Surviving Agilefall

Sound Familiar?

Sprint planning where scope was fixed before the meeting started
Story points converted to man-days because finance needs a date
Completed work sitting in QA while management asks if you're even on the project
Retrospectives that surface the same problems every sprint and change nothing
An "Agile transformation" that left how work actually gets done untouched

Here's the pattern: Agile vocabulary on top, Waterfall assumptions underneath. Welcome to Agilefall.

Not a Manifesto. A Monday-Morning Guide.

This book is not about implementing Agile correctly. Plenty of excellent books already do that. It is about what to do in the company you actually work for: the one with capital budgets that lock scope months ahead, sprint commitments that cannot move, and a QA sign-off gate at the end of every iteration.

I learned the hard way that fighting the system because I was right about process did not fix the system. What helped was operating inside it without losing my mind, keeping my work visible, and nudging the environment incrementally when the opening appeared.

Every technique here has been tried in messy, politically complicated, QA-at-the-end environments. None of it requires your whole organization to agree before you start.

What You'll Learn

Recognize Agilefall

Diagnostic phrases, ceremony-without-benefit patterns, and why the hybrid persists even when everyone knows something is off.

Stay Visible as a Developer

Practical ways to show progress when your work disappears into QA and rollover becomes the normal state of the board.

Navigate the Ceremonies

Sprint planning, estimation theater, and retros that actually have a chance of moving one lever at a time.

Partner with QA

Build a better working relationship with the team that holds your stories at the end of every sprint.

Understand the Budget Trap

Why finance and roadmaps create the pressure you feel, and how to work with managers who are responding rationally to incentives they inherited.

Move the Needle

Incremental improvements that do not require blowing up the process first, plus a closing story about a project that went right.

You Will Not Fix the Organization Alone

Make your daily work more sustainable in the process you have today
Keep contributions visible when the board tells the wrong story
Push back and manage up without making yourself the process villain
Protect the team from death-march schedules where you can
Ship something that just works when conditions finally align

Agilefall is neither fish nor fowl, but it is very common. This book is your field guide for surviving it.

About the Author

Michael D. Callaghan has spent 30+ years in software development at HP, Compaq, Dell, Disney, and startups.

He writes practical non-fiction for developers and tech professionals, including Slow Down to Get Ahead and P-AI-R Programming.