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Leading Agile Teams
The New Role of Management in an Agile Organization
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Allison Pollard
Agile coach and consultant
Firm believer in continuous improvement
DFW Scrum user group leader and Dallas Agile Leadership Network board member
Glasses wearer
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What is agile?
1. Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.
2. Welcome changing requirements, even late in development. Agile processes harness change for the customer's competitive advantage.
3. Deliver working software frequently, from a couple of weeks to a couple of months, with a preference to the shorter timescale.
4. Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.
5. Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.
6. The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.
http://agilemanifesto.org/
7. Working software is the primary measure of progress.
8. Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.
9. Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design enhances agility.
10. Simplicity--the art of maximizing the amount of work not done--is essential.
11. The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.
12. At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.
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How do you implement values and principles?
Agile frameworks
Scrum
XPYours
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Scrum only defines 3 roles but other key roles exist
Those key roles DON’T:
Assign work to team members
Tell the team how to do the work
Talk in the daily scrums
What does this mean for managers?
https://www.flickr.com/photos/cutiemoo/3111207407/
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Are managers no longer needed?
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No Team is an Island
Self-organizing teams exist to produce a product or service that is valuable to the organization and its customers.
https://flic.kr/p/jijopb
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Managers can play a valuable role as teams become self-organizing and take on more responsibility.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/eekim/14352861405/
Managers need to learn a different way of managing.
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Acknowledging the Management “Trifecta of Doom”
https://www.flickr.com/photos/63425234@N05/5772772604/
1. Individual fear of seeming unqualified for management.
2. Organization encourages the “right now” answer rather than the “right” answer.
3. People have been taught that a manager’s job is to get other people to work hard.
All these work against learning, so we have to shift our perception of the management role.
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The Old Manager
Actions:
Enforces decisions
Commands respect
Controls the process, the team, the deliverable, and the effort
Perception:
Distrusts the team
Dictator, Ruler, Controller
https://www.flickr.com/photos/andy_tyler/3308288463/
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The New Manager
Actions:
Relies on the team to decide
Earns respect
Has a team that creates and uses their process, that commits to their deliverable, and raises and lowers their effort to make their commitment
Perception:
Trusts the team
Coach, Mentor, Leaderhttps://www.flickr.com/photos/uzi978/3977937339/
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Create the conditions that enable teams to thrive
How do we create and support effective teams?
https://flic.kr/p/eLTeSZ
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Team Effectiveness:The 60-30-10 Principle
Design of the teamWay team is launchedLeader coaching once team is underway
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Designing Flexible, Long-Lived Teams1. Organize the work so teams
are creating a product or service that has meaning from a business perspective.
2. Form teams that have the breadth of skills to handle a broad range of work.
3. Bring work to the teams rather than reforming teams for each new project.
https://flic.kr/p/ar9Zon
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Characteristics of Thriving Teams
Thriving Team
Cross functionality
Camaraderie and mutually accountable
Visibility
Flexible work processes
and continuous
improvement
Attention to technical
excellence
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Launching the Team: Articulate a Compelling Goal
https://flic.kr/p/hJqxnM
An effective goal statement does two jobs:
Focuses the attention and effort of the team
Engages the team in a meaningful challenge
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Leader Coaching: Pillars of Support
Image by Esther Derby
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Leading the Team
Developing people
Seeing across the organization
Creating environments where people can build products and services that delight customers, satisfy stakeholders, and empower employees.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/almostinfamous/4884741424/
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The New Manager Job Description
Build Teams
Coach
Partner with Product Owners and Scrum Masters
Meet with other Managers
Provide Vision
Build Strategy
Provide Leadership
Listen
Have Fun
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Now what?
Find out what the team needs
Remove impediments
Highlight and celebrate team successes
Help focus the team on their goal
Provide visibility – share organizational information with the team
Be agile and help others to be agile
https://flic.kr/p/3eir4a
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References
Esther Derby’s blog, http://www.estherderby.com/category/insights
Brian Sobus’s presentation, Functional Management: There IS a place for it in Agile, http://submit2011.agilealliance.org/files/session_pdfs/Functional_Management.pdf
Barry Oshry, Managing in the Middle
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Contact
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @allison_pollard
Blog: www.allisonpollard.com