Agile Development and Scrum at Czech Companies

Waterfall software development in the Czech Republic is slowly dying. Over the past two years we’ve observed a massive shift toward agile methodologies — and Scrum is by far the most popular choice. But switching from waterfall to Scrum isn’t just about renaming your meetings. It’s a cultural change that hurts.

Why Czech Companies Are Changing Course¶

Classical waterfall — analysis, design, implementation, testing, deployment — has a logical structure in theory. In practice, however, it leads to the customer not seeing any results for months. And when they do, they discover it’s not what they wanted. What follows is a merry-go-round of change requests, scope disputes, and frustrated teams on both sides.

Large Czech IT companies like Profinit, Unicorn, and Asseco came to this realization around 2010. Today, Scrum is the de facto standard for new projects. But smaller companies and internal IT departments at banks and insurance companies are only just getting started — and that’s exactly where we see the most mistakes.

The Most Common Mistake: Scrum Without a Product Owner¶

In a corporate environment, here’s what typically happens: management decides “we’re going agile.” The development team starts running sprints. But nobody assigns a Product Owner — a person with the mandate to prioritize the backlog. Instead, priorities are set by a steering committee that meets once a month.

The result? The team has two-week sprints, but the backlog changes once every four weeks. Half of sprint planning is wasted time, because nobody knows what’s actually important. The team gives up and reverts to pseudo-waterfall, just with shorter iterations.

Solution: The Product Owner must be a single person with real authority. Not a committee, not a coordinator. Someone who says “this is what we’re doing next sprint” and nobody overrules them.

Scrum Master Is Not a Project Manager¶

The second typical mistake: companies rename their existing project manager to Scrum Master. But these roles are fundamentally different. A project manager directs, assigns tasks, and controls. A Scrum Master facilitates, removes impediments, and protects the team.

On one project for a large bank, we encountered a “Scrum Master” who assigned tasks to individual developers during the daily standup. That is the exact opposite of how Scrum works. The team divides the work among themselves. The Scrum Master asks “what’s blocking your work?” and then removes those blockers.

Estimation: Story Points vs. Person-Days¶

Czech corporations love person-days. Reports, timesheets, utilization figures. Scrum introduces story points — a relative unit of complexity. And management hates it, because a story point can’t be directly converted to money.

Yet story points work better. When a team estimates a task at 5 story points, they’re not saying “this will take 5 days.” They’re saying “it’s roughly as complex as that thing we estimated at 5 last time.” After three sprints you know your team completes an average of 40 story points per sprint (velocity). And that’s a far more reliable forecast than any Gantt chart.

A compromise that works: the team estimates in story points, but for management the velocity is converted into a predicted completion date. A burndown chart sells Scrum better than any presentation.

Retrospective Is the Most Important Ceremony¶

Sprint planning, daily standup, review — all of these are important. But the retrospective is what makes Scrum truly agile. After each sprint the team stops and says: what worked, what didn’t, and what will we change.

In Czech companies, retrospectives are frequently skipped. “We don’t have time — we need to deliver.” That’s like saying “we don’t have time for car maintenance, we need to drive.” It works — until the engine breaks.

The best retrospectives we’ve seen use the Start–Stop–Continue format: what will we start doing, what will we stop doing, and what will we keep doing. Concrete actions, a concrete owner, reviewed at the next retro. Without that, a retrospective is just complaining over coffee.

Tools: JIRA Wins¶

When it comes to tools, Atlassian JIRA with the GreenHopper plugin (now JIRA Agile) dominates in the Czech Republic in 2012. Cards on a wall are great for small teams, but for distributed or larger teams you need a digital board.

Alternatives exist — Rally, VersionOne, Target Process — but JIRA has the strongest community in the Czech Republic and integrates with Confluence, Bamboo, and other Atlassian products. At $10 for 10 users, it’s also incredibly affordable.

Scrum in Regulated Industries¶

Banks and insurance companies have a specific problem: regulation. The Czech National Bank requires documentation, an audit trail, and formal approval processes. How do you reconcile that with Scrum?

In practice, we solve this by including regulatory requirements in the Definition of Done. A user story isn’t finished until it’s documented according to internal standards. Automated tests serve as evidence for audits. And sprint reviews invite the compliance team, who see working software every two weeks instead of once every six months.

Summary¶

Scrum works at Czech companies — but only when you do it properly. Invest in training, give the Product Owner real authority, don’t skip retrospectives, and don’t try to bend Scrum into the shape of waterfall. Cultural change is harder than technical change, but the results are worth it: faster delivery, happier customers, and motivated teams.