I am a month late, but in October, I celebrated my 10th anniversary at Scrum.org. Ten years is a long time, well, according to my children, it is ‘FOREVER’, and milestones are always a good time for reflection.
Helping people deliver on their potential
I joined Scrum.org not just because my friend and mentor Ken Schwaber asked me, but because I have always felt that people have much more potential than they use. I grew up in a working-class environment where my family worked in shops, factories, and bars. I was always shocked by how little they were asked to improve their environments. Managers never asked my mum, for example, how to improve the operation of the cigarette counter at the local supermarket where she worked. Instead, they imposed practices, processes, and tools on her. It is no surprise that she was rarely motivated by the new “improved” services her boss said would help her do her job.
I assumed that this lack of ownership applied only to hourly jobs and that, if you got a white-collar job, you would be more involved in your own destiny and have the opportunity to improve your environment. How wrong I was. When I graduated from university, I started as a software engineer for a large insurance company. I became a small cog in a very large software delivery machine. A machine that was slow, risk-averse, and more focused on protecting the status quo than delivering value to users, stakeholders, and shareholders.
Of course, many of the companies I have worked for or with are very different. They do empower workers, and everyone is driving in the same direction. There are politics, egos, and, of course, challenges around risk, but ultimately, people feel empowered to make a difference. They work in an environment where, when you see something that is wrong, you take action. But these are the exceptions, and when management changes, they often revert to a more traditional, less empowered culture.
At the heart of Scrum and the agile movement as a whole is the empowerment of people and teams to solve problems. You present problems rather than solutions, and you focus on outcomes rather than the work.
But what stops empowered teams from being the norm? If you ask my mother, she would list a number of her bosses :-( But is middle management the problem?
Middle management actually is the answer.
The agile community has spent a lot of time saying that middle management is the problem, whilst creating disempowered middle managers in the roles of Scrum Masters and Product Owners.
OK - that was a little harsh. But how many times have you heard an agile consultant moan about the ‘Amorphous Blob of Middle Management’? Whilst also saying that the Product Owner needs more ownership, and the Scrum Master is being ignored?
Good middle management is actually the key to agility and success, and in particular to supporting, enabling, and growing the ideas of empowered teams. That is why concepts like Management 3.0 focus on management.
It reminds me of the saying, “Revolution comes from the middle class. The working class is too busy working, and the upper class sees no need to change.” Of course, middle, upper, and working classes do not directly apply, but the idea that change has to come from the middle looks pretty logical. After all, they create the environment for work to happen (or not happen) every day.
But hang on a minute – if the middle is where change comes from, and many have been educated about agility, design thinking, Lean Startup, TPS, and many have attended MBA classes, why are we not seeing any change? Why are empowered teams still the exception?
Craig Larman, the co-creator of LeSS, has an interesting take on why organizational change is so hard in his five laws. To paraphrase his much more eloquent description:
Organizations are designed not to change - middle managers and specialist roles reinforce that idea. And all changes are customized for the ‘special’ organization. Hence, they just rename existing processes and practices, which is then reinforced by people who have a vested interest in nothing changing.
To add my take, unless you understand the power structures within organizations and how those individuals are incentivized, and can change the incentives and structures, you will always be making minor changes to existing systems and often diluting the opportunity that empowered teams really provide. In the area of incentives, this webinar might be interesting.
A good crisis can change everything, but relying on a crisis to drive progress seems a bit defeatist.
Tips for working with middle managers
From the work we have been doing on the Agile Product Operating Model, I have identified some techniques and ideas that can help drive change among middle managers.
- Do not lead with terms like ‘removing hierarchy’ and ‘flattening organizations’. It seems obvious, but I have even presented those ideas to middle managers and wondered why they were not interested. They are thinking about how they can help drive the change and what it means for them.
- Think about incentives, both visible and invisible. This is not just true for middle managers, but for everyone involved in the change. I see too many situations where change is driven without a fundamental understanding of how it will affect the incentives of those affected.
- Build plans that include middle managers. Again, something that seems so simple but often is ignored. Roles such as Scrum Master and Product Owner are not ancillary to middle managers but should be positioned as leadership roles that require authority, experience, and, often, a hierarchical position. The right middle managers would be ideal candidates for these accountabilities.
The bottom line is that middle managers can help you drive and embody change by assuming key agile accountabilities.
And now with AI
There is a lot in the news about companies like Amazon, Target, and UPS laying off large numbers of employees and attributing these layoffs to AI. Phrases like 'leaner' and 'less hierarchy' are used to describe these AI-enabled organizations. The focus of the change is a combination of junior and management positions. So will the organizations be more empowered? Do fewer people mean more autonomy and empowerment at the team level? We will have to wait and see, but from previous resources, small actions do not necessarily mean empowered. Without clear guardrails, a focus on outcomes, and a support structure, fewer people just means busier people. However, the prospect of AI as we continue to see teams learn how to augment their capabilities with AI. AI may be the missing piece in empowerment as it opens the door to teams that really do have all the skills to deliver a working increment when combined with tools like Scrum.
10 years on and still fighting
So, thinking back to the last 10 years, it is clear that when Scrum clicks in an organization, teams become empowered, and that Scrum has driven that change in many organizations. However, there is still a lot of work to be done to dispel the myth that middle managers are the problem and that middle managers are allergic to Scrum.
Onto the next 10 years - now with AI.
Please note that AI was not used to write this blog. I do use Grammarly to help with grammar and Gemini to help create the blog summary. But the rest of the content is me :-)