Johanna Rothman How Managers Help Agile Teams Chapter 16 Copyright © 2017

Resource Efficiency Treating people as resources, results in an mistaken “belief” that managers can divide the work into pieces … according to their understanding of the type of work … then assign pieces team members in a way to create individual team experts … and an assembly line process

... using the example of a pin factory. Dan Ariely Video Motivation, Caring and Quality Adam Smith versus Karl Marx, Adam Smith had the very important notion of efficiency ... using the example of a pin factory. Pins have 12 different steps, and if one person does all 12 steps, production is very low. If you get one person to do step one, another to do step two, another to do step three and so on, production can increase tremendously. An great example and the reason for the Industrial Revolution and efficiency. But today, if each person is responsible for only one step in the process, do the care?

Karl Marx Wrote that the alienation of labor is incredibly important and how people think about the connection to what they're doing When one person can make all 12 steps, they care about the pin… they are responsible for all the work For the Industrial Revolution, Adam Smith “efficiency” model was more correct than Karl Marx. But today, we are now in the knowledge economy… How does work today differ from that of work in the “pin” factory? Is efficiency still more important than meaning?

Ariely’s answer is No In situations in which people must decide on their own about how much effort, attention, caring… How connected do they feel to the work … are they thinking about the work in the shower, on their way to the office and so on? When we think about labor, we usually think about motivation and payment as the strongly correlated But the reality is that management should consider all kinds of things to their understanding of motivation and caring For example: Meaning, creation, challenges, ownership, identity, pride, etcetera

Russel L. Ackoff “…the essential properties that define any system are properties of the whole which none of the parts have.” Professor Emeritus of Management Science Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. An American organizational theorist, consultant Pioneered the field of operations research, systems thinking, and management science. Consulted in more than 250 corporations and 50 governmental agencies in the US and abroad Jan 7, 2017 (Handout)

A company could put a top man at every position and be swallowed by a competitor … … with people only half as good, but who are working together.

Flow efficiency allows the team to finish faster! Implications for managers Managers need to manage the project portfolio (Project Management Office work) to eliminate multitasking among projects Managers need to staff and retain stable cross-functional teams Managers need to look for throughput measures instead of utilizations measures

Work as a team to finish the feature. It’s not just about “my parts”! Flow Efficiency Work as a team to finish the feature. It’s not just about “my parts”!

Rothman “When managers don’t think about optimizing up for the team, the product, and the organization… they create Management Mayhem…” Measure Optimizing up by identifying how many people try to control or direct the team’s work “In managements defense, too often the organization creates rewards that optimize for the individual, not the team, the product, or its organization.” Really? What part of this could be defensible?

Rothman suggestion… “Agile is a human-centered approach to work… Retraining management, if possible, takes time. Asking managers to consider what they want: surrogate measure that create an individual approach to work, or… Measurements that encourage collaboration and delivery” Flow efficiency is important… not resource efficiency

Managers can Help with Team-Based Recognition Instead of recognizing and rewarding individual performance, an agile-culture is created and maintained by recognizing and rewarding team performance How would you know? Is there an noticeable difference between members of the team? Is the team becoming a team of specializing generalists that can help wherever the team has a need? Agile is a team-based approach to work. Agile management requires a team-based approach to recognition and rewards

Avoid Management Mayhem Managers with “power” … can create problems and the resulting mayhem When, for example, they: … yank people off or onto a team thinking the team needs expertise … don’t limit the work in progress (WIP) for the organization by managing the project “portfolio” … don’t realize that a team needs to be cross-functional, with all the capabilities and skills required to finish work … blame people for work – done or not done

Recognize How Managers Can Help Agile Teams By encouraging collaborative work By helping the team consider “how little” instead of “how much” Optimize up with the team finishing work wherever possible … not by focusing on individual team member’s finished work! “Unless the entire organization is already steeped in the agile mindset, managers have an ongoing responsibility to support teams in their agile approaches.”

How Managers can Encourage Collaborative Work “Agile is not just a project approach, but a cultural shift… … a shift from individual work to teamwork … and the manager needs to provide team-based recognition and rewards … eliminate individual bonuses and work toward some form of team-based rewards”

How Managers can Encourage “How Little” Thinking “In more traditional organizations, managers are accustomed to directing work… Sometimes they are accustomed to controlling what people do and how…” Rothman’s suggestion: … as managers “How little controlling or directing is it possible for you to do?” “When managers see the team deliver value on a regular and sustained basis, they often start to think about how little controlling and directing is needed… … for teams to build trust requires that they actually can deliver value on a regular basis…”

How Managers can Help Optimize Up Two Pillars of Lean Respect for people Commitment to continuous improvement Help managers think about how to optimize the work for more value … to see the whole, eliminate waste, deliver as fast as possible Optimize what the team delivers and not what each individual delivers!