I vibe with Kanban.
Lean too.
Loose, chill, smooth.
Scrum? Not so much.
Too stiff. Too tight.
Built by devs, for devs.
This all kicked off in 2001.
Seventeen devs dropped the Agile code.
A short read.
Worth your time.

How I imagine the Agile Manifesto was created.
Real talk: Agile and design should vibe.
Iterate. Own your craft. Stay loose.
That’s all pure design stuff.
But the mess starts when we jam design into stiff frames.
The Agile Manifesto?
It’s chill.
No rules. No stand-ups. No backlogs.
Just values.
Scrum? That’s where the grind came from.
Scrum dropped in the 90s.
No phones.
No swipes.
Just plain fonts and boxy HTML.
Dev-led builds.
Design came last, to add gloss.
But now?
Design runs deep.
Not just "make it cute."
It’s the full path.
From "Who’s this for?"
To "Did it work?"
Agile still fits.
The roots build, tweak, grow, and sync with what we do.
But Scrum?
Scrum was made to ship, not learn.
No space to ask, "Why?"
No plan to test with folks who click the thing.
Good UX needs time to dig.
You need space to test, to fail, to tweak.
That’s why Lean UX hits better.
It blends feel with flow.
Think fast. Build smart.
Design leads, not trails.
But here’s the twist:
No plan works if the team sleeps on the design.
If no one gets the worth, no method saves it.
Now let’s talk speed.
Scrum loves speed.
Push. Ship. Repeat.
But fast ≠ food.
Back in the day, the Brits paid for dead snakes.
Folks bred cobras for cash.
The plan backfired.
That’s what bad goals do.
Same with Scrum.
If you chase "done,"
You skip why.
You feed the build beast,
but starve the end goal.
We don’t need more stuff.
We need stuff that hits.
Less rush.
More thought.
Less output.
More outcomes.

Designers can feel like Keanu Reeves in “Speed”, without a chance to slow down and reflect on the problem they are trying to solve.
Scrum runs on time.
But that clock kills deep thought.
Design needs space.
We poke. We test. We roam.
Tight sprints?
They push us to play it safe.
Pick the first "meh" fix.
Ship fast, not smart.
That’s not bold.
That’s blend-in.
We should track wins, not speed.
Did we help folks?
Did we move the goal?
That’s what counts.
To spark new stuff,
we need more than pace.
We need time to loop, tweak, and grow.
Less rush.
More real.
Switch the lens.
Drop the "how fast?"
Start with "Did it work?"
No time for tests? That’s a red flag.
You can’t say a thing works
if no one who uses it says so.
No proof = just a guess.
Each idea is a bet.
You test, or you waste.
Build the wrong thing?
You lose time, code, and trust.
That’s what discovery is for.
Talk to real folks.
Cut weak ideas.
Back what works.
But here’s the catch
Most Scrum teams skip the test.
They think chats with users slow things down.
Truth?
It speeds things up.
Bad ideas die fast.
Good ones grow.
Worse yet?
Teams run one big study up front.
Then stop.
That’s just old-school Waterfall in disguise.
No loop. No tweak. Just... hope.
And testing last? Nah.
That’s just a stamp.
“Looks fine, ship it.”
Too late to fix.
No time to change.
So they don’t.
Real work means testing as you build.
Each sprint. Each step.
Learn. Check.
Fix fast.
Or fail slow.

Clippy, the infamous Microsoft assistant, is the result of a product without user feedback.
Research isn’t just a check.
It’s not, “Let’s scan each task.”
It’s: “Let’s talk to folks. Learn. Tweak. Grow.”
It’s proof > gut.
Facts > vibes.
Good work is backed, not guessed.
If “done” just means “it runs,”
We miss the real win.
Flip that.
Make “done” mean:
Users saw it. Used it. Loved it.
That shift makes space for real talks,
Not just rushed drops.
Wanna go deep on this?
Read Continuous Discovery Habits.
It nails how to blend learn + build
In Agile flow.
Now let’s talk loops.
Design in sprints?
Feels like we ship half the thing.
Not proud. Not done.
And here’s the rub
Scrum says: ship small, tweak with feedback.
But teams just... ship small.
No tweak.
No fix.
No loop.
Why?
Growth > craft.
More > good.
But here’s the truth:
No loop, no glow-up.
You can’t make gold in one go.

Iteration is what takes you from Charmander to Charizard.
Digital stuff is messy.
It shifts. It grows.
You can’t plan it all.
That’s why we loop.
We build, test, learn, and tweak.
No loop? No glow-up.
Skip the loop,
and you ask too much from the jump.
No one nails it on try.
Not cool. Not fair. Not smart.
Iterate or stay stuck.
That’s the game.
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Dev and design should vibe.
Best case? They team up like pros.
Design runs on gut.
Dev runs on logic.
That clash?
It’s gold.
Think Spock and Kirk.
One feels. One thinks.
Both win.
Great teams need both.

Spock and Captain Kirk from “Star Trek”.
Fresh minds = sharp work.
Teams stuck in silos?
They drown in docs, pings, and meh calls.
But when folks link up, share takes, clash views.
That’s when blind spots drop.
And smart stuff comes out.
Real flow means flex.
Agile ain't a script.
It’s not “stick to the plan.”
It’s “make the plan fit you.”
Tweak the rules.
Try Lean UX.
Mix it up.
Just stick to the core:
Loop fast. Talk lots. Build better.
Grow the thing and the team.
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