Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
Developing People and Teams / Self-Organizing Teams - Coggle Diagram
Developing People and Teams / Self-Organizing Teams
Balancing Autonomy with Accountability
“when do you think this will be done?” or “how is cost tracking?” or “will we hit our launch date?”
Not agile questions?
are completely fair and valid
The difference is that we are moving from a world where we pretended to be able to know all
to one where we accept we don’t know it all up front and instead forecast these factors and continually update the forecast as we progress, enabling regular changes in direction based on the information at hand.
Evil conspirator
They feel stuck
Do they go back to their old ways and demand answers
Do they dare mess with the new agile culture and risk being seen as "a manager", the evil conspirator who is secretly trying to stop agile and control everyone?
Or do they try to manage the business without the vital information required to make decisions?
Problem
The problem is that they have increased autonomy without increasing accountability
Case 1
Situation
The “how” (the execution of initiatives) would be entirely up to the proposer, giving the teams freedom and flexibility to focus on delivering the best outcome as the work progressed.
Problem
Firstly, those leading the initiatives were not being held accountable for actually delivering something of value.
The teams weren’t being held to account to deliver “done” increments of value every iteration
The lesson
The lesson - they decentralized decision making and control to provide autonomy but failed to establish the corresponding accountability. They went from centralised accountability, to no accountability at all
Case 2
Situation
emoving most middle-management positions and set the teams forth on a journey of self-organization
Each team had a facilitator – a servant leader who would help the teams as required.
Problem
CEO asked how many more iterations would be required to deliver the release, she was shocked to find the teams had no idea
The lesson
Again, they went from a small group of managers being accountable, to nobody being accountable in the new approach.
Final reflexion
Governance remains vitally important. It doesn’t disappear, it just changes, typically from a classical model where the focus is on schedule, scope, budget, quality and risk, towards a modern model that focuses on value, risk, learnings
Management remains important too. It doesn’t disappear. It just changes from a role that allocates work to people and then manages their progress, to a role that focuses on growing people, providing honest feedback and coaching them
Leading High Performing Teams
Steve Jobs
Common vision
Passion
Make a difference
Opportunities
Individuals who creat it, not the corporation
patterns
Clear Goal
Leadership
Culture
Continual improvement
Transparency
Rapid experimentation
Fun