Treating Managers Like…

I came across a post entitled—Stop treating managers like the bad guy, by Sander Dur. And here’s a LinkedIn thread that contains some interesting reactions to it. 

I’ve written on this topic several times as I believe there’s a significant anti-pattern in the agile universe where we treat managers poorly. Largely by the same folks who claim the managers are treating them poorly. So, reciprocal disrespectful behavior.

Here are two of those articles:

• https://rgalen.com/agile-training-news/2018/6/23/stop-disrespecting-managers-in-agile-contexts

• https://rgalen.com/agile-training-news/2014/4/14/were-going-agile-fire-all-the-managers

In fact, I believe this is one of the primary factors that have served to drag down agile transformations. Serving as a blaming, disrespectful, and braking function that inhibits learning, growth, and forward progress.

One of my hopes for our agile future is that—

• Leaders & managers develop into the agile leaders we need for tomorrow’s high-performance organizations and

• Teams meet them where they are, take responsibility for their parts, and partner to create those organizations.

Well, one can hope!

Stay agile my friends,

Bob.

You don’t understand

I saw this post by Jeff Gothelf and I felt compelled to weigh in, just a little. 

First, I don’t believe Jeff needs my help. He did a great job of defending himself, his position, and his thoughts. But I didn’t want him to stand alone.

Points to be reaffirmed and made:

• Cargo Cult agile is still alive and well in the world and we need to recognize it.

• We need to be able to respectfully critique, debate and disagree around agile topics.

• And there needs to be no room for personal attacks. Attack ideas, but don’t make it personal or attack people.

Wrapping Up

The agile world needs more Jeff Gothelf’s. Instead of attacking them, we should be thanking them. Thanking them for challenging the status quo, bringing in new ideas, and having the courage to be a bit disruptive.

Those are the attributes of the original Agile Manifesto folks and we need that more today than we did then.

So, stay agile and stay open-minded, my friends,

Bob.

CoP and the LACE

SAFe LACE Alert

In my last post, I shared some ideas around the value of a Community of Practice and how to re-energize it if it’s lost a bit of momentum. Please read that one if you haven’t before reading on here.

Now I want to contrast things a bit between CoP’s and CoE’s. Specifically of the LACE kind… 

Contrasting between a CoP and a Center of Excellence?

There’s another notion you’ll often hear when discussing this area. It’s a Center of Excellence or CoE. My bias is going to shine through a bit here, but please bear with me.

A CoE is a more formal, top-down mechanism whose primary goal is the consistency of practice. That is, it’s focused on regulation and governance. Often metrics and agile performance metrics are tied to it as well. A good example of this idea is the Scaled Agile Framework’s – Lean-Agile Center of Excellence or LACE[1]. And you can also see the idea often marketed or aligned with the Agile PMO or PMI’s Disciplined Agile[2].

I’ve already alluded to the two problems I have with generic CoE’s. First is the prescriptive top-down nature—where the organization tries to mandate practices. I think that’s a non-starter in agile contexts and particularly not aligned with the agile mindset. So, implementing a CoE can actually do harm to your culture you’re trying to instill or support.

The second is that it disengages from the people doing the work. Which are the very people who are part of the “community” you’re trying to create. Typically, the teams and individuals only engage with the CoE because they’re told to. Not because they’re inspired to or are invited to participate.

In my opinion, you don’t create an agile culture by top-down mandate. It’s just doesn’t work. Instead, the organic nature of building a community of practitioners aligns so much better with our agile mindsets.

And the third challenge with creating a balanced and effective CoE relates to the agile maturity of the leadership team. If they’ve not evolved to an agile mindset, across leadership, then the CoE often becomes a mechanism for reinforcing controls and measurement.

All of these lead to problems if your goal is to truly develop and mature as an agile organization. So, approach LACE and all Centers of Excellence with caution and care.

 Stay agile my friends,

Bob.

[1] https://www.scaledagileframework.com/lace/

[2] https://www.pmi.org/disciplined-agile/people/centers-of-excellence

The Lost Art of Face-to-Face Communication

I was chatting with a friend the other day about his frustrations in having a solid conversation with one of his colleagues. 

It seemed he has very specific ideas around making a product decision. One that would disrupt the status quo a bit, but in his mind, was the absolute right decision. He had sent several emails to the decision-maker and they’d just kept putting them/him off.

I’d asked if he’d called them and he looked at me as if I was crazy. He was like…

• They don’t often answer their phone as they’re busy, so that doesn’t work;

• They don’t like to talk face-to-face and, frankly, neither do I;

• Why can’t they just make a decision in my favor and respond in email? Oh, and taking appropriate action?

We left it that he should call them or, better yet, Zoom them with both cameras on. I felt that he was missing an important aspect of human connection. In fact, he wasn’t “connecting”. He was lobbing ideas out into email without any emotional or physical connection.

I’d like to share a communication list with you. On the top, are more effective ways to communicate. And, as you go down the scale, your communication increasingly loses its effectiveness and connection—

PLUS - Rich Conversation / Connection

• Face-to-face, in-person (outside office)

• Face-to-face, in-person (in office)

• Face-to-face, virtually with both cameras ON

 NEUTRAL - Ok Conversation / Connection

• Virtually, cameras off

• Phone call

• Slack threads

• Email

MINUS - Terrible Conversation / Connection 

• Texts, other forms of chat

• Slack

• Legal correspondence

• Telegraph/Morse Code, Smoke signals, Pony express

Wrapping Up

I’d like to encourage all of us, particularly in these challenging Covid-19 times, to not lose the art of face-to-face communication. That is, talking to each other.

I mean…really talking!

Let the passion, body language, expressiveness, and emotion shine through. Ask questions in real-time. And actively listen to the other person. I mean…really, deeply listen!

See what happens. You might just regain the lost art of face-to-face communication that Dinosaurs like me have historically found to be quite valuable.

Now if I could just find a payphone…

Stay agile my friends,

Bob.