Antipatterns

⏱ 3 min  ·  📅 2026

An antipattern is a common response to a recurring problem that seems reasonable but in practice produces negative consequences. Unlike mistakes, antipatterns are solutions that someone has adopted consciously —and that may even have worked in the short term— but that create bigger problems as they scale or as time goes by.

The term was coined by Andrew Koenig in 1995 as a counterpart to the software design patterns described by the "Gang of Four" (Gamma, Helm, Johnson, and Vlissides). If a pattern is a proven solution to a recurring problem, an antipattern is a commonly adopted solution that turns out to be counterproductive.

Antipatterns in agile management

These are routines that look correct but run counter to agile principles. They block transparency, inspection, and adaptation. An experienced Scrum Master should be able to spot these antipatterns and correct them before they blow up.

The most common antipatterns in agile teams include:

• Scrum zombie: the team goes through all Scrum events mechanically without producing any real adaptation or learning.
• Feature factory: success is measured by the volume of features delivered, not by the value generated.
• HiPPO (Highest Paid Person's Opinion): product decisions are made by following the opinion of the most senior person, regardless of the evidence.
• Sprint waterfall: the sprint is organized sequentially (analysis → design → development → testing) instead of as concurrent, cross-functional work.
• Scrum Master as secretary: the Scrum Master takes notes, organizes meetings, and manages tools instead of facilitating the team's self-management.
• Infinite backlog: the Product Backlog holds hundreds or thousands of unprioritized stories, which makes real prioritization impossible.

There are other antipatterns you can explore in Scrum Manager's Antipatterns tool.

AI antipatterns

The adoption of generative AI has given rise to new antipatterns:

• Vibe coding straight to production: conversationally generated code that goes directly into production without a reinforced DoD.
• Velocity gaming with AI: the team reports artificially high velocities because AI generates code quickly, but the code has not undergone real human review.
• Agent washing: calling something an "AI agent" when it is really just an API call with a fixed prompt, in order to appear more innovative.

Why recognizing them matters

Antipatterns are especially hard to detect because they often produce positive results in the short term. The infinite backlog looks complete. The Scrum zombie looks like it is doing Scrum. Vibe coding to production looks fast. The cost shows up later: in accumulated technical debt, in demotivated teams, or in products that do not generate the expected value.

Common mistake

Spotting antipatterns in other teams but not in your own. Antipatterns are comfortable precisely because they have been normalized within the team. The retrospective is Scrum's mechanism for detecting them continuously, but it requires enough psychological safety for someone to name the antipattern without it seeming like a personal accusation.

Resources

🔧 AntipatternsTool · Scrum Manager

See also

Retrospective Feature factory Scrum Master Technical debt Psychological safety Agility

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