Mike Lyons explains how managers shift in Agile: stop managing people, start managing the system of work. Move accountability to self-managing teams. Use Delegation Poker to push decisions down instead of hoarding them. Deming said most problems are systemic, not personal.
The role of the manager, whether it's a functional line manager or a traditional project manager, well, it changes in Agile contexts. I changed, you changed. Maybe she changed too. People in these roles, both project and functional, they need to reconsider their approach on the organization as well as the projects that they're involved in. Here's what PMI says the role of the project manager entails. And of course, this description is by no means exhaustive. There's a few missing pieces that are essential for running a successful Agile project. But it leads us to this idea that there are really three crucial shifts that you need to make as a manager to be effective in your role on an Agile project. Shift one move from managing people to managing systems. Many project managers take a command and control approach to managing their project. They see their job as being the steward of the plan. They focus on tracking conformance to the plan. And if a task is is not being executed per that schedule, well, then someone needs to answer for it. Why are you late? Well, in Agile projects, we know that we don't have a detailed plan, at least not right up front. So right out of the gate we know this approach. Well, it doesn't make much sense. So instead of managing people and taking ownership of the plan, an Agile project manager takes responsibility for managing the system of work. What do I mean by a system of work? Well, I mean the operating model that we have. Some examples of a system of work include how team members are onboarded, how new teams are launched, how we engage with our customers, the meetings that we hold, how we track our progress. All of these are characteristics of a system of work. And you, as a project manager, you're responsible for the effectiveness of the entire system. So if something isn't working well in your system, it's your responsibility to detect it and make the necessary adjustments. You know, Edwards Deming tells us that only 5% of the problems we see in organizations are issues related to people. The other 95%, they're related to the processes, procedures, to the systems that we've established. And only management can change the system. Shift number two, move from manager accountability to team accountability. So another important aspect when we're thinking about the role of a manager in complex systems is the relationship between a manager and the people that report to you. The nature of this traditional relationship is the manager tells the employee what to do, the employee does the work, the manager checks the work, and if everything meets our quality standards, the manager assigns more work. And it's just this sort of circle of manager assigning Work worker doing work. There's a direct relationship between the manager and the person who reports to the manager. Most of the people on your project are going to be organized into these cross functional agile teams. In this model, these teams now become self managing. The relationship you had as a manager begins to shift. It's not that you're no longer involved, the manager still plays a very important part, but you're now no longer sort of playing the traditional role of assigning work and then inspecting the work and then repeating that cycle. You're now treated sort of as a stakeholder of the team. Now people are more focused on the Agile team and considering as a team how they can best work together to deliver the right outcomes for the right people at the right time. And Shift number three move from centralized to decentralized decision making. On traditional projects, much of the decision making is centralized, meaning that it happens at the top and then sort of cascades down to the rest of the project team. I'm the president and the decision is mine. There's a number of problems with this approach. First, it assumes that the senior most person is best equipped to make all the decisions. What if that's not true? Second, it creates an environment where most people aren't engaged in critical thinking and problem solving. I mean, after all, the decision has already been made for them by someone smarter than them. And third, it fosters decision latency. That is all the decisions must be made by a single individual. Consider instead decentralizing as many decisions as possible. Sounds easy, but how might you do that? Jurgen Apollo, the author of Management 3.0, said, I don't empower people to please them. I empower people to make better decisions than me. Most leaders recognize that teams that are empowered, well, they're more effective. But does empowerment mean that every decision has to be completely decentralized? Does it mean that no decision should be made by a manager? Well, certainly not. So how might we reason through which decision should be delegated and to what degree? Enter Delegation Poker. Delegation Poker offers a practical, effective and even fun approach to answering these questions. To learn more about delegation poker, visit management30.com There you have it. Three crucial shifts that you need to make as an Agile project manager. Shift one move from managing people to managing systems. Shift two move from manager accountability to team accountability. And lastly, shift three move from centralized to decentralized decision making.
