Do “Agile people” need managers?

Yes, I'm aware that there is no manager position described in the Scrum guide neither in the Agile manifesto.

Still, we're there.

With our own aspirations, ambitions, goals, and motivators.

Are we needed? It's not my question to answer.

I will try to answer another one: how can we bring value and not be just some company overhead?

As a Head of Agile Development, my team is Scrum Masters and Agile coaches working with the teams, business areas & organizations.

My experience showed me that there are 3 aspects where people expect you (Manager) to take care of. Are those the only ones? No, but if we master those it will be a good start.

Explain

Companies are like snowflakes - there are no two identical ones. There can be some similarities, yes, big companies have a lot in common, but the devil is in the detail... and in people.

I see the role of any manager, especially the manager of people as change agents (in any area), describing the reality they have joined and function in. A manager should provide the opportunity to explore, but exploration starts with getting familiar with where you are. At the beginning, it will be beneficial and effective to give your employees a proper introduction to people, company dynamics, processes, opportunities, and risks. And your experiences here. Just to show them the start line.

Hint: remember that this is your explanation so you're drawing a picture seen by your eyes. You're biased. Everyone is. So the part of this explanation should say that this is your story and the employee’s story is yet to be discovered and experienced.

Navigate

And it's not about navigating in corporation meanders, Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches usually should try on their own. You can only explain to them how reality looks like and let them find their own way through it. It's also about showing the direction, making sure it's clear where and why we're heading, reminding about it, correcting course if they lose it (but sometimes also letting them do that). It's rather "Are your actions bringing you and us closer to the goal?" than "You should go this way" approach. Advise rather than command.

And it's also a known truth that a number of initiatives that a Scrum Master or an Agile Coach would like to be involved in equals n+1, where n is the number of initiatives she/he is already involved in. Help them prioritize.

Hint: it's worth to do some things if those are not specific goal oriented. Some are just cool things to do. Be it internal agile conference, knowledge exchange or even Christmas Santa.

Care

SM and AC jobs are not the easiest ones. General resistance to change makes it hard, but trending skepticism about agility and Scrum makes it sometimes unbearable. And in the daily rush, it's hard to spot all the achievements and successes. Right after completing one thing, they jump into another one. So the manager's job here is firstly to create them space to take a break, take a breath, then celebrate, and finally plan next steps. Sometimes you need to force it. Write down every small and big achievement, lesson learned, a battle won, value brought etc. Remind them of that from time to time to bring a feeling of accomplishment to the table – so much needed by all of us.

Hint: don’t be too strict with your 1:1 agenda, sometimes it is needed and beneficial to just talk, about anything, even not work-related, to give your people mentioned “breath”. Sometimes your team will need you to be their boss, friend, buddy or even a shoulder to cry on. Even if some of the roles feel out of comfort zone – try it, you are here for them.

And do you “Agile people” out there need your managers?

Or do you managers feel needed?

And BTW: it’s not one-way relation. How exactly? Will share that next time :)

Photo by Matteo Vistocco on Unsplash