I joined the team when it was just starting to form, and the system was completely unstructured. Building that system alongside the CTO was also part of my responsibility. Creating the service plan/design while simultaneously establishing the operational structure was challenging. We held daily meetings with designers and developers, transparently sharing progress and setting goals for the next sprint just before each one ended. Distributing tasks was uncomfortable for all of us at first. I sometimes felt like I was being monitored, I also felt uncomfortable telling my team members what to do. Over time, as everyone openly shared progress and adjusted tasks together, we were able to work more efficiently. My team members trusted me, even in situations that might have felt a bit forceful, and supported me with active feedback during sprint retrospectives, helping us improve little by little after each sprint.

The best part of working with Agile was the daily scrum meetings. Even though everyone was tired in the morning, we woke up with a little small talk and coffee, creating a relaxed atmosphere where we could openly share progress and opinions. This honesty helped us successfully complete tough sprints. It was also a useful time to understand my colleagues’ work capabilities and styles. During the first two sprints, I couldn’t gauge my team members’ pace, so I overestimated and failed to achieve the set goals within the time frame. I probably saw daily scrum meetings as just a status update at first. After failing to complete the first two sprints, we focused more on the presentations during daily scrums, paying attention to each member’s pace and style to better allocate tasks. This made it easier to estimate schedules and handle upper management requests more wisely.