By Diana Williams, Director of Change Management, Project Brilliant
If you've ever watched a football game, you've witnessed something extraordinary: the celebration after every first down. The receiver pumps his fist, teammates exchange high-fives, and the offense gets fired up for the next play. And the crowd goes wild. They don't wait until they score a touchdown to celebrate — they acknowledge every 10-yard gain that moves them closer to their goal. Your agile transformation needs the same energy.
I recently attended Family Day at the University of Alabama, where Alabama played Vanderbilt. Alabama won. Roll Tide! It was a packed stadium — amazing to see how many people were in the stands; probably 100,000-plus people attended the game that day. One of the things I was observing was all the celebrations of the first downs, and I related that to how, at work, we too often forget to celebrate those incremental wins.
Thinking about the football game — every single time they get a first down, or really a second or third down, they celebrate it because they've made progress. But when they turn the ball over and it goes back to the other team, it's not the end of the world. They're already planning for the next opportunity they get the ball. And then, guess what they do? They celebrate every first down. And if they score a touchdown — oh my goodness — the crowd goes crazy.
Imagine if, in your organization, every single person was rooting for the same objective. Every time we had a small victory, everyone was cheering. And knowing that just because we turned the ball over doesn't mean it's the end of the world — because guess what they were doing on the sidelines while the other team had the ball? They were figuring out their next plays. They were figuring out how to get their next first-and-10. And when they do, the entire crowd goes crazy and celebrates with them.
Think about the scoreboard. At a glance, every single person in that stadium — all 100,000 of them — knows the score, the down, and exactly how much ground is left to gain. That shared visibility is what turns 100,000 strangers into one unified crowd, all holding their breath on third down, all exploding together when the chains move. First down? The stadium erupts. Touchdown? Absolute pandemonium.
In your organization, your metrics, your Sprint Reviews, your dashboards — those are your scoreboard. When people can see progress clearly, they know when to cheer. And when they cheer together, something remarkable happens: momentum builds. So ask yourself: does your organization have a scoreboard? Can every person on your team look up at any moment and know exactly where you stand, what you're driving toward, and when it's time to celebrate?
In football, a first down means progress. It's not the end zone, but it's advancement toward the goal of a touchdown. It resets the downs, gives the team fresh opportunities, and keeps the drive alive. Most importantly, it's worth celebrating because it shows the game plan is working. And that celebrating is energizing. It energizes the team, it energizes the crowd — and it keeps everyone excited to continue the game.
Agile transformations work the same way. When your team successfully completes their first Sprint Review, that's a first down. When your product owner confidently prioritizes the backlog for the first time — you guessed it — another first down. When developers and business stakeholders collaborate in Sprint Reviews and Refinement instead of pointing fingers — boom, first down!
And these aren't just tiny steps. They're proof that your organization is moving in the right direction, learning new patterns and new ways of working together that will eventually lead to a "touchdown" — a fully functioning, high-performing agile organization.
Here's the thing about change: it's hard. Like, really hard. When an organization starts an agile transformation — or any type of transformation — they are asking people to abandon comfortable ways of working, embrace uncertainty, and trust in new processes that feel unfamiliar and sometimes scary. Without regular celebrations, the journey becomes exhausting and demoralizing.
When you don't celebrate wins during a transformation, several dangerous things happen:
Energy drains away
People working on change initiatives are already stretching beyond their comfort zones. Without positive reinforcement, they run out of steam. The transformation starts to feel like an endless slog toward a finish line that never gets closer. Eventually, cynicism creeps in, and you hear the dreaded phrase: "This agile thing isn't working."
Small progress becomes invisible
Transformations happen incrementally, not overnight. If you only celebrate major milestones, you miss the hundreds of small victories that actually constitute the transformation. Teams stop noticing their own growth, and the narrative becomes "we're not there yet" instead of "look how far we've come."
Resistance grows stronger
People who were skeptical about the change in the first place will use the lack of visible progress as evidence that they were right. Without celebrated wins to point to, change champions lose credibility and doubters gain influence. The transformation loses momentum precisely when it needs advocates the most.
Learning stops happening
Celebrations aren't just about feeling good — they're about reinforcing what's working. When you celebrate a win, you're telling everyone, "This is the behavior we want to see more of." Conversely, when you acknowledge failures openly, you've learned what doesn't work for the organization — and that's another win worth celebrating. Without that feedback loop, teams can't distinguish between what's moving them forward and what's holding them back.
The beauty of the first-down approach is that wins are everywhere once you start looking for them. Here are some of my favorites:
Individual wins
A team member has learned a new skill, increasing technical coverage for the product.
Team-level wins
Completed Sprint Goals, improved velocity, better forecasting accuracy, productive retrospectives, reduced work-in-progress, successful demos to stakeholders.
Behavioral wins
Developers asking clarifying questions in refinement, product owners saying "no" to scope creep, team members volunteering to help each other, healthy conflict during planning or refinement sessions.
Cultural wins
Leaders asking "how can I help?" instead of "why isn't this done?", failures being treated as learning opportunities, teams making their own decisions about how to work.
System-level wins
Reduced cycle time, fewer production incidents, faster feedback from customers, improved cross-team collaboration.
None of these are a National Championship victory, but every single one deserves a celebration because they represent real progress toward your overall objective.
You don't need confetti cannons and trophy presentations (though honestly, those sound fun). Here's how to build celebration into your transformation:
Make it immediate
Don't wait for quarterly business reviews. Celebrate wins as they happen, while the energy is fresh and the learning is top of mind.
Make it visible
Share wins in team huddles, Sprint Reviews, town halls, and Slack channels. Let everyone see that progress is happening across the organization.
Make it specific
Instead of vague praise, call out exactly what was done well and why it matters. "Great job" is nice; "Your willingness to reprioritize mid-sprint based on customer feedback perfectly demonstrates agile thinking" is powerful.
Make it inclusive
Celebrate team wins, not just individual heroics. Agile is about collective success, and your celebrations should reinforce that value.
Make it authentic
People can smell fake enthusiasm from a mile away. Celebrate genuine progress, not manufactured milestones designed to make leadership feel better about their investment.
Here's what makes football celebrations truly electric: it's not just the players on the field celebrating — the entire stadium erupts. Fans jump to their feet, the crowd roars, and the energy is contagious. That first down isn't just meaningful to the eleven players who made it happen; it energizes everyone who's invested in the game.
Your agile transformation needs that same organizational energy. When a team achieves a win, the celebration shouldn't stay contained within that team room or Sprint Retrospective. Get the whole organization involved!
Imagine this for a moment. You're on a Scrum team. The Sprint is over, and a new feature is being released for customers. Imagine the excitement and sense of accomplishment you would feel if the entire organization cheered you on. The thing about celebrating is, it doesn't have to be elaborate — a message on the company news channel, a walk-by "great job" to the team. All of it counts. Here are a few favorites to try:
Leadership as the home crowd
Executives and senior leaders should be your loudest cheerleaders. When they hear about a team successfully delivering their first sprint or implementing continuous deployment, they should be sending congratulatory emails, recognizing teams in all-hands meetings, and stopping by to give personal recognition. Just like fans in the stands energize players, leadership enthusiasm makes teams feel seen, valued, and motivated to keep pushing forward.
Cross-functional spectators
Marketing, sales, finance, HR — everyone has a stake in the transformation even if they're not on agile teams themselves. Share transformation wins broadly across the organization. When the engineering team delivers faster, sales wins. When product teams get better at prioritization, marketing benefits. Make sure everyone knows the score and celebrates the progress together.
Create your own "stadium moments"
Host transformation showcases where teams demo their wins to the broader organization. Set up a #transformation-wins Slack channel where anyone can share and celebrate progress. Ring a physical bell when teams hit major milestones. Create a "First Down Wall" where teams post their incremental victories for everyone to see. The more public and visible these celebrations are, the more they energize everyone watching.
Make celebration a spectator sport
Encourage people from across the organization to attend Sprint Reviews — not as critics or evaluators, but as enthusiastic supporters. When stakeholders from other departments show up and genuinely celebrate what teams are accomplishing, it creates an incredible energy boost. Suddenly, it's not just "the agile team" transforming — it's the whole organization rallying behind change. And as an added bonus, they gain insight into the value being delivered.
The most powerful transformations happen when everyone in the organization — from the C-suite to individual contributors in unrelated departments — becomes invested in celebrating the wins. That collective energy creates unstoppable momentum.
Football teams don't apologize for celebrating first downs. They know that sustained energy and morale are what keep drives alive and put points on the board. Your agile transformation is no different.
Every standup that actually stands up instead of dragging on? Celebrate it. Every time someone updates a PBI or task without being nagged? Celebrate it. Every retrospective action item that actually gets implemented? Definitely celebrate it.
These aren't participation trophies — they're recognition that change is happening, learning is occurring, and your organization is becoming more agile one first down at a time.
So bring that football energy to your transformation. Acknowledge the progress, energize your teams, and keep marching down the field. Before you know it, you'll look up and realize you've made it to the end zone.
Now go celebrate something today. Your team earned it.
Project Brilliant helps organizations celebrate progress, build momentum, and sustain lasting agile change through hands-on coaching and leadership development.
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