Perhaps you’ve heard some of these statements from your leadership teams over the years? I certainly have…
Bring me sufficient data to convince me of your idea
I have information you don’t have that is driving my decisions
Don’t think, just do your job
It’s above your pay grade
You don’t have a need to know
I get paid to make these decisions, you don’t
Don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions
You’re either part of the solution or part of the problem…
I was in a conference session a few weeks ago. We were talking about the balance many agile organizations struggle with between investing in—
Delivery
Features
Customer demands
Date expectations
High WIP (churn)
And, Technical Debt
Maintenance
Refactoring
Automation & Infrastructure
Lower WIP (flow)
The presenter focused 90% of the talk towards the teams’ responsibility to make leaders understand the trade-offs and need to balance technical debt at an ongoing and reasonable investment level.
Then he went on to say that most leaders didn’t really understand technical debt. Nor were they inclined to listen to most teams’ recommendations regarding it. Nor did they really care to invest in it. Usually overriding the team towards deferring technical debt to getting s**t done and released.
But again, he kept amplifying the need for the team to provide more data. To be better communicators. To be more creative in their solution proposals. To be dogged and persistent.
You get the point. The entire burden seemed to fall to the “team”.
The Big But
I interjected in the session to try and flip things around a bit. Really to create more balance in the discussion and power dynamics of it.
I think that leaders need to listen, understand, and support their teams as much as the teams need to convince them of technical debt investments.
Meaning, that the leaders need to trust their teams more. That IF they’re saying they need to make critical investments in the product infrastructure or design, then that’s a fact. Take that recommendation and support it, fund it, and trust it.
This is going to sound odd, but I think these leaders are intentionally missing the point. They’re typically under so much delivery pressure that they can’t
So, the whole notion of “bring me the data”, while on the surface seems reasonable, is more often than not, a smokescreen. Or a deflection or delaying tactic.
Death by a Thousand Questions
It’s similar to something I wrote a few years ago. I called it—Death by a Thousand Questions. And it’s a historical management pattern that I’ve observed, experienced (and embarrassingly) used. It’s another one of those deflection tactics that we should leave in the past as we move to more balanced organizational agility.
Wrapping Up
So, what am I saying?
I’m not saying that all leaders are bad or malicious. Most are well-intentioned and under immense delivery pressure. So, we need to be empathetic and respectful.
But that being said, the days of—
Bring me the data and Convince me…
are over. Or they should be over.
It’s an imbalanced, command-and-control stance that lacks empathy for and respect of your teams. Those wonderfully skilled and capable people you’ve hired who are closest to what needs to be done with your products.
Leaders and teams are partners in delivery and we need to listen to and empathize with each other.
And we all need to realize that products get old and crufty if we don’t take care of them. And crufty slows all of us down.
And no, I don’t have the data to support that claim, just trust me, as I do this for a living!
Stay agile my friends,
Bob.
BTW: Here’s a wonderful article by Anthony Murphy that nicely supports (and adds to) this discussion. Highly recommended reading!