When Teams Stop Testing Reality and Fall Into Decision Hallucinations | Cristina Cranga

Summary

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Episode Overview

Title: When Teams Stop Testing Reality and Fall Into Decision Hallucinations
Host: Vasco Duarte
Guest: Cristina Cranga
Date: January 19, 2026

This episode explores the concept of "decision hallucinations" within Agile teams—how false assumptions and unchecked beliefs can negatively impact ownership, decision-making, and team agility. Cristina Cranga, an innovation enthusiast with backgrounds in psychology and IT, shares a candid story from her experience, emphasizing the importance of reality testing and fostering better conversations between teams and stakeholders.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. From Psychology to Scrum Mastery

• Cristina’s Career Path (02:24):

  • Started in consultancy within IT services, typically assigned roles like project/product manager.
  • Noted that communication and people interaction were more critical than technical skills.
  • Natural transition to Scrum Master, leveraging her "human skills" (formerly known as soft skills).

  Cristina (B): "Scrum Master experience. It's a facilitated job. So, yeah, it was natural for me because I had a very strong background in what is called soft skills at the time. Now, I think the term, the most preferred term right now, I think it's human skills." (03:20)

• Importance of Human Skills in Agile, Especially with AI (04:07):

  • Discussion about the value of human skills as AI becomes more prevalent.
  • Reflection on the potential impact of AI understanding personal triggers.

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2. Story of Failure: “Decision Hallucinations”

2.1. The Nature of Failure & Decision Hallucinations

• Reframing Failure (05:13):

  • Cristina suggests calling failures "lessons learned" for a psychologically safer environment.

• Defining Decision Hallucinations (05:55):

  • Team behaviors shaped by unfounded assumptions or company cultural baggage.
  • Decision hallucinations occur when teams act on perceived, not actual, decisions or constraints.

  Cristina (B): "What is the hallucination? Actually, it's the perception of something not real or not present. Okay. And I call it decision hallucination because it reflects one of my experiences..." (05:44)

2.2. Symptoms & Impact

• Teams Feeling Disempowered (07:43):

  • Common complaints: "We can’t change this, it’s already decided," "Priorities come from the top," "Scope and deadlines are fixed."
  • Impact: Teams lose ownership, options, and the drive to challenge constraints.

• Teams Stop Testing Reality (09:26):

  • Cristina notes teams cease to validate their assumptions with stakeholders, leading to "perceived reality" governing their actions.

  Cristina (B): "They optimize execution around constraints that might no longer exist. And this, when I noticed that the agility silently disappear... teams are reacting to how I called imaged boundaries or decision hallucinations." (10:44)

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3. Practical Examples & Solutions

3.1. Encouraging Better Questions (09:33)

• Cristina urges teams to ask:
  • "Is this an assumption-based decision, or is it an explicit and shared choice?"
• The root issue is the lack of active conversation with stakeholders, leading to a drift from reality.

3.2. The Value of Reality Testing (10:29–13:00)

• Continuous dialogue with stakeholders is vital for grounding team perceptions.

• Using psychological perception images (e.g., “old woman vs. young woman”, “duck vs. rabbit”) to illustrate that minds are often limited to a single view of reality at a time.

  Cristina (B): "Our brain is not designed to see two realities at the same time." (12:43)

• When decision hallucinations are exposed, positivity resurges within teams:

  • New options become visible.
  • The level of conversation improves.
  • Teams realize many constraints are self-imposed perceptions—not true barriers.

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Quotes & Notable Moments

• On Human Skills in Agile (with AI):

  Cristina: "Especially with AI. Exactly. Right." (04:07)

• On Decision Hallucinations:

  Cristina: "They optimize execution around constraints that might no longer exist. And this, when I noticed that the agility silently disappear... teams are reacting to how I called imaged boundaries or decision hallucinations." (10:44)

• On Perceptions:

  Cristina: "Our brain is not designed to see two realities at the same time." (12:43)

• Host’s Reflection:

  Vasco: "I really love the reality testing mantra. I'm going to use that a lot from now on, so if you don't mind, I'm going to steal that. I'll give you credit for it..." (13:53)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Cristina’s Introduction & Background: 01:23–04:11
• Defining Failure & Decision Hallucinations: 05:13–07:25
• Symptoms in Teams & Impact on Agility: 07:43–09:26
• Practical Examples / Reality Testing: 09:26–13:20
• Perception Exercise – Old Woman/Young Woman & Duck/Rabbit: 11:50–13:00
• Host’s Takeaway / Reality Testing Mantra: 13:20–14:20

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Summary & Takeaways

• "Decision hallucinations" are false beliefs in constraints, decisions, or boundaries that haven’t been validated with stakeholders.
• Teams are vulnerable to these hallucinations when they stop maintaining active, honest conversations.
• Strong human skills, especially in communication, are critical for Scrum Masters and Agile teams to challenge assumptions and test reality.
• Reality testing—checking if constraints and decisions are real or imagined—can unlock more options and revitalize team agility.
• Visual tools and metaphors from psychology can help teams see the limitations of their own perceptions.

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Final Thought:
This episode is a vibrant reminder for Agile teams and leaders to regularly “test reality” by reopening conversations, questioning assumptions, and ensuring perceived boundaries are real. Unlocking these “hallucinations” can make space for true agility and ownership.

Transcript

[A]

Hey there, agile adventurer, just a quick question. What if for the price of a fancy coffee or half a pizza, you could unlock over 700 hours of the best agile content on the planet? That's audio, video, E courses, books, presentations, all that you can think of. But you can also join live calls with world class practitioners and hang out in a flame war free and AI slop clean slack with the sharpest minds in the game. Oh, and yes, you get direct access to me, Vasko, your Scrum Master Toolbox podcast. No, this is not a drill. It's this Scrum Master Toolbox membership and it's your unfair advantage in the agile world. So if you want to know more, go check out scrummastertoolbox.org membership, that's scrummastertoolbox.org Membership. And check out all the goodies we have for you. Do it now. But if you're not doing it now, let's listen to the podcast. Hello everybody. Welcome to one more week of the Scrum Master Toolbox podcast. And this week, joining us from Switzerland is Cristina Kranga. Hey Cristina, welcome to the show.

[B]

Hello Vasco. Such an honor to be here with you and your listeners.

[A]

Absolutely, thank you. A pleasure to have you here. So, so Christina is a human and I can vouch for that because I'm looking at her and we did all the AI tests. No, not really.

[B]

I'm organic, I can assure you.

[A]

So yes, she's also an innovation enthusiast with a curious mind, always learning new things, sometimes a dreamer and a restless soul. Her mission in life is helping people thrive. She has a background in psychology and an experience in supporting the implementation of multiple IT software projects in complex digital ecosystems with different technologies at an international level. How these two worlds can shape a professional. Well, let's discover it. That's a great tease and also a great follow up or lead to the question how did you end up becoming a Scrum Master? From psychology to Scrum Mastering?

[B]

Yeah, especially Scrum Master within IT software development companies. So IT services, that's a big leap sort of speaking. So I end up in consultancy business and the standard role that assigned to you most of the consultancy company at that time, it was 2018. Usually they assign the role of a product or project manager. It was the first assignment in pmo. But I noticed that what the most skill required is actually the communication and the interaction with people within teams and stakeholders. So I was like transitioning in the role of a Scrum Master in a very natural way. I realized that I am qualified kind of to Apply for a Scrum Master role. Scrum Master experience. It's a facilitated job. So, yeah, it was natural for me because I had a very strong background in what is called soft skills at the time. Now, I think the term, the most. The most preferred term right now, I think it's human skills.

[A]

Oh, yeah. Especially with AI. Right.

[B]

Like, especially with AI. Exactly. Right.

[A]

It's interesting because I interviewed someone for the podcast a while back that was reflecting on the impact of mindfulness in mental health. But he was also asking a very important question, which is what happens in the world when AI knows your triggers better than you do? And this is something we are still debating. Right. And we're still discovering, for that matter, what that would cause. Okay, but that's for another, maybe a bonus episode on the Psychology of AI. Today's Monday here on the podcast, Christina. So we want to explore rather a story of failure. Not because we like to dwell on failure, but because failure is very often, when looked at with the proper distance, a master and a teacher. And we need to learn, of course. So tell us that story, Cristina. Walk us through the steps. What was going on, who you were talking to, what events unfolded, and why would you call that a failure today?

[B]

Well, failure, I think, should be reframed as term. I would reframe it with lesson learned. It's better psychologically speaking. It's an inviting approach, kind of. But anyways, yeah, you need to call things as they are. So where I sense that I should have done probably better. It's what I call decision hallucinations. And I'm going to involve this because, yeah, for the listener, it might be, as you mentioned, a very hyped term hallucination, but. Yeah, what is. What is the hallucination? Actually, it's the perception of something not real or not present. Okay. And I call it decision hallucination because it reflects one of my experience that I had in. In the. In the last. In the last, you know, working experiences that I. That I had. So it's rather connected to the complex, to the matrix environments that we have nowadays as companies. So usually it comes with a cultural baggage that we have. Company culture baggage that we have. And the key of this story is the decision process and the ownership. Now, why I'm saying this, because as HR practitioner, you didn't, you know, you didn't show up in metrics or ceremonies, but in the decision process and ownership process.

[A]

So what you're saying is that as agile practitioners, we are not doing our work only in the retrospectives or ceremonies. Or something like that. We are doing our work also in supporting, facilitating and sometimes leading the decision processes.

[B]

That's correct, yes. So what happened here is that most of the time there were situation that I've heard my colleagues complaining or expressing the pain points actually that you know, They don't have the ownership on that. So most of the lines were like we can change this because it's already decided, we have the priority. The priority comes from the top level. The scope is fixed, the deadline is necessary to be delivered by the end of each month and so on. So it's painful to hear in international that they have to do it, they don't have a choice, they have to do it. So this is, this is most of the lines that are punching me right now as a recall of what was the experience that now we are talking about what is called failure. But what is fascinating about this everyday conversation almost is the impact of the team behavior and what you realize that it limits options of the team and choices, as I mentioned. So over time what I notice is that teams, they stop testing reality.

[A]

Okay, can you translate that into some practical example? What do you mean when you say teams stop testing reality?

[B]

So for example, I encourage them to ask questions and not just ask questions, ask better questions. And for example, one of the question is, is it an assumption based decision or is it an explicit and shared choice? For example, These are a couple of examples that I have better, that I understand as better question, of course, but all in one. Vasco is the pain point. And the root cause might be the conversational level. I call it conversational level because they stop having a conversational layer activated with the stakeholders.

[A]

Okay, so basically what you're saying is that they are not checking their view of reality against the stakeholders view of reality through this continuous conversation.

[B]

Correct, Discontinued continuous cycle of conversation. So they have perceived what we call perceived reality versus the reality. And it has a real impact on team ownership and decision making process. And they optimize execution around constraints that might no longer exist. And this when I noticed that the agility silently disappear. But not because of the control. I mean because teams are reacting to how I called imaged boundaries or decision hallucinations. That's the term that I came with.

[A]

I like the hallucination because it's a very common problem that we act on assumptions without ever testing, thinking that somebody somewhere has made a decision that we have to act this way. Right?

[B]

Yeah. And when hallucinations, hallucination, you know, decisions are exposed because sooner or later they are exposed something beautiful powerful happens with the teams. And what I notice is that options reappear. That's the number one side effect. Conversations change, the level of conversation change. Teams realize that they are constrained by perception than by reality. I did an interesting test with some of my teams. I don't know if, you know, the image that it's called old women versus young women, or the other image is called duck versus Rabbit. In psychology, we use these images for describing perceptions. But what is interesting with these, you know, two powerful images is that you might see one reality. Our brain is not designed to see two realities at the same time. So yeah, it was.

[A]

That's a wonderful. I think a very visual. Yeah, I'll put the link to the. To the images because they are very telling. It's a very visual and a wonderful way to tell us that our view of reality is always limited by something. We may not even know what is limiting it, but it is limiting it so that we only see one possible reality, even though there might be multiple possible realities happening at the same time. And a simple way to describe this is that the reality of a developer in the team is different than the reality of a tester in the team, which is different from the reality of the scrum master, the team lead, the stakeholders, the product owner, et cetera, et cetera. I really love the reality testing mantra. I'm going to use that a lot from now on, so if you don't mind, I'm going to steal that. I'll give you credit for it, but I think reality testing is something I'm definitely going to use. Thank you for sharing that story with us, Kristina.

[B]

Thank you very much. It was a pleasure.

[A]

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