Intermezzi
Intermezzo III. The Transformation Elevator
A one-hundred-and-twenty-seven-story elevator of agile transformation. They ascend one floor per iteration with a retrospective between each; «press the button for 127» is waterfall thinking. The apotheosis of agile absurdism: the vertical decomposition of movement, the adaptive planning of the simplest action. A caricature of digital transformation initiatives in which the process of transformation has become its only product.
What this intermezzo is about. A one-hundred-and-twenty-seven-story elevator of agile transformation. They ascend one floor per iteration with a retrospective between each; «press the button for 127» is waterfall thinking. The apotheosis of agile absurdism: the vertical decomposition of movement, the adaptive planning of the simplest action. A caricature of digital transformation initiatives in which the process of transformation has become its only product.
Alice came up from the basement and found a Kone elevator with a gold sign «Digital Transformation — C-Level» in a lobby with marble columns, where every detail of the interior cost more than the entire annual IT budget of an average startup. The doors opened without sound, and she found herself in a glass cabin with a panoramic view of Moscow, alongside a short man in a Stefano Ricci suit and the same striped cat, who now held an iPad Pro in a Hermès leather case.
«We are ascending to top management,» the man announced with the solemnity of a cosmonaut departing for distant stars. «My name is Transformator. Behemoth is running our digital roadmap.»
The cat tapped importantly with his paw on the screen.
«Where are we headed?» Alice inquired.
Transformator gestured solemnly toward the ceiling, as though conducting the symphony of corporate growth: «To the summits of strategic planning! There, where the decisions on agile transformation are born.»
The elevator began its ascent with the ceremonial slowness of a coffin at the funeral of efficiency.
Alice looked at the panel: «Could it go faster?»
The cat, without looking up from the tablet, pronounced a philosophical truth: «Iteration is our credo. Floor by floor, like breathing: inhale — planning, exhale — retrospective.»
«How many floors do you plan?»
Transformator squared his shoulders with the pride of an architect of the Tower of Babel: «One hundred and twenty-seven! Each requires a detailed decomposition of vertical movement.»
The second floor greeted them with a stop worthy of a historical climax.
Alice looked inquiringly at the indicator.
«A retrospective,» the cat pronounced with the reverence of an archaeologist studying the shards of an ancient civilization. «We are analyzing the successes of the ascent.»
«What successes?»
Transformator broke into a smile: «An astonishing breakthrough! One floor is one hundred percent more than we had planned to achieve.»
«One hundred percent more than what? Zero?»
«Precisely!» the cat nodded with a candor bordering on holiness. «The baseline plan assumed we remain in place. Continuous improvement has worked a miracle of motion.»
A minute later, the third floor. A stop at the tempo of a tortoise waltz.
«More discussions?»
Transformator raised a schoolmaster's finger: «A planning session! The fourth floor requires a strategic approach.»
«Just press the button for the floor.»
The cat looked at her as though she had proposed to solve a quadratic equation with a hammer.
«Direct transitions violate the methodology of step-by-step analysis of every vertical increment.»
«What about pressing "127" straight?»
Transformator shuddered, as if from blasphemy: «Waterfall approach! Agility requires adaptivity at every step of the ascent.»
Alice looked closer at the elevator panel and discovered that in place of the usual floor numbers were the inscriptions: «Sprint 1,» «Sprint 2,» «Retrospective,» «Planning,» «Grooming,» «Demo.»
«How do you determine the moment of arrival?»
The cat lifted the tablet like a sacred artifact: «Definition of Done! The floor closes after the next one is planned.»
«And on the last, the one hundred and twenty-seventh?»
«We shall plan the one hundred and twenty-eighth,» Transformator explained placidly.
«Which does not exist!»
«Precisely for that reason the journey is eternal,» the cat beamed in Zen enlightenment. «Sustainable velocity without the risk of completion.»
The fifth floor brought a new passenger: an elegant woman in a suit, exuding efficiency and expensive perfume.
«Alice! What a meeting!» An iPad rose in greeting. «Hella, agile methods coach. How are you finding the transformation process?»
The Sire from the Consulting Suite, if memory served, had been a man. But Alice was beginning to understand the rules of this place: the retinue's names were passed out like conference badges — whoever grabbed first became Woland.
«Four floors in half an hour.»
«Impressive velocity!» Hella's eyes lit up. «Last quarter we managed only two floors per hour.»
«How long until the one hundred and twenty-seventh?»
The calculator worked in Hella's hands with the intensity of a quantum computer.
«At the current pace... forty-two years, with a margin of error tending toward infinity. However, we have an optimization plan!»
«What plan?»
The cat solemnly raised a paw: «A second elevator! Parallel streams will double productivity.»
«But the movement is the same,» Alice narrowed her eyes. «To the same floor synchronously.»
Hella struck the pose of a military strategist: «Cross-functional teams! One stream plans, the other retrospects.»
«And who will be riding?»
«We are conducting a comprehensive stakeholder mapping analysis,» Transformator answered. «Determining the optimal team for vertical mobility.»
The sixth floor delivered a new companion: a red cat in a Hermès tie and with a consultant's briefcase.
«Azazello, master of parallel scrum.» The tie underwent diplomatic adjustment. «We are testing an alternative strategy of vertical mobility.»
«Which one?»
«Downward movement!» Azazello broke into a Columbus-of-the-frontier smile. «Pivot approach: since upward is difficult, we are exploring downward.»
«Results?»
«Phenomenal! Seven floors down against four up. Superiority is obvious.»
«You are moving away from the goal.»
Azazello lit up with startup fanaticism: «Fail-fast principle! Express validation: descent is not a promising direction.»
«What is the next step?»
«Pivot!» the cats sang in chorus the corporate mantra. «Horizontal movement as the new vector of development.»
The display flickered with the seventh floor in the mood of cancelled flights. Alice felt tired.
«Could I get off and go on foot?»
«The user story of pedestrian movement is absent from the current roadmap,» Transformator brightened. «The Q3 backlog admits such a possibility.»
«What now?»
Behemoth for the first time lifted his gaze from the tablet: «We are waiting for the product owner. Prioritization among elevator, stairs, and teleportation requires a strategic decision.»
«Teleportation?»
Hella lit up with the inspiration of Columbus: «A moonshot project! Disruptive innovation in instant mobility. Instantaneous transportation to the target floor.»
«How is it progressing?»
«A discovery workshop for planning the research is scheduled,» Azazello took the air of Einstein. «In parallel we are conducting a feasibility study of the feasibility study itself.»
Alice reached for the red emergency button. The temple of agile philosophy required immediate departure.
«Wait!» Transformator waved his arms. «We have not conducted the demo!»
«Demonstrate what?»
«A stakeholder presentation of our achievements in vertical transformation,» Behemoth explained importantly.
«Seven floors in an hour is a demonstration?»
«A learning journey showcase!» Hella beamed in philosophical revelation. «Plus the roadmap of our continuous improvement.»
«When is the finish? The one hundred and twenty-seventh floor?»
The gazes of the interlocutors crossed in the astonishment of people who have been asked to invent a time machine in an elevator.
«An incorrect statement of the problem,» Transformator shook his head. «We focus on outcomes, not outputs.»
«What outcome?» The word seemed to Alice an exotic delicacy from a molecular gastronomy restaurant.
The cat raised his paws to the ceiling: «A sustainable transportation experience! A culture of vertical mobility, plus stakeholder engagement in the paradigm of continuous value delivery.»
Without further ceremony Alice slammed the red button. The elevator halted, the doors parted: the seventh floor.
«Emergency exit protocol,» Azazello brightened. «Required: an exit retrospective before the final procedure.»
Alice slipped from the elevator and discovered an ordinary staircase, without retrospectives, planning, or stakeholder mapping. Plain steps led upward. Behind her:
«Azazello, a comprehensive post-mortem of the early exit!» Hella commanded. «Plus a lessons-learned session.»
«Shall we plan an emergency procedures workshop as well?»
«Brilliant idea! After the stakeholder analysis of who exactly finds emergency procedures relevant.»
Eighth floor, a landing window. Below stood the «Center for Agile Transformation» with the silhouettes of people at kanban boards. On the roof turned slowly an arrow marked «Continuous Improvement.»
Next door a house was being built. Without boards, without sprints, without retrospectives. Brick to brick, wall to wall. The house was growing.
«Interesting,» Alice thought, «whether they know about velocity and burndown charts.»
The builders were methodically continuing. Violating agile principles and unaware of it.
The house rose toward the sky.
¹ IP discipline note: per intermezzo-1 note 1 — character names of Bulgakov's Woland retinue (Woland, Behemoth, Koroviev, Azazello, Hella, Margarita) given per canonical English renderings (Michael Glenny 1967 translation, Collins); new dialogue in these intermezzi rendered in the author's own English for voice-register consistency across the series, per the rule established in chapter 4 note 1. No verbatim quotation from copyrighted contemporary English translations.