Becoming an Agile Manager can be a daunting task and usually comes with many emotions and a few BIG questions. “What is my job now?” “How do I fill my time?” “Is my job being taken by someone else?”
These questions are often followed by reassurance from Leadership and Agile Coaches that the role is, in fact, still safe and your job is still important. Along with reassurance usually comes a high-level explanation of the job described as “a shift from focus on output and priorities to performance, capabilities, and organizational systems”. All these things are true, but still leave managers in a nebulous state asking more questions about how they actually make this transition to Agile Manager.
In my experience, the next steps for this transformation are left out and the manager is faced with the challenge of figuring out the details. The following are a few tips I like to share with Agile managers to help their transformation along with how to overcome the challenges faced when trying to do so.
Agile adoption may have come as a mandate from high above or an ask from your employees and you may not know “why we are doing this” or how this is going to work for your employees. Start by familiarizing yourself with the Agile Manifesto and the 12 Agile principles. I also recommend attending a training class for real-world application and reading a book about the framework your employees will be adopting. Spending the time to determine what is so special about working this way will help you grow comfortable in your role as Agile Manager. Determining your own “Why” behind encouraging employees to work this way will help your employees accept the change and even look forward to working in a new and different way. You can share this with your employees at the team launch and in your employee 1:1’s.
A manager has lots of day-to-day responsibilities and it’s hard to make time for extra classes and learning. This lack of time is also compounded by the fact that you may be feeling threatened by the change happening around you, and in some cases, even toward you (whether you realize it or not).
If you hone in your skills in these leadership areas, you will be better equipped to help your employees navigate the waters of change and come out successful in the end. You can do this by attending leadership training classes like the CAL leadership training courses or leadership training that your organization provides through something like a Leadership Institute. You can also read management books like “Management 3.0” by Jurgen Appelo or any of the great titles produced by Patrick Lencioni.
This one is easier said than done. Managers have been responsible for the output of work and it’s difficult to let go and feel confident that others (the self-organizing/self-managing team) are taking care of this. And up to this point, managers have been measuring success based on a number of items completed and whether people are “filling their 40 hours”. This is going to be the most uncomfortable part of becoming an Agile manager.
Start with being aware of when you are feeling the need to own the output of the team. Self-awareness is key. Second, work closely with a Product Owner and a Scrum Master. Regular conversations with those two individuals will help calm your nerves. These conversations will reassure you that the developers are doing well and working on the right things for your organization. Over time, the urge to own the output will go away. Whether you realize it or not, you are building new trust with your employees. You will see they are doing what they need to do without your direction. And sometimes “seeing is believing.”
Giving up the decision about the priority of work will not be easy. But, for Agile to work in your organization, the Product Owner needs to make those decisions and set the direction. If a manager continues to try to set priorities, it will undermine the Product Owner and give employees the idea that they don’t have to follow the rules. If you team up with the Product Owner and share your knowledge, you can influence the priorities being set and lead your employees by example. If you have to go through the Product Owner, then so do they, thus hopefully eliminating the “hidden” and “drive-by” work that reduces their ability to truly plan and provide continuous value.
Encouraging performance based on the overall accomplishments of a team supports the team mentality trying to be built with Agile. Ask for a 360-degree peer review instead of something like a self-evaluation. This tool will help you understand how this individual is providing value, as well as contributions to the team and environment they are working in. Be sure to also include their progress with a professional development plan as a measure of performance. Outside of this yearly peer review, you might be asking “How do I know what my employee is doing if I’m not directing their work or output and am not involved in all these meetings?” You can come to Sprint Reviews, talk with the Scrum Master about how the team is doing, and incorporate questions in your regular 1:1s about how they are working as a team.
Our biggest goal is to have cross-functional teams full of people that have a desire to do the work. When there is a need to break down silos or develop a new skill on a team, asking who would like to learn will produce happier employees who do a better job. This is because they are enthusiastic about what they are doing and have a choice in learning it.
A great starting place is to work with the scrum master and the developers on creating a skills matrix. The result of this exercise can then be taken to your 1:1s where you can ask what they would like to learn from skills that need to be developed on the team. You may also want to talk about where a team member would like to go in their career and add that to their plan as well.