Myth Busted: Management is obsolete in agile organizations

In agile literature, there is quite a bit written about the standard roles of scrum master, product owner and team member. What is broadly ignored is the role of management in an agile organization. Some might say there is no role for management in agile, while this is literally true, the role is not described in the agile manifesto or principles, that does not mean there is no need for management in an agile organization. In large organizations, agile teams are interconnected parts of the whole organizational fabric, in the same way that a household is part of a community. Management ensures that agile teams and the people in them remain fully integrated and aligned with the whole organization. Management plays a further roll of challenging thinking and opening opportunities for the team to reflect, learn and grow. It supports the team to become a better team and the individuals within it to be better people, which after all is the ultimate goal of management.

 Agile teams are not isolated islands floating freely in an organizational sea

Agile is focused on small, self-organizing teams that deliver products of value to customers, consistently, at regular intervals. The intensive focus on the team is intentional, because that is where the value-creation magic happens and where legacy methodologies have left large gaps. However, we cannot ignore the important role of managment in supporting agile teams, especially in large organizations.

Seven focus points for management that are crucial to the success of agile teams.

1. Care of people
2. Empowerment
3. Blocker removal
4. Direction setting
5. Resource acquisition (note: “resource” means things, not people)
6. Conflict resolution
7. Feedback on work performed

people are the reason for most of what we do

1. Care of people

People are the organization. People do the work. Taking care of people is not just a modern fad of organizational theory. It is good for the soul and it is broadly recognized as being good for business. Yes, the people in empowered, self-directed teams can care for themselves. Even so, within the context of an organization, they must also be cared for. Caring can take many forms including: recognition; awards; celebrations; accommodations for special needs; sometimes just taking the time to listen. Care of people is part of caring for teams and it bears repeating, agile teams are not intended to be isolated islands floating freely in an organizational sea. Agile teams are interconnected parts of a larger whole and management is a large part of the glue that holds them and the people within them together.

 When managers are asked to approve a request from the team, the most empowering answer is to question why team needs to ask for approval in the first place

2. Empowerment

Enabling teams to work with autonomy in a large organization takes a lot of work. Declaring that a team is empowered is a beautiful statement. True empowerment only comes stepwise as a team exercises that power in new situations. This is true where an entire organization has embraced agile at scale and even more so where only a few teams have transitioned to agile within a traditionally run organization. Management must enforce and re-enforce the autonomy and empowerment of agile teams. It does this for example through:

1. Supporting the team’s right to take action, when this is challenged by other functions in the organization;
2. Providing “no-questions” default approval where the team should be deciding, but the processes of the organization have not yet been upgraded; and
3. Teaching the team how to work through problems, rather than solving the problems for the team.

Strong support from management for the team’s right to decide on its own is needed until the time when processes and culture within the organization have caught up to the new ways of working.

3. Blocker removal

While delivering products, especially in a larger organization, teams may get blocked from moving forward. Responsibility to remove these blockers lies first and foremost with the team. Removing blockers often requires help outside the team. This can require the aid of management to ensure that other parts of the organization are aligned to supporting the agile team’s goals. It is crucial to remember that when an agile team requests support in removing blockers, it is not transferring ownership of the issue, the agile team remains responsible for the delivery and therefore removal of the blocker. If management takes up the blocker on behalf of the team, the team still must ensure that it is moving forward. They can do this, for example, by inviting management to their daily standup to give the team updates on the blocker. If this seems like a role-reversal, where the team is giving direction to management, in fact, this is exactly what it is and is the embodiment of the servant-leadership model embraced in agile.

4. Direction Setting

Empowerment does not mean that teams are all-knowing. Empowered teams have broad freedom to decide how to solve the problems presented to them. They can also discover new problems to solve. This is not a unilateral authority. Teams work within the broad context of the organization they are part of. This sometimes constrains the choices a team may reasonably make. Management helps teams to ensure they understand the strategic goals and priorities of the organization and how each of their options fit or don’t. Whereas in traditional management this often takes the form of you-say / we-do, in the context of empowered teams it is a question of coaching the team to look from a different point of view. Management can then help teams to advocate for their ideas and secure the organizational support needed to take up a new direction. Managers of agile teams also help the teams to set direction. In technical teams, this may take the form of agreeing on choices of acceptable programming languages to ensure software is broadly understood in an organization or that the organization will be able to find enough talent in the marketplace to grow a team. Managers may also play a role in defining outcomes for agile teams in terms of cycle time, production defects, product performance, etc. Direction setting in terms of team diversity may also be appropriate

In agile, “resources” refers to things we need to do work e.g. money, systems, vendor services, software, hardware, office space, supplies, etc., never people

5. Resource acquisition

Teams usually need a variety of resources to deliver products. Teams must identify the resources they need to deliver their products. In many cases, they should be able to secure the resources they need, however, empowerment is not a blank check for a bottomless pool of funding. In some cases, teams will need support from management due to size, complexity, security, or a host of other factors that put the resource request outside of the team’s independent decision authority. This is when management must act quickly to ensure teams have what they need.

6. Conflict Resolution

People are people, as the saying goes. The same is true for people in agile teams. Management has a role to play in helping to mediate disputes between people, teams, goals, and priorities. These disputes may arise within an agile team, between agile teams in an aligned product area or between agile teams and the broader organization. In many of these conflicts, it is important for management to play a role in resolving the conflict to ensure the organization is focused on creating customer value. In some cases, management must seek help from other parts of the organization, for example HR or even an employee help service, which many companies offer today. In any case, management must be aware of what is working well and where there are issues or potential issues within their organizations and then act quickly and carefully to help people and teams to resolve those issues.

7. Feedback on work performed

Agile teams receive lots of feedback. There is product owner feedback, customer feedback, self-reflecting feedback from the retrospectives and management feedback. Management feedback can be individual feedback delivered personally and team feedback. Of course, management feedback for agile teams should not be of the “do this now” variety. Rather it usually revolves around a thoughtful, persistent probing of the fundamental assumptions behind what the team is doing or plans to do. Determining if the team’s actions or plans are aligned with strategic objectives. This kind of questioning-feedback opens opportunities for the team to reflect and learn. It allows the team to grow and think differently. It allows the team to become better people and a better team. Which, after all, is the ultimate goal of management.

Conclusion

Management has a vital role to play in agile organizations from caring for people to empowerment, from blocker removal to direction setting and from resource acquisition to conflict resolution and feedback. Scaling agile means lots of people who need support from servant-leaders who can navigate the organization and help them to deliver great products to customers. So, if you are managing agile teams or if you will be in the future, you definitely have a role to play and it is a crucial role. Play it well and you will help your teams to achieve heights of greatness.

Other articles in the Agile Myth Buster series include:

Series opener – how to identify and address agile myths, by Erik Lenhard

Myth Busted: Leaders cannot challenge empowered teams, by Jeff Nicholas

Myth Busted: Agile is a blank cheque, by Nick James, Payam Djavdan, and Jack Clarkson

Myth Busted: Agile equals Scrum, by Jonathan Licis

The Myth of Agile Anarchy – we no longer have any process!, by Phil Thompson