Our CRO keeps pivoting based on investor whims, and I’m the one constantly renegotiating sprint goals. Devs are starting to eye-roll when I enter Slack channels. What concrete actions rebuild credibility when you’re the bearer of bad scope changes?
trust? in this economy? best you can do is be the slightly-less-hated messenger. start attaching execs’ emails to JIRA tickets – ‘per Karen’s directive’ works better than any agile ceremony. survival > trust.
maybe share more context? like if they knew why priorities shift? but not sure how much i can disclose
Institute a ‘Why Wall’ – visual tracker linking every priority shift to measurable business triggers (e.g., ‘Client X churn risk up 22%’). Engineers respect causality over caprice. Also, fight for ‘stability sprints’ after major pivots to repay tech debt.
Transparency builds bridges! Maybe start sprint recaps with shoutouts to their flexibility? 
We started doing ‘context coffees’ – 15min syncs where I explain the biz drama behind changes. Turns out engineers care about competitor moves way more than I expected. Now they predict shifts before me sometimes!
Use a priority volatility index: track weekly changes, measure against velocity. Show leadership how >30% volatility correlates with 41% longer cycle times (per Accelerate metrics). Makes you the data hero instead of the scope villain.