Can Managers Lead Agile Teams?

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Comments

[Scrumpersonator]

I'm a big believer in Scrum, having programmed software for years using the Waterfall approach at some of my employers. (Ugh) But, as someone that has risen to the level of senior management, I must point out that, to stick with your Animal Farm metaphors, farms still need farmers.

Some pigs will think they're more equal than others. You need a Development Manager to prevent or mediate "religious" arguments about whether to use Java or C#.

Some pigs will wallow in their own filth. Someone needs to carry the spatula and remind the pigs that their bacon is on the line. It's still called "work" for a reason. All pigs would rather be playing Crysis. Someone needs to place a value on the work that each pig does, coaches them to be the best they can be, and send them to the slaughterhouse if they don't produce.

Some pigs will build straw houses with a brick facade, or build houses with "gold-plated" faucets. The Product Owner or Scrum Master doesn't have a clue about Class Factories or Web Service design. To the Product Owner, the skin of the application may be perfect, but behind the door of the house, someone's got to make sure that what's being built is a staircase in the foyer rather than a space elevator.

You can lead pigs to scrum, but you can't make them drink the kool-aid. Organizational and procedural change is hard. The best scrum implementations are the ones that build from the ground up. But that's not always how it starts. Some pigs may be excellent designers and coders, but due to lack of experience or personality attributes, fall short when it comes to recognizing the value of transparency, teamwork, and answering the 3 scrum questions so they don't have to fill out TPS Reports.

We can all strive for the utopian Scrum commune, but at the end of the day, a little capitalistic business reality is needed to keep the farm in business.

[Paul Hopkins]

Hi, I like this, I only have one point that needs thinking about: is the presence of any sort of "coordination" role a barrier to self-organisation? In most organisations currently, the guy (or girl) with positional authority also has his/her hands on the purse strings, i.e. the decision on who gets paid what and how bonuses are distributed. This is what I call the "cult of the individual" w.r.t. performance management. I once experienced a team that was working very well together turn back into a group of individuals again, when their manager got too involved in their work. All of a sudden, daily scrums were no longer daily scrums for the team to get and stay in sync and help each other, but a meeting in which individuals said what they doing, how well they were doing it, and how they would be much further if only "A.N.Other" started pulling his weight. And all because the "team" knew that their manager was in the middle of performance appraisals and decisions re: salary. Regards, Paul