Michael McCalla Reaction

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Michael McCalla Reaction

My friend & colleague Michael McCalla posted the following advice on LinkedIn:

Am I oversimplifying?

Whenever organizations come to us inquiring about Enterprise (or Business) Agility adoption, here is our advice:

1. Start with a thin horizontal slice across different units of an organization in which people collaborate to deliver value. Call it a value stream if you want:)

2. Engage each layer (Individual Contributors, Teams, Middle Management, and Senior Leadership) for all impacted parties and involve them in the change. Call this a vertical slice if you like:)

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Underperforming Development Team

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Underperforming Development Team

I read this article from Roman Pichler that took the perspective of a Product Owner working with an underperforming development team and trying to turn things around. While it’s a good article, it inspired me to look at other reasons that a team might not be performing well. Things outside of the team.

So, instead of the Product Owner looking at and trying to improve the team, what if they changed their focus to underperforming influences that surround the team?

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Kobayashi Maru of Agile Culture

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Kobayashi Maru of Agile Culture

I received this question from my friend Christopher Lee—

I have an existential and abstract question for you. How do we stop line managers from adopting micromanaging behaviors as it relates to artificial deadlines? Can deadlines co-exist with Agile? If so, how can line managers trust their people to make good decisions and execute those decisions autonomously? Is there an organization that exists with this ideal culture that I describe? Thanks.

Can deadlines coexist with “agile”?

I certainly think so. I think deadlines, milestones, delivery dates, etc. are a fundamental part of the real world. I think the key focus points for agile contexts include—

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Avoid Agile Silver Bullet…Thinking

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Avoid Agile Silver Bullet…Thinking

What is it about technology that inspires so much silver bullet syndrome? Or people jumping on bandwagons, hoping to get an easy fix or solution?

In 2014, I wrote a blog post about Bandwagon’s. At the time, I was venting a bit about how folks were modeling themselves after companies in the agile space. And that continues to this day. But another long-term trend is jumping on bandwagon’s related to frameworks.

Scaling frameworks seem to be one of the largest culprits in our space, but there are many others. Let’s explore some of the biggest silver bullets—

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Managers as Coaches

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Managers as Coaches

My friend and colleague, Anthony Mersino recently wrote an article that explores a new shift for managers into becoming coaches. The first part of the article mentions me quite a bit, but that’s not what caught my eye. And I also borrowed his photo.

But I digress.

What stuck with me is the notion that managers (traditional organizational leaders/managers), need to be converted somehow to be better coaches to their teams. Especially in agile contexts. And, I couldn’t disagree more.

Why?

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Am I the Right Agile Coach?

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Am I the Right Agile Coach?

How do we determine if we are the “right” agile coach for a—

  • Client, Individual, Group;

  • Team, System;

  • or Leader?

Is there a singular answer? I don’t think so, but here is a shortlist of considerations—

1. Solid introduction—Have an introductory coaching session and see what unfolds. It makes sense during this session to explain the role/notion of coaching. What you do and how you do it as a coach. And what you don’t do. Then, both you and the client determine if it makes sense to continue.

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Show a Little Understanding

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Show a Little Understanding

My friend and colleague Mike Hall wrote an insightful article entitled—Starting an Agile Transformation with Understanding, not that long ago. It contains the following quote quite early in the article. It touched me deeply with its truth and I thought I’d share it—

Agile Coaches operating as true change agents will spend the first few months building relationships and understanding how your business works. They will lead with empathy and seek to understand. They will dig for the historical perspective of why things are the way they are, in a non-judgmental way. They will observe, ask questions, interview, and establish a “mental context” prior to making any change recommendations. Don’t short change this crucial time period – it is absolutely required for the upcoming Agile recommendations to be meaningful!

The three things that stood out to me from the quote and in reading the article were: Relationship, Empathy, and Understanding.

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Leaders, should your Agile Coaches be doing your job?

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Leaders, should your Agile Coaches be doing your job?

I was coaching another agile coach the other day and they presented the following story to me looking for my coaching wisdom & guidance…

I know, I know, but I shared as much wisdom as I could ;-)

The sponsor/stakeholder/client (a senior executive in the technology organization) asked them to coach one of their direct reports. That person is a senior manager in the organization, well respected, and long-tenured.

The senior leader gave the coach a list of challenges they had with the individual that they wanted them (the coach) to work on fixing in (the senior manager).

When the coach attempted to “coach” that individual, they met resistance. In fact, the person didn’t see the need for coaching. They recounted that in their last performance review their manager (senior leader) had given them a stellar review, wonderful feedback, and a nice promotion and salary increase. So, they really didn’t feel the need for much in the way of coaching and personal improvement.

The coach went back to the stakeholder and respectfully and delicately communicated the resistance and tried to bow out of coaching the manager. They told the senior leader that, if they felt that individual needed some help, that they would have to communicate that to them themselves, thus opening the door for the leader performing the coaching.

The senior leader didn’t accept that position. In fact, they pushed back hard. They said that (1) the manager had a performance problem and (2) that they were delegating to the coach to “fix it”. As part of their ongoing responsibility as a “coach”. To be honest, they resented having to repeat themselves…

And this is where I came in. The coach was looking for me to do something (ask powerful questions, provide advice, suggest options, mentor them, anything…) to help them to decide what to do next.

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The Balancing Act of Agile Adoption

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The Balancing Act of Agile Adoption

I’ve been thinking of balance lately when it comes to agile transformations. And, the sad truth is, I don’t see that much of it.

I either see organizations who are too focused on leadership and leaders driving the transformation, so skewed towards them. Or organizations that are coddling the teams and letting the inmates run the asylum, so skewed towards the team.

What does “Balance” need to look like?

I’ll give you a quick example. There’s the notion of servant-orientation and servant leadership in agile contexts. This is normally focused on leaders serving their teams. For example, a Scrum Master is a servant leader in their mindset and they need to serve their team.

But for every reaction, there should be an equal and opposite reaction to achieve better balance. So, yes, leaders need to serve their teams.

But the reciprocal is that teams need to serve their leaders as well. They need to give be respectful of their roles, inclusive of their ideas. They need to provide the transparency of forecasts, work, and progress to support the leader’s operational needs. 

Josh Anderson and I explored this notion in more detail in one of our recent Meta-casts. We called the episode The Reciprocal Conundrum. I’m hoping you give it a (balanced) listen to see if it changes (or rebalances) your thinking.

Stay agile my friends,

Bob.

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