I saw this post about Agile Managers? on the Agile Chronicles blog, and to be honest I found it a bit irritating.

It mentions the notion that self-organising teams could go so far that managers are not needed. It asks why a manager would want to do agile if it might put them out of a job, and raises the question, what will we do with all the spare managers?

In some ways I guess the comments are just meant to be light-hearted and are making a valid point. Basically that we still need managers, but maybe a manager's role is different in an agile environment; perhaps more of a support role for the team.

That's fine.

But the idea that managers might not be needed in an agile environment... I think in any organisation, this concept is bizarre.

Comments like this can sometimes make agile seem like some sort of developers' uprising against the establishment. Personally I think agile is great. And I don't think comments like this are helpful to the reputation of agile, or its growth in the mainstream.

Don't get me wrong. I do agree that agile teams should be empowered.

It's an important principle. And one of the first things I posted in my series about 10 Key Principles of Agile Software Development.

I also think it's right that agile teams should be self-organising. But self-organisation is not boundaryless. Managers help teams to be self-organising within the constraints of their organisation.

And all teams need leadership. Ideally, inspirational leadership. Although leadership can take many forms, and emerge from anywhere in the team (not necessarily from managers), the appointed leaders (i.e. managers) must ultimately take responsibility for the team's leadership.

In agile development, managers are definitely still needed. There are so many organisational issues and activities that must be considered that have a much wider span than the team itself. Budget, contracts, recruitment, performance management, suppliers, strategy and direction, policies, responsibility for delivery and quality, communication with stakeholders, and many more.

What I do firmly believe, though, is that agile managers need to turn their thinking upside-down.
Kelly.

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One of the key principles of agile software development is that agile teams must be empowered.

In Scrum, an agile management methodology, this is known as 'self-organisation', or 'self-organising teams'.

The concept is that the team is given full responsibility for delivery and the management role on the team, known as 'ScrumMaster', is a facilitator role.

The ScrumMaster is responsible for orchestrating and enforcing the process (i.e. Scrum), and removing any impediments that hinder the team's progress.

For some, this is management. For others, management means telling people what to do and how to do it.

In reality, I think all teams benefit from this kind of light management style. It's empowering for team members. And, in my experience, empowered teams are more motivated and deliver better results. However - empowered teams can also take the 'wrong' direction. And to avoid this, a manager must coach and guide, and on occasions enforce a particular direction.

Self-organising teams are likely to have a much narrower view than their managers, who have broad exposure to all sorts of operational and organisational issues. They may also take a route that is contrary to important company policies. They may unknowingly take a route that has legal implications. They may take a route that suits the team and their current project, but is completely contradictory to some wider or longer term organisational goals.

So, whilst I believe strongly in servant leadership - believing that managers need to turn their thinking upside-down - self-organisation is not boundaryless!

What's called for, is a fine balance between empowerment and direction. What's called for, is inspirational leadership, .

See also:
20 qualities of an Agile leader
Managers need to turn their thinking upside-down
Agile teams must be empowered
10 key principles of agile software development

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Managers in agile development need to turn their thinking upside down.

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An Agile Development project team must include all the necessary team members to make decisions, and make them on a timely basis.

Active user involvement is one of the key principles to enable this, so the user or user representative from the business must be closely involved on a daily basis.

The project team must be empowered to make decisions in order to ensure that it is their responsibility to deliver the product and that they have complete ownership. Any interference with the project team is disruptive and reduces their motivation to deliver.

The team must establish and clarify the requirements together, prioritise them together, agree to the tasks required to deliver them together, and estimate the effort involved together.

It may seem expedient to skip this level of team involvement at the beginning. It’s tempting to get a subset of the team to do this (maybe just the product owner and analyst), because it’s much more efficient. Somehow we’ve all been trained over the years that we must be 100% efficient (or more!) and having the whole team involved in these kick-off steps seems a very expensive way to do things.

However this is a key principle for me. It ensures the buy-in and commitment from the entire project team from the outset; something that later pays dividends. When challenges arise throughout the project, the team feels a real sense of ownership. And then it's doesn't seem so expensive.

See also:
10 Key Principles of Agile Development

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