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Please use the region selectorEmanuele Passera at the top of the website if you are purchasing from outside the UK.Project Manager and Software Engineer
Note: *All prices exclusive of VAT.“Sometimes the organization isn’t ready for agile”

Choose how you want to studyThe most common challenge I usually face during a transition to agile is when the organization isn’t ready for the application of agile.

The second challenge is that it is not always easy for the business side of a company to engage. Choose delivery format: Agile project management

simply cannot fit every organization. They already need to have the correct enterprise environmental factors in place to apply an agile approach successfully. Alternatively, you must receive strong commitment from senior management. “Working in different time zones can be difficult”Instructor-ledDistributed teams are becoming the norm within

agile projects . However, I sometimes find working with a distributed team very challenging. Coordinate meetings or concurrent work in different time zones can be difficult and not always feasible.Self-pacedThe time zones problem can be eased with tele/videoconference tools and distributing necessary common work in a geographically sustainable way (contiguous time zones). In my experience, it is impossible to avoid some out of work call. A little sacrifice and good will is required.

Moreover, distributed teams tend to have less sense of belonging. The sense of belonging is hard to create, but I have seen that even a couple of face-to-face meetings can do the trick. Distributed teams tend to work together in a better way if the members know each other personally.

There is no “one size fits all” approach.08 Jun - 09 JunStill, I believe distributed teams are a great opportunity. We are able to reach, engage and work side by side with the best talents from all around the world.

“Team members can be scared of failure”Better Business Cases Foundation Course (Online)In my experience, estimations are always tricky. People tend to fear being tied to something that could easily be wrong.

To make this easier I believe that you should create an environment based on trust and respect, in which people are allowed to make mistakes. In a trusted environment, everybody is eager to commit themselves to an estimation. This is also true for managing issues with honesty and accountability. In an environment based on trust and respect, everybody is eager to assume responsibilities. £1,899Sprints need to be kept short enough so that they won’t have a big impact on the project if they fail. In my opinion, it’s better to abort a sprint that to waste money in producing something wrong.

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See all datesBetter Business Cases Foundation Course (Online)Andrea Fryrear

Speaker, Author, Agile Marketing Consultant £1,614“We can’t mess up or the Scrum Police will come and take us away” I think with £1,899Scrum

in particular there’s a fear of doing it “wrong,” especially among marketers. We have a sense that it’s a sacred way of working that we can’t mess up or the Scrum Police will come and take us away. But really every team — dev, Enrol nowIT , or marketing — makes adjustments as they go along. That’s the whole point of continuous improvement. “Marketers sometimes don’t play well with others” On marketing teams you nearly always get one hold out, someone who just doesn’t truck with this new-fangled way of doing things. They’re actually the most dangerous, because they aren’t so opposed that they speak up, they just dig in their heels and quietly hold up the whole team.

Marketers sometimes don’t play well with others. We like to get credit for our work, and with it’s all about the team. If there are team members like this, you’ve got to work extra hard to praise their individual impact in a one-on-one setting so they feel appreciated and validated. However, the primary emphasis outside those cheerleading sessions remains on the team’s achievements and problems.

I don’t know if conflict is more common on marketing teams than on dev teams, but the Superman complex that many marketers harbour can definitely get in the way of a team-centric approach and cause some friction. I find that marketers can often lack trust in the agile process. They sometimes have a hard time believing it’s really going to work, or that it’s really going to do all the great things they’ve heard about. A couple of iterations in, and that usually goes away.

“Managing relationships with freelancers and agencies”

There are skill gaps that marketers are accustomed to filling with freelancers and/or agencies, so if those relationships start to interfere with the team’s ability to successfully complete sprints, they will become a challenge that needs to be addressed.Better Business Cases Foundation self-paced onlineIn my case, outside interference is far and away the most common cause of sprint failure. Executive/stakeholder “emergencies” combined with demands from other departments are the bane of just about every agile marketing team I know.

“Creatives tend to struggle with estimations” £699Creatives definitely have more trouble estimating. Sometimes it takes them half a day to complete an article, and other times they struggle with it for three or four days. It’s a legitimate problem, and one that we typically solve by relying on data — how long does it usually take them — and communicating heavily if it looks like they’re going to miss that mark.

Choosing the best estimation method has also been particularly difficult in my experience — we’ve tried t-shirt sizes, Fibonacci, and even hours, and there isn’t one that seems to work for everybody. It’s just a matter of trial and error, finding the method that reflects how a team thinks. Getting tasks and stories down to standard sizes really helps too.Enrol now“Snacks, chocolate, or beer help to keep meetings varied” I often experience problems with employee engagement during daily Scrum meetings. This can happen particularly if part of the team (the content marketers, for example) are involved with projects that don’t touch the other team members. It’s hard to stay focused when you believe that someone’s updates aren’t going to affect you. We’ve tried using a more Kanban-style stand up where the discussion centres on planning and strategizing for the day, rather than the traditional 3-part yesterday/today/block structure, which seems to help. As a Scrum Master

I take great pains to vary the format of meetings without changing their objectives, particularly with retrospectives. Asking different questions, using different conversation starters, and just basically being creative helps people look forward to them. I also recommend bribery via snacks, chocolate, or beer. Scrum Master Martin Wickman

Not ready to book?Senior IT Consultant Developer and Agile Coach

See how the course works - “Too trusting of early estimates”free previewIt’s hard to accurately estimate software tasks. Really hard. Organizations often request estimates that span months or even longer. In my experience, new development teams can estimate a couple of days’ work with precision, a week with some luck and maybe two weeks with some dignity still intact. More than that, and we’re entering unknown territory and are pretty much guaranteed to be wrong. That’s just how it is and we need to accept that. Unfortunately, estimates are often given as deadlines to the customer which then expects the team to deliver on the mark.

But the nice thing here is that self-organizing teams do become better with time and practice. Give them two-three sprints, allow them to fail, allow them to grow and allow them to learn. After a while, estimates will get better and the team’s velocity becomes stable enough to make more educated projections.

Need training for your team?Note the word projection here. The idea is to be able to say something like: ”We’re confident that we can finish these 20 stories, and we’re 60% certain that we can complete 25 stories, but it’s near impossible to finish

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all 40 stories”. Now the organization can make real business decisions based on reasonable projections. “Skimping on retrospectives”

Scrum teams run retrospective meetings. It goes like this: Sit around for a while. Talk some. Vote on some items. Get back to work. Done.

Better Business Cases Foundation helped me understand how to structure compelling, evidence-based cases that decision-makers actually read.Sorry, but that won’t cut it.

Sarah P., Finance Business PartnerYou see, the only way to improve is to get honest feedback and then act on it. That’s how we can figure out better ways to work and avoid making the same mistakes again. Retrospective meetings are created for that reason – to improve how your team works by looking back at what happened and then decide how to change based on that.

OverviewSkipping this part is one of the main reasons team fail. It’s worth spending some time learning about this. Your team will thank you for it!

Better Business Cases Foundation course gives you a clear understanding of the Five Case Model so you can develop robust, evidence-based business cases for public sector investment.“Not understanding the process”

What you will gainLots of project managers fresh out of school (or just, well, old-school) don’t understand what

Understand the structure of the Five Case Modelagile
Recognise different types of business case and when to use them is about. What I see is the tendency to simply map known concepts with this weird Scrum thing and then carry on as if it’s business as usual.
See how business cases support better investment decisionsSo daily Scrum meeting becomes daily status meeting, product owner becomes
Learn the key stages in developing a spending proposalproject manager

Who this course is for; stories equals tasks; team members becomes interchangeable resources; sprints becomes schedules and estimates turn into hours and deadlines on a spread sheet, and so on. The result is disaster.It’s easy to fix though. All it takes is just one hour.

Project, programme and portfolio professionalsPrint out a copy of the Scrum guide and read it. It’s like ten pages of text. Ten measly pages. It’s not a hard read. It can be a bit scary at first, but not hard. Just do it. Please.
Senior Responsible Owners and sponsors“Teams need guidance to reach awesomeness”
Finance, procurement and commercial specialists All teams have to pass through a bunch of phases on their journey to greatness. These phases are called forming, storming, norming and performing. Long story short: forming is when they meet and everything is new and exciting. After some time, the team enters the dreaded storming phase. This is where the struggle for power and control happens. People show distrust, disagreement and form alliances. It can be nasty.
Analysts and officers who review or support business casesWhat happens now is they start bouncing back and forth between the forming and storming phase. You see, as soon as they get to the storming phase, people tend to back off and move back into the forming phase again — the safety zone. And the cycle repeats itself…

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The tribe assumed that if they build planes themselves, the Allies would return so the tribe began building planes out of whatever they had available, usually sticks and branches. Organizations often form cargo cults. They adopt Interactive content & workbookScrum

, but instead of doing anything differently, they simply relabel existing meetings and processes with Scrum nomenclature.12-month accessHere’s a common example. Instead of calling it a status meeting, we’ll call it a stand up. It’ll continue to be 30 minutes, but we’ll have more of them, and we’ll stand up when we do.

“Many shops who claim to be agile but release only two or three times a year”Learners who prefer flexibility & self-study

I met Jeff Sutherland, the co-creator of Scrum, several months ago while he was in Silicon Valley. I could sense his frustration when he talked about many shops who claim to be agile but release only two or three times a year.Engaging, interactive e-learningPart of the beauty of Scrum is that we deliver working software at the end of every sprint, which can be anywhere from a week to four weeks long. We do so because we inspire great conversations with our customers when we give them something they can touch and interact.

About our e-learning designAdditionally, it allows us a great deal of freedom when it comes time to release our product. After all, we don’t need to integrate or harden our product; we’ve been doing so every sprint. It’s incredibly challenging for teams to switch from a mindset of delivering once a year to delivering every few weeks, but it’s possible.

Our Better Business Cases Foundation self-paced course is built around short, focused modules, interactive exercises and realistic scenarios. You learn by applying the Five Case Model step by step, not by watching long recorded lectures, so concepts are easier to understand and remember on the job.Our teams at Study.com release often. Not once a sprint. Not once a day. But anywhere from 2 to 5 times a day. It took time, blood, sweat, and tears to get there, but it’s been worth it.

CourseBarry Overeem

This course walks you through the Five Case Model and shows how each case contributes to a compelling business case. You’ll learn the terminology, structure and core concepts needed to participate effectively in developing or reviewing business cases.Learning Facilitator for Agile Teams

Agile Manifesto

truly enables and strengthens the left side. In this article I’ll explain the reasons behind this statement by exploring the Agile Manifesto and the misunderstandings about it.

Grasp the purpose, components and philosophy behind the model.“The original manifesto remains my primary source to think about agile related questions”

Know business case types and lifecycleIn my role as an Agile Coach, the Agile Manifesto acts as guidance. The 4 values and 12 underlying principles support me exploring options to daily issues, challenges and questions. I’ve read many books about agile software and product development, but the original manifesto remains my primary source to think about agile related questions.

“Without exception, every organization wants what the Agile Manifesto values”

Recognise different business case documents and when they are produced.I’ve worked in quite a few different organizations. Without exception, every organization wants what

Explore the Strategic Casethe Agile Manifesto

values. It should be about collaboration, teamwork and open communication. Sure, working software or a working product is what it should be all about. Without doubt everyone wants a fruitful partnership with their customers. And yes, we all understand that we live in a VUCA world. A world with a high rate of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. In such a world, organizations need to respond to change quickly to become or remain successful.

Understand how to define the case for change, objectives, risks and benefits.But we do need to respect current processes and tooling; this is simply necessary considering the legislation.

Explore the Economic CaseWe do need to write proper documentation. The more complex the product, the more time we should spend on determining how to build it, and of course we should write down all our thoughts (guesses and assumptions).

We do need a contract that protects us when it gets tough. Even better: let’s describe the desired result in the contract in as much detail as possible. At least that won’t cause any misunderstandings.

Learn how options are developed, appraised and compared for value for money.We do need a plan. Where would we be without a plan? Although it’s quite difficult to predict what’s going to happen upcoming year, we do need a detailed plan that eases the minds of our stakeholders. Even better: let’s create the plan upfront and give it to the supplier. The only thing that the supplier has to do is execute the plan. How difficult can it be?

Understand Commercial and Financial Cases Ensuring the right side of the Agile Manifesto truly enables and strengthens the left side is the #1 challenge with agile projects

See how deals, risk allocation, affordability and funding requirements are described.

Understand the Management Case

There is nothing wrong with processes, tooling, documentation, contracts and plans. But they should all enable the left side of the Agile Manifesto! Not the other way around!

Learn how delivery, change, risk and benefits are planned and governed.Processes and tools are valuable. But they should enable the collaboration, interactions and dialogues of all the individuals involved.

Better Business Cases Foundation training courses- learning outcomes

CurriculumContracts are important. They can offer everyone clarity and guidelines on what to expect from each other. But don’t expect a great collaboration with your customer when the contract says “we don’t trust you!”

The Better Business Cases Foundation course covers the key areas of the Five Case Model, focusing on the knowledge and understanding required at Foundation level.Plans can be useful. But in the end it’s all about the conversations we have with each other to create common understanding about the desired results. Remember:

Overview of the Five Case Model“Planning is everything, plans are nothing.” – Field Marshal Helmuth Graf von Moltke.
Developing the Strategic Case“The #1 challenge with agile projects”
Developing the Economic CaseEvery organization wants to be agile. Every organization wants the necessary agility to deal with the increasing rate of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity.
Developing the Commercial CaseThe Agile Manifesto
Developing the Financial Case offers 4 values and 12 principles to support organizations build software/products in such a complex environment. Many organizations acknowledge these values and principles.
Developing the Management CaseHowever, ensuring the right side of the Agile Manifesto truly enables and strengthens the left side is the #1 challenge with agile projects. It’s a challenge all organizations must deal with, otherwise projects with a high rate of complexity and unpredictability are bound to fail!

Overview of the Five Case Model

Purpose and philosophy of the Five Case Model
Key components of a business case and how they fit togetherI do want to close this blog post with a positive note. Although the struggle with the values of the Agile Manifesto is a common challenge, organizations do accept more often that change is necessary and inevitable. Doing some agile practices mechanically isn’t enough. Agile projects will only become successful when the values and principles are truly embraced and put into practice.
Stages in developing a spending proposal and related responsibilitiesSubscribe to our exclusive offers and promotions

Developing the Strategic Case

Core content and purpose of the Strategic CaseSubscribe now
Making the case for change, objectives, benefits and risks
Workshop Stage 1 – Case for change and key outputs

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Purpose and structure of the Economic Case
Generating and shortlisting options, critical success factors and value for money
Assessing costs, benefits, risks and selecting the preferred optionRelated articles

Developing the Commercial Case

Purpose and key content of the Commercial Case
Preparing for the potential deal and apportioning risk
Payment mechanisms and Workshop Stage 4 – Developing the deals

Developing the Financial Case

Purpose and key content of the Financial Case
Assessing affordability and funding requirements

Better Business Cases Foundation training courses exam

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Your path to success

Learn The top 15 Agile books you should read

Build a solid grasp of the Five Case Model through structured, expert-led teaching.Simon Buehring

19 Feb 2026

Practice Explore our top 15 Agile book recommendations to enhance your understanding and skills. Read on to choose your next read.

Reinforce your knowledge with sample questions and scenario-based exercises.

Pass

Enter the exam confident, supported by focused revision and exam tips.

Reviews & success stories

Choosing between PMP and Agile certification can be crucial. Read on to compare these paths and decide which suits your career goals best.

Lean principles

I now feel more confident challenging weak assumptions and making sure options are evaluated fairly before a recommendation is made.

Katie W., DelegateSimon Buehring

19 Feb 2026

Discover how Lean principles focus on customer satisfaction and drive organizational goals. Learn more about Lean and Lean Six Sigma here.

Knowing there was a free resit available reduced some pressure, even though the quality of preparation meant I never needed it.

Patrick L., Senior Finance Analyst

The course made the Five Case Model feel approachable. The trainer broke each case down with examples from real government and corporate initiatives.

Oliver H., Business Case WriterAgile methodologies

Simon Buehring

23 Feb 2026

The self-paced option let me work through the concepts at my own speed, then focus on exam practice nearer the date.

Joanne C., DelegateDiscover the variety of Agile methodologies and their unique implementations across sectors. Read more to see which fits your needs.