In conversations with upper management, I often hear that they wish to start using an Agile approach to increase their return on investment (ROI) and the employee motivation – which is great! They have read or have been told that changing their approach should lead to:

• Delivering solutions that meet the business needs…
• …without exceeding time lines or costs and…
• …increase efficiency and productivity.

Many people manager (although not all) understand that people are more motivated when they are self organized and as such, take their commitments more seriously than if the commitments were made by others on their behalf (i.e. their manager).

What is news to many of these managers is the impact an Agile transition will have on them – and their management style. I like to point out that to them that:

• Teams and individuals are more productive when they are not interrupted;
• Team performance improves greatly when people settle their own issues;
• Changes in the composition of the team affect the team’s productivity.

As such, people manager need to learn to:

• Transfer the authority and the responsibility to the team members to allow them to do their job properly;
• Avoid interference and micromanagement;
• Promote collaboration and teamwork;
• Support learning without systematically penalizing failures;
• Establish a culture conducive to Agile projects;
• Adapt their management style to the context of team.

Overall, they must learn to change their management style from a command-and-control approach to a servant leadership style.

Easier said than done – that’s where the Agile Organizational Coach steps in.

You might be interested in these related posts:

1. Scrum Role: The Scrum Team
2. The 7 Dimensions of an Agile Project Team
3. Step one – having a plan

Following my posts on delivering results in an agile context, the 7 dimensions of an agile project team and their agile work environment, this fifth and final post on Agile Leadership presents the “Leadership” level of the model. I’m hoping to help managers, leaders, and stakeholders better understand which behaviors to modify in order to obtain better performance and improve employee satisfaction within their organization. I came up with five dimensions associated with Leadership in an Agile context.

Before I begin, I want to make a distinction between management and leadership. Over the years, the terms “leadership” and “management” have often been used as synonyms. To distinguish the two words I would specify that leadership is “transformational” in nature while management is more “transactional”.

Leadership

Leadership has been described as the “process of social influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task” (wikipedia)

Servant Leadership

Servant-leaders achieve results for their organizations by giving priority attention to the needs of their colleagues and those they serve. Servant-leaders are often seen as humble stewards of their organization’s resources (wikipedia)

Management

Management in all business areas and human organization activity is the act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives. Management comprises planning, organizing, staffing, leading or directing, and controlling an organization (a group of one or more people or entities) or effort for the purpose of accomplishing a goal (wikipedia)

Goal Setting

Goal-setting ideally involves establishing specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-targeted objectives. Work on the goal-setting theory suggests that it can serve as an effective tool for making progress by ensuring that participants have a clear awareness of what they must do to achieve or help achieve an objective (wikipedia)

A few questions to assess the Goal Setting dimension of the Leadership model:

• Are the team members objectives aligned with one another?
• Are the suggestions coming from the retrospection of the team taken into consideration in the objective settings?

Performance Management

Performance management includes activities to ensure that goals are consistently being met in an effective and efficient manner (wikipedia)

A few questions to assess the Performance Management dimension of the Leadership model:

• Does the leader clearly define the objectives of his people?
• Does the organization measure its progress toward its goals?
• Is the performance measured at the team level in addition to the individual level?
• Does the company evaluate both the individual’s work behaviours and outcomes against the defined objectives?
• Do the team members receive timely and frequent feedback?

Remuneration

Remuneration is pay or salary, typically a monetary payment for services rendered, as in an employment (wikipedia)

A few questions to assess the Remuneration dimension of the Leadership model:

• Do managers mostly rely on intrinsic (rather than extrinsic) motivation?
• Does the remuneration model reflect the individual’s contribution to the team or is it based on seniority?
• Is the compensation model clearly understood by all team members?
• Is the leader rewarded for the development of his members?
• Do team members participate in the definition of the compensation of their colleagues?
• Is the compensation model strictly based on individual performance?

Coaching

Coaching refers to the activity of a coach in developing the abilities of coachees. Coaching tends to focus on the achievement by coachees of a goal or specific skill (wikipedia)

A few questions to assess the Coaching dimension of the Leadership model:

• Does the leader support its members in their skills and competences development?
• Does the leader take the time to teach his team members on how to increase their skills and better themselves?
• Is the leader selected by the team members?
• Is the leader evaluated by his team members?

Change Management

Change management is a structured approach to transitioning individuals, teams, and organizations from a current state to a desired future state (wikipedia)

A few questions to assess the Change Management dimension of the Leadership model:

• Does the leader work with the team members to establish a clear change management strategy?
• Does the leader acknowledge that the pace of change is different for all team members?
• Does the leader deal constructively for team members’ resistance to change?

Leader’s Qualities

Finally, in order to assess if the leader has the right qualities to be successful in an agile environment, I have selected a handful of qualities the leader should clearly demonstrate.

Does the Leader display the following qualities?

• Making decision when necessary
• Enthusiasm / Optimism
• Humility
• Respect
• Trust
• Integrity
• Confidence

You might be interested in these related posts:

1. The Nine Dimensions of Agile Leadership (revisited and improved)
2. The 7 Dimensions of an Agile Project Team
3. Agile Leadership (Agile Management) – part II

As mentioned in my guest post on Management 3.0, times are changing and many organizations are finding ways to lead people to deliver better results.

Having spent most of my professional career in the software development industry, either as a consultant or as an employee of large corporations, it is obvious that many of my inspirations for leadership came for the technology side of things. I quickly realized two things:

1. Working with technology opened my perspective to more innovations and allowed me to develop a willingness to continuously improve what was around me – not only the technology but the tools and the processes in order to derive better performance from people and later on to strive for a more balanced work-life,
2. I noticed that many people in organizations who could change the way people were managed were caught in their old paradigms:
   • Senior managers who had power refused to change and were counting the days until retirements,
   • Middle managers who had an open mind, had no time to implement innovations or had no power to do so,
   • Support departments were more interested in maintaining status quo after years of implementing policies and procedures and weren’t so inclined to look for better methods.

Once in a while, an external consultant would present some promising avenue to help improve performance and morale but their attempt would vanish once they closed the doors behind them.

Then came Agile. Although the Agile Manifesto was published in 2001, I discovered the underlying principles years later and it became obvious to me that what was recommended for software development organizations would certainly work, outside the technology departments. For almost two years, I have been analyzing the principles, reading books, and working with colleagues and clients to derive an improved method of working. From my “Rebel Leadership” concept came the “Agile Leadership” approach.

You might be interested in these related posts:

1. Agile Leadership (Agile Management) – part II
2. Agile Principles Applied to Management
3. Defining Agile Management – part 1

Agile Leadership is the application of the Agile principles (as defined in the Agile Manifesto) to the leadership of software development endeavours.

In addition to encompassing the processes, tools and rules of Agile Scrum, Agile Leadership extrapolates them to change how teams and projects are managed within the context of the work environment and new leadership paradigms to deliver better results.

Agile Leadership Model

Where Agile Scrum mostly focuses on the organization of the project team, the roles and responsibilities of the team members, the artifacts, and the rules under which the project team operates, Agile Leadership includes the work environment as well as the specific leadership abilities expected from the managers and stakeholders.

Agile Leadership is a fundamental paradigm shift with the objective of making the project team successful and the people within the team happier in order to deliver better results. The shift mostly comes from the leadership (aka management style) and the rules used to govern the actions, the behaviours and the outcome of the team.

Getting managers to become more Agile requires changing behaviors and to use a more democratic approach to management. More specifically, Agile Leadership requires to:

• Transfer certain powers to the team members themselves to let them determine how best to accomplish their tasks;
• Empower the project team through self-organization and commitment to results;
• Transfer decision-making to individuals who are closest to the activities;
• Demonstrate a greater openness to ideas and innovations emerging teams;
• Clearly define the desired vision and to adapt to the context of each team to ensure alignment with the overall objective of the project and to ensure cohesion between the team members;
• Provide the necessary support and resources to the project team so they successfully accomplish the expected results;
• Become a change agent within the organization by accepting and publicly endorsing the idea that the status quo is not acceptable and that the old methods are no longer adapted to the new reality;
• Systematically involve business people in the definition and execution of solutions;
• Adapt the style of management so as to use an inclusive and democratic approach.

In addition to bringing new concepts, Agile Leadership also revisits and adds to some of the concepts on which Agile Scrum relies. There is already much documentation (books, blogs, podcast, etc.) on the topic of Agile. In an upcoming blog post, I will add details to the areas of focus listed below and associate the underlying concepts with theories explained at length elsewhere in other areas of expertise such: as organizational behavior, organizational development, management science, and coaching.

You might be interested in these related posts:

1. What the heck does an Agile Organizational Coach do?
2. The 5 Dimensions of Leadership in an Agile Context
3. Agile Leadership Lessons

Like most modern Homo sapiens, when you hear Agile Leadership or Agile Management, you think of:

• [if you are outside the business world] A business-person who can use a combination of balance, coordination, speed, reflexes, strength, endurance and stamina to achieve his objectives;
• [if you are inside the business world but outside the information technology field] A person who has the capability of rapidly and cost efficiently adapting to changes in an attempt to deliver on his objectives;
• [if you are inside the information technology field] A person who manages a software development team who uses methodologies based on iterative development, where requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organizing cross-functional teams with the objective of delivering value.

I apologize if you are outside the business world because this is not the perspective I wish to cover. For people in the other two categories, you are partially right.

I attempted to define Agile management and see how I could apply Agile principles to management a while ago and since then, I have been able to piece the puzzle together. Agile Leadership requires less technical knowledge than its cousin but it heavily relies on the same principles.

A high level view of the model

If you have been reading my blog for a while (thank you!) and even if you haven’t, you will realize that I have been covering various parts of this model already:

People: The people dimension covers all aspects of competencies, motivation, culture, collaboration and communications that enable the organization to achieve its business objectives. While every effort is directly or indirectly related to people, this perspective focuses primarily on the ability of individuals to contribute to the achievement of objectives.
[related tags: 360-degree feedback, coaching, collaboration, community, decision making, feedback, leadership, management, organizational structure, people management,servant leadership]

Processes: The process dimension aims to define the working methods and approaches to be followed in carrying out tasks in line with the overall objective of delivering business value.
[related tags: agile, agile management, scrum]

Tools: The technology dimension covers the various tools and technologies that support the organization in achieving its business objectives.
[related tags: none, I haven't covered this dimension]

Value: The value dimension covers the business capacity to effectively deliver value within the appropriate time. The delivery of value is the fundamental purpose of the organization.
[related tags: ROI]

As you can see, I have mostly covered the People dimension of the model while I have purposely left the Tools section un-covered. The reason for this is that there are already thousands of web sites on the topic of Agile and technology.

In an upcoming series of blog posts, I will present a more detailed perspective of what Agile Leadership truly means based on our experience. Stay tuned…

You might be interested in these related posts:

1. We need better management – we need agile management
2. The 5 Dimensions of Leadership in an Agile Context
3. The Nine Dimensions of Agile Leadership (revisited and improved)

As we offer various services to help organizations transition from a traditional software development approach to a more Agile approach, we are often asked why use coaching? Assuming you are also asked the same question, you may find this short blog post useful to help you properly answer the questions.

What is Coaching?

Coaching is a method of directing, instructing and training a person or group of people, with the aim to achieve some goal or develop specific skills. There are many ways to coach, types of coaching and methods to coaching. Sessions are typically one-on-one either in-person or over the telephone. - via Coaching – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The ICF defines coaching as partnering with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential. - via International Coach Federation.

What is a Coachee?

coachee [ˌkəʊtʃˈiː] - n (Business / Industrial Relations & HR Terms) a person who receives training from a coach, esp in business or office practice. - via coachee – definition of coachee by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia.

Why use a Coach?

A coach sees the best in you and for you and will help you develop your skills. A coach will support you in your personal and professional growth – and will help you to live the life you truly want. You will get in touch with your values and your vision and help you discover areas and opportunities you didn’t see before. via Why use a coach? – ICF Nordic.

A coach helps his coachee reach his goals faster and more efficiently than he would by himself. The coach helps his coachee define clear, realistic, and time-bound objectives applicable to his and develops a partnership to you achieve the coachee’s goal.

How does coaching work?

Through frequent conversations between the coach and his coachee, the coach offers an external perspective and:

1. Helps the coachee honestly assess his current situation;
2. Supports the coachee in clearly defining his goal and raising the expectations;
3. Helps the coachee properly assess the gap between the current situation and the targeted goal;
4. Works with the coachee to define an appropriate plan and take action (not only conversations);
5. Helps the coachee anticipate and deal with the obstacles by himself;
6. Provides feedback on the progress achieved, continuously assesses the progress and presents opportunities to adapt the plan;
7. Questions the coachee’s self-assessment, decisions and actions taken to achieve the goal;
8. Proposes potential alternatives to push the coachee outside his comfort zone.

Why does coaching work?

Coaching is an empirical process (inspect and adapt). The coaching process helps the coachee envisions himself in the future, making it easier to expect and the achieve the set goals. The coach helps the coachee see opportunities that the individual wouldn’t see by himself and pushes the coachee to set goals his comfort zone. As each goal requires an action plan, the coach forces more frequent and more productive sessions during which the progress is evaluated. Overall, coaching is a partnership process between the coachee and his coach.

Why would someone ask for a coach?

Coaching is not an end in itself, it is a mean to achieve a set goal. When there is a true willingness for change, the coachee doesn’t want the status quo and is receptive to being challenged in order to achieve its goal, asking a coach for help will allow the coachee to carry out their goal faster and more efficiently.

Some prerequisite questions?

Before starting a coaching process, there are a few questions the coachee needs to ask himself:

• What am I really looking for in my professional life?
• What really attracts me in my professional life?
• What do I really want to change?
• What would really spark my passion?
• What problems would I like to resolve to become happier or more productive?

Conclusion

As the first of a series of posts on the topic of coaching, it is important to set the stage which is what I intended to do. Over the next weeks, I will add material to this topic and hopefully will start a conversation with you.

You might be interested in these related posts:

1. Wondering what a leadership coach can do for you? Try it for free…
2. On my way to coaching certification
3. Asking Powerful Questions – Agile Coaching

The Experiment

I attempted a small experiment with my kids a few weeks ago – get them to voluntarily help clean the house. If you have children between 7 and 10 year-old, I’m pretty sure having your kids help with cleaning is nothing short of a nerve-wrecking experience. If you don’t have kids, the process typically goes like this:

• You – “Timmy, can you please pick up the toys in your room.”
• Timmy – “Why?”
• You – “Because your room is a mess and I break my face every morning when I come wake you up.”
• Timmy – “OK, I’ll clean up.”

30 minutes later, you go see Timmy.

• You, slightly annoyed – “Timmy, what are you doing?”
• Timmy, looking up – “I’m building a castle, daddy. You want to play with me?”
• You – “Yes, I’d like to play with you as soon as I’m done cleaning up. Why didn’t you pick up your toys like I asked you too?”
• Timmy – “OK, I’ll clean up”

30 minutes later, you go see Timmy

• … (you can guess the rest)

So, back to my experiment. A few weeks ago, while my wife was grocery shopping I decided to use an adapted version of Scrum. I called my son and his twin sister and told them we would do a little activity. To their enjoyment, they were wondering what I had in mind. They sat next to me at the table while I the took 4 x 6 index cards and on each of them, I wrote a task: pick up the toys, put your clothes in your drawers, empty the garbage cans, bring the recycling to the garage, put the Tupperware away in the drawer, vacuum the floor, etc.

• My son – “Daddy, why are you writing these down?”
• Me – “We’ll play a little game.”
• My daughter – “Can I play too?”
• Me – “Of course. Here’s how it goes. I wrote 8 cards and each card has a little task. I need you to help me clean up the house while mommy is doing grocery.”
• The twins – “OK, what do we do with the cards?”
• Me – “You will each select the cards (the tasks) you would like to do. You then decide in which order you want to do them.”
• My daughter – “Daddy, some tasks are longer than others. What do we do about that?”.
• Me – “It’s up to you to decide.”
• The twins – “It doesn’t matter. We’ll decide which ones we pick.”
• My son – “Do we get a reward for doing the work?”
• Me – “Mmmm, good question. I know you like to read. How about I give you tokens for each task? Once you get 50 tokens, I’ll buy the book you asked me.”
• My son – “OK.”
• My daughter – “Can I buy a beeds set instead of a book?”
• Me – “Sure.”
• The twins – “Can you write how many tokens each task gives on the cards?”
• Me – “Good thinking! Picking up the toys is 3 tokens, bringing the recycling to the garage is 1 token, …”
• The kids – “OK, but who picks first?”
• My son – “Let’s do rock – paper – scissor.”
• My daughter – “Yes, let’s do rock – paper – scissor.”
• The twins – “ROCK, PAPER, SCISSOR…”

After determining who would start, they quickly picked the cards and started doing the assigned task. At their own pace, they executed on the cards. Then, something cool happened.

• My son – “Daddy, can we add a card? We need to water the plants.”
• Me, laughing – “Of course. Who’s going to take this one?”
• The twins – “Me, me, me!”
• Me – “I guess we’ll have to write another card so you are even.”
• My daughter – “Can I dust the bureau? I saw mommy do it the other day and I’d like to do that.”
• Me, with a big smile – “OK, if you’d like to do that. I’m OK with this.”

Together, they successfully completed all their tasks. All of their tasks! No fighting, no screaming. That was a “proud moment” Imagine when my wife got back home after the grocery…

With the Xmas Holidays and the broken routine, I was pleased to see my kids grabbing the cards by themselves this past Saturday and starting to execute on the routine. “Wow, this self-organization thing really works! Even with kids…”, I told myself.

The Take-Away

If you want people to carry out a task, here are a few suggestions:

• Describe the task;
• Let the team self-organize;
• If the team needs help, you may suggest tools or a process – but do not impose them;
• Get out of the way;
• If possible, make it fun;
• That’s it.

You might be interested in these related posts:

1. Some companies are like 8 year-old boys
2. The kids are having a great time at Sportmax
3. Timmy's story: Is it better to be right or to be helpful?

Let me start by affirming I am in favor of democratic structures in “for-profit” organizations. I believe people should have a say in decisions, no doubts about that. In my opinion, the concept of democracy is closely related to the wisdom of crowds where diverse opinions from a larger group of people systematically leads to better decisions and solutions.

Comments from the peanut gallery

Now that’s established, I want to make a distinction between democracy (participating in the selection of the decision) and the discussions leading to decisions – which I will call the debates.

The debate is not a democratic process. Let me use an example to explain why I have an issue with opening debates to crowds.

Following another disappointing loss of our local hockey team, a few colleagues gathered in the cafeteria were loudly debating their opinion on the cause of the team’s poor performance…

• Paul: “Price [the goal tender] doesn’t deserve to play with the team, he lacks consistency…”
• Mario: “What do you mean? Price did what he could but he can’t do everything. With Markov’s and Gill’s injury our defensive line is weak and Price is too often left to himself…”
• Richard: “Did you guys watch the same game I did? We have no offensive line. We gave a lot of talent to bring Cammalleri to Montreal but he is just not the scorer we need and nobody actually has the right skills…”
• Mary: “No, no. It’s the referee who influenced the game…”

I’ll stop here but that is enough to show my point. How many of these people do you believed played in the NHL? None.

How many of these people took coaching training or even played junior hockey? None.

How many of these opinions are actually useful to make the right decision? None. That’s right!

This is what my wife calls the “comments from the peanut gallery“.

Let me use another brief example to prove my point further.

Assume a skilled people manager joins his highly technical team for a brain storming session. The team is looking to improve performance of their Java application and the tension in the room is high.  The manager – for sake of clarity, doesn’t have a clue about computer programming except maybe for a 3 hours introduction to Microsoft Excel taken 5 years ago – suggests to replace the framework and maybe the sorting method. What are the chances that his suggestion will be accepted? None.

The same situation applies when people with no management experience or training jump into a discussion about people management or organizational strategies. To take part of the discussion there needs to be a few pre-requisites. It is not enough to want to participate in the discussion, to really contribute people need: knowledge of the topic being discussed, experience, and a willingness to move the debate forward.

What is not needed is a personal opinion without facts, knowledge or experience but this is exactly what happens when a debate is open to the general public. When these conditions are met (knowledge, experience, and willingness), people should be welcomed to join the discussion so to take advantage of the wisdom of crowds. When these conditions aren’t met, people should stay on the sideline waiting for the debate to end and propositions to be open for selection.

Just like in the Canadian Parliament, a selected (elected) number of people were selected to represent others in the discussion. Once options are selected, the democratic process can allow people to vote.

You might be interested in these related posts:

1. Do you wonder why your boss doesn't show up at your meeting?
2. Results of my 360 degrees feedback. What my colleagues had to say.
3. What does "I have an open door policy" really mean?

This is not an un-usual situation. You call a meeting that you deem important. You invite the right people to have a constructive conversation in the hopes of coming to a decision that will be accepted by most. You planned everything ahead of time in order to maximize your participants’ “Return On Time Invested” (ROTI).

Before the meeting and without further information, your boss tells you that he won’t be attending your meeting. You try to get over the inital disappointment and frustration in order to answer the nagging question that pops in your mind “Why doesn’t my boss show up at my meeting?“.

Assuming for a minute that this is not due to an un-expected situation and that you were told before the start of the meeting – being told during the meeting would add insult to injury by showing a lack of respect.

I can only think of 2 reasons to explain that behavior:

• The decision for which you are meeting has already been taken or will be taken behind closed-door.
• The decision is not important for your boss.

Either way, this demonstrates that your boss doesn’t care about the decision stemming from the meeting. Although that is frustrating and wastes people time and energy, it is not dramatic in itself. This becomes a problem because of the lack of communication around your boss’ decision not to attend the meeting.

You may not be pleased if your boss tells you that the decision has already been taken but at least, you wouldn’t feel like an idiot when you realize this fact after you put your time and energy in the meeting.

Now, let’s give this situation a different spin and imagine receiving the following information from your boss before your meeting:

• My absence to your meeting does not indicate that I do not believe in the value of your meeting;
• I trust the group and their collective intelligence to make an informed decision;
• I am confident that the participants will challenge each other and will have good discussions;
• I want to prevent the debate from revolving around my opinion, which could bias the conversation;
• I prefer to support individuals with my expertise rather than take decisions for them.

Would you still wonder what your boss’ intentions were? Wouldn’t you feel good? Trusted? Motivated??

If you manage people, don’t let them wonder about your intention. Tell them the reason behind your actions.

You might be interested in these related posts:

1. A few simple rules to make meeting more efficient
2. Monthly Strategic Meeting
3. Called for a second meeting

During a break from the exhibit hall, I had the opportunity to  attend the presentation given by Rich Sheridan, CEO of Menlo Innovations called “Don’t Sell Buzzwords to Business Leaders, Learn How to Describe Real Value“.

Although I was disappointed at first because the presentation actually didn’t have anything to do with “Buzzwords” and “Business Leaders”, I quickly changed my impression once Richard started to describe his company’s culture and the way he leads his organization. As I already mentioned, our organization operates very differently from most organizations and in an attempt to adapt the right organizational structure I’m reading as many books, articles and blogs on this topic – including Maverick: The Success Story Behind the World’s Most Unusual Workplace (thanks to Andrew Meyer for the reference).

You can understand my interest once Richard talked about making similar organizational choices as we did: complete transparency, no formal hierarchy, accountability towards your team instead of a boss, well developed recruitment process, equitable compensation, open work environment, etc.

Menlo Innovations has published a book that demonstrates how their way of operating does deliver the real value as expected by their customers. I have ordered the book since it wasn’t available on site and I will certainly provide my assessment of it once I receive it.

Needless to say, the presentation captured the interest of most of the people in the room and many were hoping to have lunch with Richard after the presentation to better understand his unusual work environment. Unfortunately for me, my break was over and I had to get back to the booth.

I will obviously continue my research on this topic.

You might be interested in these related posts:

1. Interesting blog posts (September 22/2009)
2. Agile Business Intelligence – Collaborative Book
3. FAQ: Communities in the context of business