The boss can have his/her office. There are other methods to improve communication/work place relations other than having the big bee sitting among the worker bees.

Another big mistake I would add to the list is “assuming a contractual commitment creates a sense of urgency”. Time and again we see corporate deals signed and projects delivering against contractual milestones. When we investigate what has been done to create the sense of urgency the alarm bells ring when people answer “we don’t have an option, because it’s in the contract!”.

There is always an option

One thing I also noticed would happen a lot is that if a team that was formerly commanded-and-controlled was newly “empowered” and tried to self-organize, that without guidance in the form of shared goals, values and principles, they would quickly mimic all the same dysfunctional behaviors amongst themselves that the all too often complained management was doing to them.

I wrote: By themselves, self-organizing teams are neither “good” nor “bad.” They simply “are.” They require a supporting management environment (the “fitness landscape”) and organizational culture that establishes, communicates, rewards and reinforces the “right” set of values and principles. Without supportive management and the proper leadership culture, there is a very high likelihood that a self-organizing team may be unable to create good results or effective processes (or both). In fact, it’s not uncommon for a newly formed & “empowered” self-organizing team to fall into many of the same dysfunctional patterns of behavior that it was most trying to escape from within the “management” that only recently “empowered” the team.

An “agile team” is (supposed to be) a self-organizing team that is guided by the agile values and agile principles (given by the agile manifesto) and is supported by a trusting and empowering style of management. With management supporting their agile values/principles, Agile teams “self-organize” to collectively decide and do what is needed in order to: make and meet commitments, develop a quality product, respond to feedback, and adapt to changes.