managers

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.

How To Influence Stakeholders Of A Transformation

I think we can all agree that in order to get an organization to internalize the Lean/Agile/Discovery mindset, a lot of stakeholders must be influenced. Moreover, the pesky thing about stakeholders is that they are all different. They believe in different things, adopt different values, have different experiences, and are subject to different pressures. A single message is thus unlikely to resonate equally well with all of them, or at least, that is my experience. Therefore, I find it useful to think of different ways to reframe my message. I now try to meet them where they are by casting the various benefits of a transformation (link to Why Bother article) in a different light based on the person’s concerns, or at least likely concerns if I can’t ascertain for sure. Here are some examples that have worked for me:

Line Managers

Line managers are typically responsible for demonstrably getting things done through their team. In traditional organizations, these managers have to report the team’s progress to superiors. It should thus be no surprise that their immediate reaction to a coach’s request to let the team self-organize is met with fear and doubt. Hell, most of the principles that underpin the Agile manifesto can be perceived as heresy. That fear is understandable. I’ve experienced it myself. It can be scary to remain responsible for the outcome while letting go of the traditional controls, however illusionary they might be. I have had success allaying that fear when I was able to establish convincingly that self-organization leads to greater ownership of outcomes, which leads to more creative solutions to problems, which are themselves the precursors of good results.

Executives

Business executives must also support cultural transformation. As an Agile coach and friend of mine is fond of saying, “If the boss isn’t talking about it, it’s unlikely to be viewed as important.” How do you get someone responsible for the Profit and Loss Statement to support a change that demands relaxing, if not eliminating the traditional controls of schedules, status reports, and feature/content contracts? The key is to make the case for a different path to great financial results. For example, the transformation is in part about developing the skill to differentiate and emphasize the high-value work at the expense of the lower-value one. By putting more of our investment toward our best bets, we tilt the business odds in our favor. And while we perhaps make fewer promises about the future – history tells us that promises based on false certainty are frequently broken anyway – we know that we generally hold a better hand, as in poker, than we did before the transformation.

Sales And Business People

In many circumstances, in order to get the invaluable customer feedback, we will have to seek the assistance of sales or business people. When I have requested access to the customer, I have often been met with the fear that comes from bringing one’s customer inside the sausage factory (this article contains tips on overcoming the fears). Those fears, real or imagined, must be weighed against the benefits of information value for the company and increased engagement for customers. I have found that people will agree that the ability to deliver more customer value and increase the loyalty of customers in the process is a win-win proposition.

The Doers

To me, the most important people in a transformation are the people who get the work done. Call them individual contributors, staff, or simply people (though, please, not the dehumanizing  “resources”). In most environments, that’s a mix of engineers, technicians, analysts, marketers, accountants, lawyers, writers, designers, and others. Most of them view any proposal for change with a cynicism cultivated by yearly process changes that usually only serve to make their lives more difficult for no apparent benefit. When done honestly, I consider a Lean or Agile transformation different, because it is culturally driven, not process-driven. To dispel the fear of abuse (a strong word, I know) by the next wave of process, I like to talk about the principles of autonomy, self-organization, greater business context, more authentic feedback, teamwork and collaboration, and impediment removal. I never promise that it’s all sunshine and rainbows. However, I do genuinely believe that it leads to a better quality of life for all. That usually resonates, and raises the bar for expectations, and I’m fine with that.

Meeting Them Where They Are

To effect a successful Lean or Agile transformation, all you have to do is change product development, marketing, sales, customer support, finance, manufacturing, and Human Resources, but that’s about it. Obviously, you are not going to change these functions yourself, so you need to influence stakeholders. To paraphrase Dale Carnegie, there is only one way to get anyone to do anything. You need to make them want to do it. Thus, as change agents, we need to learn how best to position the benefits that go along with a transformation. I suggest that targeted messaging should be one tool we have. Do you have a similar experience?