leadership

What Executive Support of Agile Means

Executive support is often touted as one of the most important, if not the most important pre-condition for a successful organizational transformation, be it Agile or otherwise. I agree. However, the nature of that support is not frequently defined. Worse still, I believe it is for most part misunderstood, especially by the executives themselves. In this post I cover some aspects of that support as I’ve encountered it in the wild.

What It’s Not

Let’s start with one thing executive support is not: a passive state. Support does not mean merely tolerating Agile (or Lean, or whatever; I’m not a stickler) in the organization, or just giving the green light for other people to change. It is not something to be exercised from a distance through intermediaries. I understand this may come to the great chagrin of some executives who were content to let things happen down there, way below them.

No, executive support is an activity, a role, a contact sport. The main reason is quite simple: organizations have a tendency to mirror their leaders. Thus, by definition, if an executive does not adopt Agile-compatible behaviors, neither will the organization.

Values

For example, it is critical for the executive to decree new, Agile-compatible values for the organization, and articulate the reasons why they are being adopted. If a senior leader cannot explain the sought-after benefits of the transformation, it will be difficult for employees to see the transformation as anything other than a passing fad. One caution: the leader should stop shy of instituting a specific Agile method. This is for the rest of the organization to figure out. Not only is the executive not in the best position to know which method is called for, but also the organization would then be even more susceptible to blind mechanical adoption (i.e. Cargo Cult).

Active Support

Indeed, the identification and decision about which specific Agile method the teams will use should be pushed down to the lowest possible level. Ideally, it’s a determination best left to the teams themselves, after they’ve received a modicum of education on Agile values, principles, and methods. By pushing that decision down, the executive shows support by starting to demonstrate attributes of servant leadership, a mindset that will have to be internalized by many people in the organization if it is to maximize its potential. (We touched on servant leadership in this article.)

Another critical area where an executive demonstrates support for the transformation is on new and evolving job roles. For example, the Scrum method calls for new titles, like Product Owner and Scrum Master. Those roles will have to be defined in their scope and career progression, and proven “safe” for the first few employees who raise their hands for these roles. Correspondingly, some historical roles will evolve, sometimes a lot. For example, the traditional project manager who does a lot of intermediation may now be deemed counterproductive. Similarly the micro-manager and the lone wolf engineer may no longer be viewed as assets. Indeed, if an executive tolerates historical behaviors that are now harmful to the new culture, employees will deem this a lack of commitment. They will note the irony when their commitment is then sought. Moreover, the executive has to make sure that the good people, whom the rest of the organization knows better than the exec, have their fears and questions answered through this time of change. It can be a difficult balancing act.

Resolve

Finally, an executive must maintain a firm hand on the culture change tiller when the waters inevitably get rough. I strongly agree with the old saying that the main promise of Agile is to shine a light on the problems the organization already suffers from. Some of those challenges will be big, and this may be discouraging to the people of the organization. At that point, there is frequently a tendency to ignore the inconvenient  Agile principles and to implement workarounds instead of confronting the difficulties head-on. Executive support requires that one maintain the pressure to change.

I think there can be little doubt that executive support is much more than a mere agreement to go ahead with the transformation. It involves signaling and modeling the change from the front, while ensuring that the others actually follow. It is a key transformational success factor. Besides the aforementioned examples, what other major actions should an executive take?

Works cited

“Support”, by Gregor Črešnar, The Noun Project, Web. 30 Jan. 2016.  Modified.

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.

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?