The document discusses the role of managers in agile organizations. It suggests that managers focus on empowering self-organizing teams, removing impediments, teaching problem-solving skills, and stimulating continuous improvement and growth across the organization. Effective agile leadership involves roles like servant leadership, host leadership, and defining one's scope of influence at the relationship and organizational levels. Managers should invest in learning through coaching, mentoring, and developing learning organizations with principles like systems thinking and shared vision.

1. Luca Sturaro – Meetup 05/06/2017
Agile Leaders & Agile Managers

2. About me
15+ in IT Software as consultant or
employee
• Areas: embedded systems, desktop, web
• Domains: Energy/Automation, Telecom,
currently Medical Product
R&D Program/Project Manager@
Omnilab (Abbott Group)
Luca Sturaro
Mail: hcsturix74@gmail.com
Linkedin:
https://it.linkedin.com/in/lucasturaro

3. Ansatz:
Ansatz:
Organizational structure matters
When placed in the same system, people, however different,
tend to produce similar results.

4. Structure matters – 2 scenarios
Small / Medium Company
Few hierarchical levels
Specialized, more prone to T-shaped workers
Big Company
Many hierarchical levels
High specialization («silos» culture)  More Managers

5. Top-down & bottom-up
Agile Adoptions

6. Agile Adoptions
Top 5 Barriers, VersionOne (State of Agile 2016):
1. Ability to change organizational culture
2. General organization resistance
3. Pre-existing rigid/waterfall framework
4. Not enough people with necessary agile experience
5. Management support
All these 3 are management-related

7. Ansatz
Leadership is not a role
Management is, by definition

8. Scrum
Scrum is not a process or a technique for building products; rather, it is a framework within
which you can employ various processes and techniques.
1. Scrum talks about framework’s roles: SM, PO, Dev Team
2. Scrum talks about leadership (servant-leadership)
Scrum doesn’t talk about managers

9. Servant Leadership – Greenleaf 1970
«The servant-leader is servant first…»
Host Leadership – McKergow, Bailey 2014
Leader has a Host!
«The host is both the first and the last» - arabic proverb
New & effective metaphore for Agile Leadership!
Scrum is also about leadership
Scrum Master as
servant leader

10. • Listening & Understanding
• Empathy & Acceptance
• Healing
• Awareness
• Persuasion
• Conceptualization
• Foresight
• Building community
• Stewardship
• Commitment to growth
Servant Leader’s key concepts
Your turn:
Examples?
Can we use this for Sr. Managers &
Executives?

11. 6 Roles:
• Initiator
• Inviter
• Space-creator
• Gatekeeper
• Connector
• Co-partecipator
Host Leadership Summary
4 positions:
• On the stage
• At the balcony
• Among the people
• In the kitchen
And this?

12. Managers in Agility?

13. Managing Teams
• Agile team management
• Resource management
• Performance management
Managing Investments
• Managing through metrics and reporting
• Agile portfolio management
Managing the Environment
• Internal partner management
• Supplier management and outsourcing
Meta-Competency
• Organizational change
https://www.scrumalliance.org/community/articles/2008
/july/the-manager-s-role-in-agile#sthash.pPSJrkav.dpuf
The Manager's Role in Agile
Lyssa Adkins Micheal Spayd

14. “A common misconception is that because
of this reliance on self-organizing teams,
there is little or no role for leaders of agile
teams. Nothing could be further from the
truth.”
--Mike Cohn, Succeeding with Agile
About Managers

15. In LeSS - Management
LeSS implies:
• Self-managing teams
• Product Owners decide what work and where
the work goes
 Role of Managers changes drastically
• Manager as Teacher (Lean management):
• Problem solving teacher via 5Why, A3, Causal
Loop Diagrams,…
• Go-see (Genchi Genbutsu, Gemba attitude)

16. On self-management
Scrum starts at least here
“The team is responsible for
executing the tasks and monitoring
and managing process and progress”
R. Hackman

17. LeSS – managers as capability builder
Middle managers’ focus:
• Seeing the «whole»
• Removing obstacles
• Making improvements
• Teaching how to improve
Sr. Managers’ focus:
• Strategic decision
• Teaching people «how to teach
people»

18. Manager in (Agile) Transition?
Yes, you are here
• Organizational changes
• Leadership changes
• My job changes
• Team changes
• Peer changes
(change)5

19. Manager in (Agile) Transition?
Yes, you are here
• Organizational changes
• Leadership changes
• My job change
• Team changes
• Peer changes
(change)5
Organizational Resistance
Let’s work here

20. What shall I do?You have to unlearn
what you have learned

21. Idea 1: Redefine your scope of influence

22. At Relationship level:
• Building trust (inside & outside teams)
o It helps in creating a sustainable “eco-system”
• Reducing “Ego” & relying on self-organization:
It’s not about you, it’s about teams
At Organizational Level:
Increase Systemic View: “Seeing the Forest and the Trees”
• It helps in navigating organization
• It helps in working with peers
• It helps in working with Sr. Management
Idea 1: Redefine your scope of influence

23. Idea 2: Invest in learning

24. Coaching & Mentoring:
• Internal coaches:
o Grow people in the organization
• External coaches:
o Business Coaching (Sr. Managers included)
o Counseling & mentoring
Training Programs:
• Workshops
• Presentation & Courses
Don’t look at Agility just like a process or tool
Idea 2: Invest in learning

25. Towards Learning Organizations?
“…organizations where people continually expand
their capacity to create the results they truly desire,
where new and expansive patterns of thinking are
nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and
where people are continually learning to see the
whole together.”
Peter Senge,
The Fifth Discipline (1990)New emerging paradigm for
organizations?

26. 5 Disciplines
System
Thinking
Shared
Vision
Mental
Models
Team
learning
Personal
Mastery
1. Personal Mastery:
Personal mastery is the discipline of continually clarifying and deepening our
personal vision, of focusing our energies, of developing patience, and of seeing
reality objectively
2. Shared Vision:
Capacity to have and hold a shared picture of the future we try to create (not
just a “vision statement”)
3. Mental Models:
It starts with turning the mirror inward; it involves the ability to carry
«learningful» conversations, where people expose their own thinking making it
open to the influence of others.
4. Team Learning:
It starts with dialogue to reach a “thinking-together” state.
5. System Thinking:
we tend to focus on snapshots of isolated parts of the system

27. 11 Rules of the Fifth Discipline
1. Today's problems come from
yesterday's "solutions."
2. The harder you push, the harder
the system pushes back.
3. Behavior grows better before it
grows worse.
4. The easy way out usually leads
back in.
5. The cure can be worse than the
disease.
6. Faster is slower.
7. Cause and effect are not closely
related in time and space.
8. Small changes can produce big
results...but the areas of highest
leverage are often the least obvious.
9. You can have your cake and eat it too,
but not all at once.
10. Dividing an elephant in half does not
produce two small elephants.
11. There is no blame.

28. Design Policies, strategies, and structures looking
at the «whole»
Leader as Designer
Leader as designer of the learning processes

29. It’s not about teaching people how to achieve their vision
It’s about fostering learning for everyone
Leader as teacher of underlying structures rather
than “local” trends
Leader as Teacher

30. Have your own vision but be prepared to look at it as part
of something larger (outcome of active listening and
conversation)
Responsibility without possessiveness
Leader as Steward of a vision
Leader as Steward

31. Roles of Manager - Summary
• Empowering Self-Organization & Excellence
• Remove impediments
• Problem Solving teacher
• Stimulate Continuous Improvement & Growth
• Organization sustainability
• Lean thinking
• Lead People / Lead a Team!
• Managing Up, Out, and Yourself
• Counseling, Coaching and Mentoring

32. Questions?

34. • The Scrum Guide - https://www.scrum.org/
• LeSS site - https://less.works
• Leader as Servant – Robert K. GreenLeaf
Sources