Re-Release: Great Managers Are Catalysts of Successful Organisations
But they have to step up as Agile Leaders
Last weekend’s article on the relevance of Agile hit a note. One of the commenters emphasized the importance of leadership in the success of Agile. I wholeheartedly agree. I thought I’d write about it today, but then I remembered an article I wrote in 2021. I guess it makes the most sense to re-release this as many haven’t read this.
As an Agile Coach in a big organisation, I often talk with middle managers. Here’s a conversation I had some time ago:
“You know, I’m proud of my people. They understand why we use Scrum. They are working autonomously and always have the bigger picture in mind. They relentlessly improve their way of working. But I also see how frustrated they are with the company.”
“What is their frustration?”
“It’s all those corporate rules. They don’t make sense. We can only get a budget for initiatives with detailed plans. We have a tedious approval process to deploy our software. We even need to report on the velocity of the teams. All of these make no sense while working with Scrum.”
He continues: “It has gotten to the point that people feel betrayed. We told them to rigorously improve their way of working. But as soon as they cross the borders of the department, they get “NO” as an answer. Followed by “We have to follow these processes.” Great people are leaving us because of this. They are tired of the empty promises. Our attrition rate is dramatic.”
“What has been your role in bringing this to senior management?”
“I escalate almost every week. It has gotten to a point that I am raising the alarm at every meeting I have with senior management. I tell them how dissatisfied my people are and how good, vital people leave us. I know my colleagues do this too. But nothing has changed.”
Then he proceeds: “You know, I feel powerless. I am squished between my Scrum teams and rigid senior management. Frankly speaking, it is depressing. I see the company go down the drain and I can’t do anything about it. I even told senior management about how I felt about this. Trust me, this took some courage. But that didn’t help either.”
This middle manager is in a situation I often see within large companies. Especially the organisations that existed before Agile became a thing.
My response didn’t comfort him: “Many organisations are in a similar situation. For Agile to work as intended, the whole company has to be on board. The bigger the company, the more daunting this is.”
He responded, “But it is do-or-die! There’s no alternative! Long-term projects with detailed planning don’t work. We need to have the agility to course-correct to reach our goals.”
I said, “I agree. This is why I believe we need to continue our agile journey. There are a few things we can do to address these issues. Let’s sit together and work it out.”
Managers vs Leaders vs Scrum Masters
People follow leaders, while managers have people who work for them. This is the traditional viewpoint on managers and leaders.
But I have a different manager in mind: the Agile manager as depicted by Jurgen Appelo in Management 3.0. This manager has all the traits of a leader.
The Agile middle manager and the Scrum Master are natural allies. If needed, they team up to remove obstacles that prevent teams from improving. In many organisations, middle managers have easier access to senior management than Scrum Masters. This is due to their position in the organisation and why they are so important.
Step-by-step
The adoption of agility is a journey. Big-bang solutions will not cut it. It is wishful thinking to believe this can work. Big-bang is similar to a waterfall project: you design a new way of organising, implement it and then you assume you are Agile. It is a recipe for failure.
If your environment is complex, every organisational change initiative is an experiment. You try something, learn from it and then decide what to do next. Every agile organisation is on this journey. There will always be things to improve. There will always be reasons to inspect and adapt.
Now, let’s discuss how you as an Agile middle manager can bring change on a corporate level.
Join forces with other leaders
You make a stronger impression when you join forces with other leaders who see the same issues. Discuss your impediment with your peers and work together to tackle it. You make even more impact if you also can find peers outside of your department.
Understand why the current process does exist
Rules and procedures in your organisation were created for a reason. These may be valid. When you wish to discuss changing or removing a rule or procedure, you would make a fool of yourself to ignore the underlying reason. You would ruin your chances of success.
Understand why the process is like it is
Processes don’t appear out of the blue. People may have worked on it for weeks or months. They may have put a lot of effort into creating the process. If you don’t have this understanding, you may unknowingly offend people you wish to convince to work differently. This will not help your cause.
Explain you understand the purpose of the process
When the purpose is valid, then acknowledge this. When the purpose is (no longer) valid, show an understanding of the initial purpose. It will help them realize you don’t want to change without seeing the bigger picture.
Explain how the current process is an impediment
Now is the moment to explain why the process is an impediment. This often requires you to discuss the difference between traditional management and Agile management.
I do this by discussing the difference between complicated and complex environments. Then I explain the different responses required in complex environments. I will mention autonomy, fast feedback and relentless improvement.
Then you can pinpoint the issue at hand and how this harms the teams and their results.
Bring transparency using data
It will not suffice to only discuss the dissatisfaction of the people and the attrition rate. Higher management is more interested in the impact on the company goals. This is why you should bring facts that show how these are impacted.
Examples are the negative impact on user satisfaction, market share, and time to repair production issues.
Find alternatives together with your process stakeholder
When you have convinced higher management that the current process brings major issues, propose an alternative. Or better yet, work with them to create an alternative.
You may even find alternatives for the current process that better fit the organisation’s needs than the current one. I know of a situation where higher management wanted to be informed about the velocity of the teams. They wanted to have an understanding of their productivity. They did away with it and now receive information about how the teams move towards their intermediate goals.
This is a far better measure of success. So the new report did not only remove the impediment of the teams who felt controlled in the wrong way. It also gave the organisation better insights into progress towards their goals.
Experiment with the alternative locally
Organisations need hard facts on things that matter to them. “We are happy with the new process” is not a good way to convince higher management. So, propose to run an experiment on a small scale. This allows you to learn how the new process compares to the existing one.
This will help higher management to trust the new process and embrace it as the new standard.
Rinse and repeat for every potential improvement
You need to fight one battle at a time when the organisation at large doesn’t have agility ingrained. It may be tedious, but in an immature agile organisation, changes are hard work.
Educate the organisation to ease the process
In the long run, this tedious job of fostering change is unsustainable. So at the same time, you need to teach your organisation what it means to work in a complex organisation.
I would include EVERYONE! All employees are involved in creating and sustaining the product. The janitor from NASA knew this too:
In 1962, President John F. Kennedy visited NASA. At a certain moment, he met a janitor who was mopping the floor. Kennedy casually asked him what he did for NASA. The janitor replied, “I’m helping put a man on the moon.”
This is why everyone needs to understand how the company uses Agile to build its products. Not that they need to work agile, but they are stakeholders and need to understand what it means. This allows them to respond effectively when they need to do their part.
It is hard work to bring change in a large organisation
Changing one organisational process may appear simple. But there’s a lot that makes it hard work. Often, you need to convince higher management. This means you need to:
join forces;
understand why the process does exist;
show empathy;
convince people it doesn’t work;
show evidence;
have a good alternative;
experiment locally.
When an organisation as a whole hasn’t embraced agility, it’s even harder. When people don’t understand its concept, they will not see how their processes are unhelpful.
This is why it is important to educate the organisation. Everyone is a stakeholder to create and sustain the products. Everyone should understand that traditional ways of managing an organisation and creating products don’t work in complex environments.
Middle managers may feel squished between their agile teams and the non-agile higher management. They may feel powerless. But they are the ones that are instrumental in bringing change. They can do this by teaming up with their peers and challenging higher management. They are the catalysts for successful agile organisations.