We Need Managers to Become Agile Leaders

To be Agile, we desperately need active engagement by Agile Leaders.

We have messed up. For too long, managers have not had a home in an Agile transformation. Excluding managers has created a huge impediment for embracing the Agile Mindset. We coach on removing silos, but we have created a manager silo. Transformations all over the world stall out due to this.

By “We,” I mean Agile Coaches, Scrum Masters, Team Members, Product Owners, and others on the Agile journey. We have pushed managers out of the team, and now we are in desperate need of them to return.

I often hear statements from managers that reinforce my belief there is a problem, such as:

• “My teams are empowered to self-organize.”
• “I don’t know what my teams are working on.”
• “If I am not managing the teams, what should I do?”
• “I am not allowed in the team retrospective or other ceremonies.”
• “We need standard language in Jira, so I can understand what my teams are working on.”
• “The team does not want me hanging around the team area. It is awkward.”

The keeping managers at arms length approach has backfired. Often, managers turn back to what they know from traditional management doctrine. This can slow an Agile transformation to a crawl or kill it.

Now, I am not saying we need more management. What we need are Agile leaders. And we need them to be part of the team. Let’s break this down.

Traditional Management Is Not Needed

In traditional management, controls, standards, and predictability rule. We believe we can tame a complex problem through structure and reducing variability. We create elaborate designs, 300-line Gantt charts, checklists, phase gates, review boards, and detailed procedures outlining how we work. Detail gives us comfort and a sense of control.

Detail gives us comfort and a sense of control.

We centralize decision making through a few experienced individuals or through ourselves. The team must run all decisions through this channel to ensure they do not go outside of the boundaries. Most of these decisions happen behind closed doors with select, experienced individuals. The team has no involvement.

We expect all teams to work in a standard manner and to report progress in a standard way. All reports are due at a certain time of the week. This allows management to review progress and have transparency into the work status. Outside of occasional team celebrations, this is the closest management gets to the team.

In the past, I was a manager doing these very things. I know you can get very good at them. I also know they do nothing to tame a complex problem. Traditional management technique creates a false sense of control. The uncertainty and risk is still there. But it is obscured by the designs, plans, standards, and pristine status reports. The power of the team is not tapped.

We Desperately Need Agile Leaders

Manager is the wrong word for what Agile needs. We need managers to become Agile Leaders.

Agile Leaders engage, empathize, and serve the team at the place of work. Serving the team is all the rage these days. You hear or read about Servant Leadership at every turn. But serving the team is too often interpreted as waiting for the team to ask for help. Rather than wait for the team, go to the Gemba—the actual place of work¹. Get out of your office and engage with the team. Help them as they deliver. See their problems first hand. You will know exactly what they are working on. It will become obvious how you can help. You start helping and playing the part only you as a leader can fill. This is true service to the team by being a contributing member of the team.

Growing your team is critical. By engaging shoulder to shoulder with your teams, you can help them grow. As a leader, you can teach them how to navigate complexity. You must engender an ability in your team members to think using the scientific method. It is impossible to teach every possible scenario your teams will encounter. Instead teach them how to probe, sense, and respond. This will give them critical abilities to solve complex problems on their own. And it builds self-organizing skills in your teams.

When an experiment explodes, that is the sound of learning!

You must understand and act to support empiricism. Your statements and actions need to support learning and innovation over predictive mechanisms. Invest in learning. Do not see change as a cost. It is only a cost if there is no learning. If a team tries something that does not work, see this as a success. Celebrate it. When an experiment explodes, that is the sound of learning!

Bring Agile Leaders Into the Team

Have you ever noticed that there are always too few Agile coaches to address the Agile demand? The transformation is too large and complex for Agile coaches to do this alone. We need Agile Leaders to join us. We can’t do it without you.

Forget all the things you heard about not being welcome at Agile ceremonies.

We will help integrate you into the teams. It may be uncomfortable for you and the team at first. But as you help to serve the team and build their problem solving capabilities, you will find your groove. Forget all the things you heard about not being welcome at Agile ceremonies. Show Agile leadership rather than management behavior. The team will welcome you.

Consider forming a transformation leadership team. Form a transformation backlog from what you learn by working with your teams. Start solving the organizational issues that impede your teams. Use Agile values, principles, and frameworks to guide how you solve issues for your teams. By using the same framework as your teams, you will show your belief in the Agile movement.

You now have direct engagement with the team. The team is learning how to problem solve, and you are removing their organizational impediments. As you do this, you will find you no longer need status reports, plans, and detailed designs. You will know exactly what the team is doing, why they are doing it, and what risks they face. The team will see you as a part of their delivery success, clearing their path. You will have a team who is as committed to delivering value as you are. The traditional management techniques will be a distant memory.

If we take this to heart, we will all be talking soon about how Agile Leaders have made all the difference in making Agile take flight.

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Related Posts

• Do We Need a Manifesto for Managers?
• Improvement Versus Delivery
• The Moment of Truth
• How to Shift Gears to Become an Agile Leader
• Surviving Agile Without a Status Report—Engaging With the Team

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References

1. The Many Sides of a Gemba Walk, Russel Lindquist, isixsigma.com