In small development organizations, software teams are usually able to deliver value independently of other teams. In these organizations, it is easy to give teams total autonomy. What happens as the company and systems grow to where there are multiple teams to organize and deliver value together? Usually the response from the leadership team is to align the teams, but that alignment is usually at the expense of the teams’ autonomy. How are teams supposed to be both aligned and autonomous? What is the role of leadership in both aligning the teams around a common purpose and building the environment so the teams remain autonomous? In this session we’re going to learn how to be an empowering leader who uses alignment as a pre-condition to high autonomy. We’ll learn a recipe for creating alignment and how having alignment and autonomy relates to Daniel Pink’s Autonomy, Mastery, Purpose and to David Marquet’s Leader’s Give Control models.

1. The Role of Leadership in Scaling Agile
Inspiring Alignment and Autonomy

2. Leland Newsom - Agile Coach, CapTech Consulting
• Email: lnewsom@captechconsulting.com
• Twitter: @LelandNewsom
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lelandnewsom/
• Slideshare: https://www.slideshare.net/LelandNewsom
Past roles include:
• Developer
• Manager
• Managing Director
• Technical Director
2005:
First Agile/Lean experience
2007:
- Leading & Coaching Agile Teams
- CSM Certified
2017:
CSP Certified
2016:
SPC4 SAFe Certified

3. Why having clarity and alignment is important
Leadership’s role in creating alignment
Alignment vs. Autonomy
Three Dimensions of Clarity, Competency, and Control
Alignment Recipe
Agenda

4. Easy

5. Little Bit Harder

6. This Doesn’t Scale
WTF!
????
Where is
everyone
*@#!
?!?!
Huh!
Who
Cares
We’re
Lost

7. Stephen Covey, in his book The 8th Habit, describes a poll
of 23,000 employees drawn from a number of companies
and industries. He reports the poll’s finding:
• 37% clear understanding of what their organization is
try to achieve and why
• 20% enthusiastic about their team’s and their
organization’s goals
• 20% have a “line of site” between their tasks and their
team’s and organization’s goals
• 15% felt their organization fully enables them to
execute key goals
• 20% fully trusted the organization they work for!
8th Habit Poll

8. • 5-6 of the 15 players on the field would
know which goal is theirs
• 3 of the 15 would care about the outcome
of the game
• 3 of the 15 would know what position they
play and know exactly what they are
supposed to do
• 2 of the 15 would feel they are prepared
to win
• 12 of the 15 would, in some way, be
competing against their own team
members rather than the opponent.
If Your Team was a Rugby Team
Img source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rugby_union_in_Victoria

9. Need A New Boss?

10. Leadership

11. “Leadership is the process of creating
an environment in which people
become empowered.”
– Gerald (Jerry) Weinberg, Becoming a Technical Leader

12. “Alignment is not only the source of
team power, but it is also a
prerequisite for team empowerment.”
- Pat MacMillian, The Performance Factor: Unlocking the Secrets of
Teamwork

13. Alignment and Autonomy
Do whateverDo what I say!
Alignment Autonomy

14. “The more alignment you have, the
more autonomy you can grant. The
one enables the other.”
- Stephen Bungay, The Art of Action

16. Leader-Leader Model
From Inno-Versity Presents: “Greatness” by David Marquet

17. 3 Dimensions of Clarity, Competence, and Control
Autonomy

18. Autonomy
3 Dimensions of Clarity, Competence, and Control
Autonomy
Mastery
PurposeDrive

19. Ingredients:
 Shared Purpose
Alignment Recipe

20. 20

21. Collocated Teams
Agile Practices
Lean Management
Continuous Learning
PRIORITIZED DEMAND CONTINUOUS DELIVERY
DELIGHTED CUSTOMERS
STANDING TEAMS
Build great software in a fun and engaging environment!
Sample Vision

22. What are you working on, and why?
We are
working on X
because Y
said it’s
important
We’re done
when Y is ok
with it
We’re done
when the
metrics have
moved X
amount
Why are we building X?
What’s success look like?
We understand why we’re building it
and how success looks.

23. PI Planning
Reproduced with permission from © Scaled Agile, Inc.

24. Shared Purpose

25. http://www.romanpichler.com/blog/goal-oriented-agile-product-roadmap/

26. Ingredients:
 Shared Purpose
 Transparency
Alignment Recipe

27. Transparency

29. Dependencies

30. Ingredients:
 Shared Purpose
 Transparency
 Feedback Loops
Alignment Recipe

31. Feedback loops

32. Multiple Feedback Loops
Reproduced with emphasis added with permission from © Scaled Agile, Inc. Original graphic found at scaledagileframework.com

33. Ingredients:
 Shared Purpose
 Transparency
 Feedback Loops
 Clear Priorities
Alignment Recipe

34. Clear Priorities

37. Ingredients:
 Shared Purpose
 Transparency
 Feedback Loops
 Clear Priorities
 Organizational Learning
Alignment Recipe

38. Too Focused on Delivery to Improve?

39. I did
NOTHING
today and still got
PAID

40. IP Sprints
Reproduced with permission from © Scaled Agile, Inc.

41. Ingredients:
 Shared Purpose
 Transparency
 Feedback Loops
 Clear Priorities
 Organizational Learning
Directions:
- Combine ingredients
- Bring to boil
- Continue to simmer
- Stir as needed
Alignment Recipe

42. Leader’s Role in Alignment and Autonomy - Summary
Not This! This!
Empower people
Create environment
in which people
become empowered
Align the teams
Make decisions
Keep resources busy
Ensure decisions can
be made
Create conditions that
enable teams to align
Create slack in the
system

43. • Greatness - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqmdLcyES_Q
• Drive - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc
• http://www.scaledagileframework.com/
• http://blog.crisp.se/2017/01/03/jimmyjanlen/transforming-the-pyramid-to-an-agile-org
• https://availagility.co.uk/2017/09/11/more-on-leader-leader-and-autonomy-alignment/
• http://blog.crisp.se/2016/08/23/henrikkniberg/alignment-at-scale-agile-africa-keynote
More Information

44. Appendix
44

45. The goal at Microsoft in Agile at scale is to have alignment at the top and autonomy at the bottom. The teams need
autonomy. That’s what drives them to come to work and deliver great stuff. But at the same time, their work has to
be aligned with the business. If there is too much control, nothing gets done: no one wants to work there. It’s not a
fun environment. In fact, it’s a disaster. If there is too little control, it’s chaos. Everyone is building whatever they
want. There are no end-to-end scenarios. Customers are frustrated. Nothing makes business sense. So the managers
are always striving for the right balance.
The managers are responsible for the rules of the road. This include clarifying the roles, the teams, the cadence, the
vocabulary and the limits on the number of bugs a team can have (“the bug cap.”)
The team has autonomy in terms of how they go about doing the work in both planning and practices. Within the
overall framework, each can take a different approach. The specific engineering practices are up to the team. For
instance, whether the team decides to do pair programming is up to them.
The role of management is like establishing the rules of the road. You can drive down the freeway fast. In fact, the
freeway is designed to help you go fast. But there are rules. You have to use your blinker when you cross the dotted
line. You have to slow down at certain points. You have to pay attention to that stuff. The authorities could make the
freeway much safer by putting speed bumps every hundred yards, and a stop light every mile. It would be safer but
it would slow things down. The managers at Microsoft take the same approach. They are specifying the minimum
basic road rules the teams need to adhere to. Their goal is to ensure that the rules help the teams move fast, to get
where they want and need to go, not just slow them down.
Of course, if you ask an engineering team, as Aaron does, “What does leadership make you do that is slowing you
down?” he gets a ton of stuff, not just one or two things. They often pull out a whole scroll of issues. They were just
waiting for him to ask! They tell him everything he's doing wrong and they have a conversation. The point is that the
conversation takes place and it’s a safe conversation to have.
Get the Right Balance of Alignment and Autonomy