agile

Confused Managers Need Guidance in Agile Environment

The confusion around the role of the manager in an Agile environment seems to reach its peak just as teams start to exhibit real signs of self-organization. When managers see that they are no longer the driving force behind the work management, some conclude that they are no longer needed at all, and this can lead to rash behavior. Although completely understandable, I believe this erroneous conclusion is the sign of an over-reaction that needs to be addressed by the change agent. Until the world is completely teal and corporations “flat”, great managers will continue to play a key role in many large organizations.

In a self-organizing world, managers should no longer oversee every aspect of the work.  Instead they should attend to the environment. Where the Product Owner focuses on the product, the manager focuses on high performing teams. Managers are to teams what gardeners are to plants.

Gardening by Stephanie Wauters from the Noun Project

We would all have a good chuckle if we saw a gardener asking the tomato plant for a commitment on when its fruits will be ready, telling the cucumber where to stretch its vines, challenging the cabbage and broccoli to get rid of pests on their own, weighing and comparing the squash against objectives determined at the beginning of the growing season, and grandstanding in the middle of the pumpkin patch on the lofty harvest aspirations of the landlords. We would laugh, because we know that none of those behaviors will lead to results. However, in most corporations today, this is exactly what managers do.

I don’t believe this is what we want from managers anywhere, but it is especially damaging in organizations that are trying to embrace the discovery mindset. Managers, like good gardeners, must be responsible for the environmental conditions and trust that their people will maximize their own potential.

To push the gardening analogy a bit further, here’s one way to illustrate the point:

Gardener Manager
Fertilizes the ground for maximum growth Trains the people on technical and people skills
Protects the plants from strong winds Shields the people from needless distractions and enables a culture of focus on the work
Tills the soil and removes rocks Provides the best tools and devises a plan to manage technical debt
Meters the amount of sunlight reaching the plants Interprets the organization’s strategy and gives people a clear sense of “true North”
Prunes the plants to maximize the output of the garden Mentors and coaches people so that they either realize their potential or find a role that is a better fit
Plucks weeds as they appear Removes impediments on behalf of the teams
Installs trellises to steer plan growth Expands the teams’ bounded authority as they become more skilled at self-managing
Waters regularly Fosters a culture of continuous improvement

I don’t know about you – and please feel free to give me your thoughts in the comments section – but that still feels like a lot of work to me. However, it’s a work of a different nature for sure; it’s more leadership than management. As such, not everybody will immediately excel at it. Nevertheless, I think the investment of energy in better leadership is well worth it. Also, isn’t it a lot more fun and ultimately impactful? Therefore, I think managers should view an Agile transformation with optimism.

Works cited

Gardening, Stephanie Wauters, Noun Project, Web. 1 Sep. 2015.

Where to Start a Transformation?

So you’ve decided to go ahead with a transformation. How should you go about it? Where should you start? And whom should you start with? Does it matter? I suggest that it does indeed matter, and a lot.

For me anyway, one method has worked so much more successfully than the others that in my mind it is a “no-brainer.” That method is to cultivate fully the most fertile plot first. I call this the depth-first approach. Let me explain that. One of the first decisions that need to be made is whether the transformation will be attempted by moving everyone in lockstep, or whether there will be some form of staggered rollout and whom to start it with.

False Choice

Forgetting for a second the irony of using a big batch approach to lead a Lean or Agile transformation, we find that even the lockstep method ultimately devolves in a gradated approach. I’ve never seen a sizable group of people in which everyone is subject to identical constraints or internalizes new concepts at the same rate. Thus, even when the big batch method is attempted, you end up with pockets where certain concepts are applied ahead of others. Therefore, in no time at all some individuals and teams require a different kind of coaching. Whatever economies of scale are hoped for with the big batch approach, they quickly evaporate due to the now differentiated demand for coaching. Since coaching and mentoring capacity is usually limited, the change agents have to prioritize the opportunities for assistance.

The Who

Perhaps you pick the toughest critics and attempt to convert them first, figuring that if you can move them, you can move anybody in your organization. Or perhaps you are better off aligning with like-minded people and equipping them to evangelize on your behalf so that you can magnify your influence.

The Where

Space-wise, you could identify some of the organization’s biggest problems and attempt to solve those with the Agile mindset. If you crack one of those nuts, the likelihood that the others can be cracked too increases. On the other hand, maybe you should be wary of what is likely to be a tougher slug and instead pick a space where success is both more likely and less distant.

Mind Your Credibility

If you work in an organization that looks anything like the ones I’ve worked in, you know that people are more swayed by results they can see than unverifiable tall tales of riches. I try to never forget that as the change agent, I’m also perceived as the salesman. Increasingly tangible evidence of success may be required to move the transformation through the typical phases of adoption. This is where native stories are so important, and why I set out to create and record them as soon as possible.

Selecting the Right Investment

Every bit of transformational success is akin to making a payment to the bank. With that payment usually comes a deadline extension and an increase in credit score. Over time, as a portfolio of native successes is built, there are fewer resistors. Success begets success.  That’s why I choose to cultivate deeply the most fertile organizational plot I can find.

I’d sincerely love to hear from those who have experienced success with the breadth-first approach. I’m curious to know what conditions had to be true to make it work.

What Are The Benefits Of Agile?

. . . or Lean, or whatever one may wish to call the discovery mindset? My thoughts on the benefits an organization stands to gain by going through an Agile transformation have evolved over time. I’ve come to believe there are benefits on multiple levels. Awareness of them helps me focus on the prize and become a more effective participant, coach, and leader. Here are some of the benefits I have witnessed first-hand.

Effectiveness

When I first experienced Agile, I was a participant in a Scrum team. My initial reaction was that we were going to be a lot more effective at our job. With better communication, a focus on a common goal, and more frequent validation of our wares, there would be less wasted time and fewer self-inflicted reworks. And so it was.

Money

Over time, the organization got better and faster at cranking out products and services through a more flexible, more collaborative workforce, and I concluded that the transformation was about more money for the corporation. We were operating with a higher level of quality, so better financial results were indeed part of the equation.

Customer Intimacy

After better internalizing the “customer collaboration” aspect of the manifesto, we developed outstanding relationships with customers. We had a stretch of more than a year when we did an end-of-sprint demonstration to one or more customers without exception (See this post for tips on making demonstrations happen). At one such demonstration, a customer asked if she could purchase the product right then, about three months prior to our expected release date, because it met her needs! It then dawned on me: this new mindset is really about delivering customer value. Better financial results are just a trailing consequence.

Fun

Later still, as the rest of the leadership team and I evolved our main management paradigm, I started to piece together a different picture. There was a lot more energy in the office. Employees had taken control of their physical space, work tools, and organization. People from far-flung divisions wanted to join us just for the sheer fun of it. It felt like a much happier place, driven by intrinsic motivation. And since plenty of research suggests that happier employees lead to more successful organizations, I began to think that a perfectly valid reason to pursue such transformation is the pursuit of happiness.

Effectiveness, financial rewards, customer value, and happiness all seem like valid reasons to start down the path of a transformation. In fact, I think they all co-exist to some degree. Have you found something else? What is driving your transformation?