I survived theAgile Crisis
And I'm here to make sure you don't have to.
Ricardo Alfaia
São Paulo, Brazil · Working Globally
The Crises I Lived
These aren't theoretical problems. These are scars.
I watched 23 people in a daily standup. Nobody was listening. Everyone was performing.
The daily became theater
1h20min wasted. Daily. For months.
Directors competing for bonuses while 2 engineers maintained 200 systems.
Politics over people
87% incident rate. Until we changed everything.
They wanted velocity metrics. I gave them sustainable results. They almost fired me.
Challenging the status quo
Microsoft validated I was right.
Every sprint planning felt like negotiating a hostage situation.
Product Owners translating pressure, not protecting teams
Engineers became ticket machines, not problem solvers.
Reality Checks
What they say vs. what I learned
Sprint After Sprint
"We need more velocity!"
What you need is less chaos.
The Burnout Factory
"Everyone's so committed!"
Everyone's so exhausted they can't say no.
The Daily Theater
"Great collaboration!"
23 people updating Jira out loud.
Velocity Obsession
"Story points are up!"
So is technical debt and turnover.
Agile Certifications
"We're certified agile!"
You're certified at following scripts, not solving problems.
The Backlog Prison
"It's in the backlog!"
Where good ideas go to die.
The Journey
From code to chaos to clarity
Building Systems
Financial markets, e-commerce, insurance. React, Node, .NET, C#. The technical foundation.
Surviving Chaos
Major Brazilian bank. Political warfare. 200 systems, 2 people. The crucible.
The Transformation
87% incident reduction. Microsoft validation. Nearly got fired. The proof.
Sharing the Framework
Agile Reset. No more theater. No more burnout. Just sustainable results.
The Turning Point
"When Microsoft validated our approach, I realized something:The problem was never that teams weren't agile enough.The problem was that we'd turned agility into theater."
That's when Agile Reset was born. Not as a framework to add more ceremonies. But as a way to strip away the theater and get back to what matters:
- Sustainable pace over heroic sprints
- Problem solving over ticket closing
- Quality that compounds over velocity that burns
- Human dignity over productivity metrics