Agile Problems Belong To Management - The Manager Edition 7 - Cultivated Management
The Manager
THE
manager.
Edition 7
Problems with Agile are management problems,
Hi and welcome to this week's Cultivated Management newsletter.
I've just had a thoroughly enjoyable week in Berlin at Agile Testing Days. It inspired today's post about agile problems and how they are management problems.
Rob..
If agile problems are management problems why do so many agile practitioners take them on?
Agile Problems
All agile projects have problems, just like every project. I doubt there was ever a project in play that didn't have problems.
Almost everyone I spoke to (with the exception of one or two consultants who were clearly lying) at Agile Testing Days last week reported problems with their agile projects, transitions and work flows. Lots of problems. Not that they weren't succeeding - they were, but they were still banging their heads against a number of problems that were really stopping them achieving their prime.
All of these problems belonged to management yet well meaning practitioners were trying to solve them. The reality is they never will - not without management.
There is a reason I focus on management and agile. I focus on management because they often have the many levers to pull in an organisation to make agile work. And yes, execs are managers too - they often have the most influential levers to pull.
Yet, despite managers being the key to releasing agility or locking up potential agility very few people focus on management. And all of the agile coaches, scrum masters, devs and testers I spoke with last week at Agile Testing Days were trying to solve management problems - with little success.
I didn't meet many managers, but I did see lots of management problems.
Let's go through some:
The wrong people on the project - management problem
Not enough people on the project - management problem
Disjointed communication between teams - management problem
Not enough skilled people - management problem
Not enough money (sometimes a good constraint to have - but when you don't have enough to even succeed....) - management problem
Managers not aware of what agile is or why it can work - management problem
Too many people with decision making input on project - management problem
Customer commitments being made without team involvement - management problem
No leadership - management problem
No management - management problem
Poor management or command and control - management problem
No vision, purpose or values - management problem
No feedback to teams - management problem
You get the point - all management problems.
The thing I saw last week was well meaning team members worrying that they were failing, or that they didn't have the skills or were simply never going to achieve greatness as a team.
When the problems are management problems there is only so much any person can do if management are not involved in helping to solve the problems.
Sure, you can fly below the radar and get good stuff done. You can do work anyway in spite of management. You can play the long game and work with management very slowly and surely. You can create a revolution and take over. Or you can keep banging your head against the wall. No doubt there are more options but all of them are sub-optimal for the team.
Every agile project I see fail is because of management. Every agile project I see succeed is because management have created the space for great people to work and release agility.
So take a look at what problems you have, work out what is causing them and if it's not management - address it if you can.
If it is management then isolate the problem, communicate to management with clarity and ensure there is always a pay-off that management may be tempted to support - such as making money, not losing money, not losing people, not losing customers, appearing successful (ego...urgh), maintaining control (urgh) etc.
Work out what levers you have and what the return can be and work with management.
I bang on about management because they really do make the difference between freedom to release agility or blocking the very things the business may need to move forward.
Management is hard. Very few people are trained in it and very few managers are willing to put their hands up and say they have no idea what they are doing - most agile teams need managers to admit they're learning too.
Good luck, work with management if they're the blocker but don't worry if you're struggling to make agile work - if the problem is management no amount of agile skills and knowledge will succeed if management aren't on board.
Rob..