We discussed the latest round of agile role layoffs at Capital One the other day in the Moose Herd. The news was that Capital One had laid off 1100 people, all with agile in the titles/job families. The public reason shared was that they’d sufficiently evolved their agile capabilities to a point where it made no sense to have independent roles. That (everyone) was now agile.
Of course, there was quite a passionate discussion about—
What are the fundamental driving forces behind the move?
Was this a perceived success / evolutionary step or a failure?
Since Capital One was such a bellwether, was this the beginning of a trend in the agile community?
What might happen to all of those people?
I was pretty struck by the turbulence that this one event created in our community, as the Herd reflected.
One of the things we got heated about was the intentions of the organizational leaders, particularly exploring whether they valued agile or not. And whether they valued people or not.
Definition of Value
The discussion inspired me to share a story in the Herd. One of my own experiences was when leaders decided on the value proposition of individuals in the organization. These discussions were usually driven by two forces, either—
Growth, adding budget to hire more people, or
Downsizing, laying off people based on budgetary pressures.
There was a time I was sitting in with a client as they were planning headcount for their next year’s deliveries. They were essentially a Scrum shop with an ~50 headcount increase budgeted for the following year.
As the leadership team discussed where to make their investments or place their bets, I observed that developers and other direct contributors were considered the most valuable headcount investment. While other roles, like – tester, Scrum Master, Product Owner, coach, UX, and DevOps engineers, were not nearly held with the same value when planning to increase their capacity.
In this case, the leadership team chose to increase the developer headcount by 48 and the tester headcount by 2 and not invest in any other roles. The discussion went like—
The Scrum Masters, Coaches, and Product Owners will just need to figure out how to handle 6 more teams next year.
Why?
Because we’ve got a lot to do and we need “all hands (developers) on deck to do it!”
Their mindset valued direct output/content producers OVER—
Balanced and healthy teams
Outcome orientation
Morale or equity
Agile roles
Independently of the value of the individuals themselves. For example, they could have had a Rock Star agile coach who helped to create incredibly high-performing teams, and they still would have been valued below an entry-level software developer.
Another view
As an agile leader, I hold a polar opposite view of value.
Of course, I value software developers. But at the same time, I value all high-performing team contributors. For example, in the above, I would have looked to increase the organization by entire, balanced teams that would have included all of the mentioned roles as appropriate. And, if there were a gap in some positions, for example, Product Owners, I would plan to over-invest in those roles to balance out the teams.
Why?
Because I think a myopic focus on a select group of “producers” is exceptionally flawed. I remember a client about a decade ago who continued investing in software developers. Over time, their teams became incredibly productive in writing code. But they couldn’t deliver it because of the overall workflow/team imbalance they created. And this was a great company with an experienced leadership team. But unfortunately, their view of value was simply wrong.
Funding
Another way to view the effective agile value proposition (mindset) in an organization is illustrated by a post from Simon Powers on LinkedIn—
"Funding for the coaching roles should not come out of the departmental headcount. When this happens, department heads are forced to compare delivery roles with coaching roles, and given the usual pressures in any organization, the temptation to swap out coaches is too great. This will undermine the coaching effort and put the focus back on output instead of outcome."
-- From the book: Change.
I couldn’t agree more with Simon. But I’d like to extend it to any and all agile-centric roles that aren’t naturally aligned with “delivery roles”. Even those that have “delivery” in the title.
The Flip Side
Now let’s flip it around. If you have one of these roles, ask yourself, are you continuously showing value? And how are you doing it?
And it’s not whether you think you’re demonstrating value. You must poll your context continuously (stakeholders, sponsors, leaders, customers/clients, groups, teams, etc.) to check if they SEE the value. That is, value is in the eye of the beholder.
And it’s a fleeting thing. One day you can get feedback that you’re rocking the value world; the next, someone could forget your name.
I recently shared an article entitled You’ve Got a Friend, where I explore the Capital One and general tech sector layoffs and shared some advice on responding and thriving if you’re impacted.
One of the keys in the article is for agilists, ALL agilists, to better sense their organizational value. It’s a matter of strategic importance in guiding your careers.
Wrapping Up
What I told the Herd at the end of my story is that I think agile-centric roles or coaching role value is BEST measured by this question when the leaders in your organization are growing or contracting—
What value do they place on your role?
Is it equivalent to developer (delivery, producer) roles or not?
These are simple yes/no questions, so don’t allow your leader to obfuscate their responses.
If yes, then you’ve effectively demonstrated your value…keep doing that!
If no, then you’ve not effectively demonstrated your value…so you’ve got some serious work to do! You are at risk.
I believe this to be the one metric that matters for all agile-centric roles. And it’s one of those fundamental shifts that leaders (seeing it) and agilists (demonstrating it) need to make to grok the organizational balance required in effective agile delivery.
Stay agile, my friends,
Bob.