Why Your Boss's Boss Should Also Go Agile

Article Comments

1. Martin Proulx said on 01 Nov 10 10:29:
   There is growing understanding that transitioning to Scrum is a cultural change, not just a team process change. A culture change requires that "leaders" (wherever they are in the organization - including senior management people) understand the changes, understand what it means for them, and understand the objectives. As stated in your post, it is critical to have your boss and his boss (and his boss...) support such a transition. What is often missing for people to accept and support such a change is what it actually means for them. I offered suggestions in a recent post: http://analytical-mind.com/2010/08/12/mommy-i-dont-feel-so-good-im-a-people-manager-in-an-agile-organization/ martin
2. Siegfried Kaltenecker said on 01 Dec 10 04:19:
   Comment on why your boss… Hi Christine, Thank you for your article. I´m with you on: • The observation that agile has been bottled up for developers rather than applied to organizations; • The experience that there often is a kind of clique dynamic, including a narcissistic attitude of “we are the good, if not the better ones”; • The goal of realizing the full potential of agile thinking by expanding it to strategic issues as well; • The concept of supporting “middle-men” to become middle-managers in order to leverage agile change. On the other hand, I´m rather sceptical about: • The boat metaphor – can one really picture modern organizations as steered by a captain, driven by a bunch of rowers, sitting in line, aligned in their efforts to follow the given instructions? • The hope that there will be an end of the storm – are there any significant signs that “the turbulent seas” are about to calm down? • The idea there is one right direction and strategic position – isn´t the “art of strategy development” nowadays rather building on a professionally led, i.e. facilitated trial-and-error approach, enabling various loops of communication and feedback, actively using all the data that the “rowers” can provide? • The solution of a glass deck, in other words, that it just needs more visibility and better information moving up and down the chain of command - don’t we need more opportunities for open, trustful communication, i.e. joint sense-making processes, which are cross-functional, silo bridging and hierarchy-bridging as well? Looking forward to more and different answers, hopefully also inspired by our still ongoing survey: http://p-a-m.org/2010/11/successful-leadership-in-an-agile-world/
3. Pat Guariglia, PMP said on 20 Dec 10 09:59:
   I agree with you 100%. It is important that top management not only "understands" agile, but there is a mechanism in place to actually carry the strategic objectives down to the sprint level. As you mentioned in your third bullet: "• After each sprint the Product Owner needs to re-adjust the backlog based on strategic priorities. This means each sprint needs to have strategic objectives identified for it ahead of time, so you can quickly identify which backlog items are now the most important as priorities change." This is an important part. The strategic message must be aligned with the actual work, and it has to be communicated downward quickly and timely enough so it can really affect the sprint and subsequent releases. Like you said, the product owner needs to adopt to the change from the top and reprioritize to align with executive strategy as appropriate.
4. Brian Dsouza said on 19 Jan 11 06:25:
   I agree in spirit 100% but feel that achieving this may be somewhat unrealistic. I do believe that we 'nerds' hit on something that the management gurus do not want to admit. They found a better way to organize and deliver. There are intrinsic and extrinsic challenges for upper management in embracing 'visibility' and 'transparency'. How many 'C' level execs would be willing to admit to their organization/team mates that a strategic decision they made cost the organization dearly or just plain failed? Conversely how open would the organization be to seeing their 'leader' fail. For an organization that can embrace this, all power to you. In the corporate world, everything is packaged and gift-wrapped so that the left hand (read shareholders) really does not know what the right hand (management) is doing. In our instant-gratification-Wall-Street-controlled world, would shareholders be forgiving of a good CEO that makes a mistake while attempting to excel? In spite of all the strides we have made with using an open transparent approach, even in the software community, it is still very difficult for people to accept failure and continue to trust. Whereas I believe some forward thinking organizations will achieve this, from a typical 'C' level perspective, 'transparency' is nice for everyone else in the organization to practice. We need 'Glass Bottom', 'Glass Roof' and and 'Glass Wall' thinking to be preached at Management schools before it can become a reality. Students in school need to see transparency being practiced for them to adopt it as a value. This is a tall order, given the way we function as a society. Alternatively, a reduced level of transparency may be a necessity at certain levels of an organization.