If you follow Scrum, XP, or the scaled versions of the same, it’s difficult to see the point of managers in an agile workplace.
Teams get the resources and knowledge they need to self-organize and get the job done, so surely an agile team needs “middle managers” to tell them how to do their work even less than they need project managers to tell them what work to do.
So it might be a surprise that “middle managers” are vital to a successful agile transformation in all but the smallest of organizations.
Even more surprising, is that many of the management models that have been taught for the past 40 years are actually built on principles similar to Agile’s. Where those models have been effective, it has been with leaders who embed what we would now recognize as an agile culture, with agile values and practices.
Only by coaching leaders, managers and team members in both good agile and good management, can we truly accelerate the transformation of organizations along the path of enterprise agility.
In this session, Russ, “The Agiliser” Lewis, shares the top 10 “Good Practices” he’s encountered in medium and large-sized enterprises.
