PROJECTCON | AGILECON Midwest 2019 in Indianapolis on May 10, 2019 Keynote Presentation Presenter: Dave West, CEO and Product Owner Scrum.org There is no mistaking it. The last 10 years has seen a fundamental shift in how we shop, consume news, even communicate with our friends and family. We have entered the Digital Age where the economics, systems and structures are different. Traditional organizations are trying to keep up and evolve to better serve this new age. The evolution to become more agile is not easy. The resulting tension manifests itself in many forms including confusion of job title and disconnected processes as organization run a hybrid agile and traditional organization. Some days this works, some days it doesn’t. Ideas such as self-organization, empowerment coupled with empirical process and customer centricity strike at the heart of job titles that were designed in a world of parental management, specialism of labor and resource management. In this keynote, we will surface actionable insights to the questions: How do you survive and thrive in this messy world? What does it mean for your job title and skills? Event Website: https://projectconevent.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/projectcon-llc Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ProjectConEvent Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/projectconevent YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLLG1SGPs1L5YLoFndvGGhQ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/projectconevent Presentation Slides: https://slideshare.com/projectcon Post Event Trailer: https://youtu.be/1_RzFBnZ7bo

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Dave West
1
Friday 10th May 2019
ProjectCon - Indianapolis
Mind the Gap
The Tension Between Job
Titles and Agility

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Who Is Scrum.org?
Founded by Ken
Schwaber Co-creator of
Scrum
Training Certification

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We Live In Changing Times
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• The Market
• Digital Globalization
• Mother Nature
• Climate change, population
growth
• Technology (Moores Law)
• Exponential increase in
computing power
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The Agile of Accelerations

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Entering the Digital Age
Inspired by : Carlota Perez ‘Technological Revolutions and
Financial Capital’

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The Digital Age Means..
Age of Oil and Mass
Production
VS
Age of software and digital
Long term investment
planning
Short term investment planning
Short term profit Long term value
Efficiency Innovation and opportunity
Specialism of labor Cross functional teams
Process control Self organization and
decentralization
Management is king Rise of the creator

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How Do We Navigate To This New Way of Working
VS

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And Has Huge Implication To The Way We Work

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World Economic Forum (2020)
• Complex Problem Solving
• CriticalThinking
• Creativity
• People Management
• Coordinating with Others
• Emotional Intelligence
• Judgement and Decision Making
• Service Orientation
• Negotiation
• Cognitive Flexibility
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Two Views of the future
Singularity University
• CriticalThinking and Problem
Solving
• Collaboration Across Networks and
Leading by Influence
• Agility and Adaptability
• Initiative and Entrepreneurship
• Effective Oral and Written
Communication
• Assessing and Analyzing
Information
• Curiosity and Imagination

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Complexity Changes The Game
The Cynefin framework
How can we drive
specialist jobs until we
have an idea of the
problem we are
solving?

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And Our Approach Should Not Come As A Surprise
• Self-organizing teams –
autonomous, cross-functional
• Goal-seeking, but not prescriptive
• Deliver working products in small
increments
• Learning by doing
• Simple, transparent controls
• Learning culture – wanting to share
(osmosis)
https://hbr.org/1986/01/the-new-new-product-development-game

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That is Why Scrum Focuses on Three (4) Roles
Product Owner Scrum Master DevTeam
Member
Agile Leader
Scrum Environment

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But What About You…
Project Managers BusinessAnalysts Testers
YOUR JobTitle

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Scrum does
not care about
job titles

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Scrum does
not care about
job titles

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Why Scrum Cares
• All the right skills to deliver value means we need people who can do
stuff (BA’s,Testers, and PM’s all help deliver value)
• Hiring people requires job titles that describe skills. It is very hard to
say, “I want someone to do stuff.”
• And Scrum roles are NOT job titles (even if they have the same
name)
• For most situations, Scrum is happening within an existing
organization that has HR, job titles, promotional paths, etc.
And people needs to feel safe and valued

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But Here is the RubBut Here Is the Rub…
DeliveringValue
Ever changing problemsAgileWorkforce
The Market
Job titles

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• Salary
• Promotion Prospects
• Benefits
• Internal recognition
• External recognition
• What your mum tells her friends
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Job Titles Mean Some REALLY important Stuff

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• SeparateWork Management fromTalent / Skill / Job management
• Hard to be transparent when your boss is looking over your shoulder
• Separate the roles you need for success from the skills you need
• You need: People that create (develop), People that define / order value,
People that make the work flow, People that create an environment for
success
• And yes one person can wear many hats, but be careful
• AlignWorkTeams to customers / outcomes
• When you know why you are there easy to focus and keep motivated
• Align Skills to community (Collect Skills into JobTitles?)
• Introduce a community driven approach to people development
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How to Manage The Rub

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The Famous Spotify Model
• Squad: similar to a ScrumTeam
• Tribe: collection of Squads that
work in a related area
• Chapter: a family of people
inside aTribe with similar skills
• Guild: a community of practice
crossTribe

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It All Starts With Teams Focused on Value
What motivates people?
1. Autonomy
2. Mastery
3. Purpose
Form teams naturally with:
• Team members who want change
(opt-in)
• Team members who want to work
together
(self-organization)
• Mutually-agreed commitments
and decision processes
(self-direction)
• A clear focus on outcomes that
deliver value
(purpose)
Source: Daniel H. Pink, Drive:The SurprisingTruth AboutWhat Motivates
Us, Riverhead Hardcover, 2009

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But Supported by Skills Based Community
• Focus on supporting people by developing skills
• Promotion, status and reward tied to mastery
• Scaling is about helping others not managing others
• Installing a learning culture requires an organization

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Moving Away From Traditional Promotion Models
After spending many years on the job, working long hours and
mastering every strange nuance of the systems you are promoted to a
management position. Responsible for others doing the work that you
know so well.After time and proving that you can play the political
game you are promoted to manage the managers. Slowly over time
you get promoted higher and higher until you retire. Changing jobs
just changes where you start.The game continues.
-Traditional Leadership

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The Journey To Master
Which journey
are you on?
Scrum
Technical
Product
Customer Process
Creator

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• Everyone needs to know the
customer / context / business
• Individuals bring specialist skills
and experience to the mix
• Specialist skills are supported
by community (inside and
outside of the organization)
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Skills and Context Are Key
Good Understanding of the Context / Business
SpecialistSkills

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What Shape Are You?
http://www.irisclasson.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/skills.jpg

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An Interesting Observation
Agreeableness
(Friendly/compassionate vs
Challenging/detached).Tendency to
be compassionate and cooperative
rather than suspicious and antagonistic
towards others. It also a measure of
ones trusting and helpful nature, and
whether a person is generally well
tempered or not. High agreeableness
is often seen as naïve or submissive.
Low agreeableness personalities are
often competitive or challenging
people which can be seen as
argumentative or untrustworthy.
Yes and vs Yes but

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What Does It Mean for an Organization
• The most important skill is knowing
your customer
• Teams and teams of teams aligned
to deliver customer value
• Measurement based on outcomes
not work
• Organization built to serve these
customer centric groups
• Management of work defined by
teams in pursuit of goals
• Talent management driven by
master, journeyperson and
apprentice model
• Management concentrates on
building and maintaining an
environment for agility to thrive
ALIGNMENTTO PRODUCTS WORK &TALENT MANAGEMENT SEPARATED

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Find the role that makes the most sense for you:
Finding your Destiny
• If you are more about enabling flow, driving a process, helping
others learn, removing impediments, and raising transparencyScrum Master
• If you are passionate about the solutions you provide, the
problems that you solve, and the customerProduct Owner
• If you want to master and share a set of skills or technologyTechnical
• If you want to glue together an organization, build an
environment that supports agility, and delivering valueLeadership

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• Working in a complex environment requires empirical process, self-
organization, and a focus on improvement – that is what Scrum is.
• Job titles and specialism of labor do not naturally connect with this,
but skills do
• Focus on the three (4) roles of: Scrum Master,Team Member,
Product and Leadership
• Everyone has to understand the customer
• Decouple work management from people management
• Build community around mastery and skills development
• And focus on learning rather than job title!
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Summary

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The Bottom Line
• The reality is that many organizations are in transition
• By focusing on building skills and getting closer to the customer, you are
becoming more valuable
• Management is transitioning from a focus on process / systems to a more
people centric approach
• But systems are going through a change from you serving them to them
serving you
• Agile is new to HR, but is a key part of the change
Empirical Process, Self-Organization,
Continuous Improvement
Plan-Centric Process, Resource
Management,Top Down Change
VS

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