The document discusses the role of agile managers as leaders who are essential in organizing teams, managing project portfolios, and removing organizational obstacles. It emphasizes the importance of building trusting relationships, providing feedback without micromanaging, and enabling career development within agile organizations. Managers are encouraged to serve their teams by guiding and coaching them to improve overall organizational capacity.

1. Agile Managers:
The Essence of Leadership
Johanna Rothman
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@johannarothman
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2. Do We Need Managers in Agile
Organizations?
2 © 2013 Johanna Rothman

3. What’s a Leader?
Organize yourselves into two’s and three’s
Together, in your team, take a minute to write down your
definition of a leader
Once you look like you’re done writing, I’ll ask you to
shout out your definitions
3 © 2013 Johanna Rothman

4. What Kind of A Team?
Just now, in your two’s and three’s, what kind of team
were you?
What kind of management did you need?
4 © 2013 Johanna Rothman

5. Some Definitions of Leader
Guide
Conductor
A person who has commanding authority or influence
5 © 2013 Johanna Rothman

6. Agile Managers Are Leaders
Set strategy
Manage the project portfolio
Remove organization obstacles
Build trusting relationships with people
Lead hiring decisions and process
Build the capacity of the organization
Enable communities of practice
6 © 2013 Johanna Rothman

7. Manage the Project Portfolio
Say No
Say When
Strategically important work
What it is
When to start it and stop it
Not making those decisions creates management debt
As well as chaos
7 © 2013 Johanna Rothman

8. A Calendar View of a Project
Portfolio
8 © 2013 Johanna Rothman

9. A Kanban View of a Project Portfolio
9 © 2013 Johanna Rothman

10. Managing the Project Portfolio...
Allows for management iteration and management flow
Cycles allow you to assess strategy
Cycles help you see organizational obstacles
Frees the technical teams to finish work
10 © 2013 Johanna Rothman

11. Leaders Remove Organizational
Obstacles
Individual reviews are an organizational obstacle
I bet some of you don’t believe me, so let’s discuss what
you want from reviews
11 © 2013 Johanna Rothman

12. Instead of Individual Reviews
Build a trusting relationship
Share the strategy
Share the profits
Provide cost of living raises
to the team
Give the team a team bonus
The team decides
12 © 2013 Johanna Rothman

13. Trusting Relationships
What keeps people in a job?
13 © 2013 Johanna Rothman

14. What Does That Mean for
Functional Managers?
14 © 2013 Johanna Rothman

15. Managers Become Champions
No micromanaging!
Meet often enough, one-on-one to build a trusting
relationship
Allows manager to see the system
15 © 2013 Johanna Rothman

16. Feedback and Meta-Feedback
Not evaluation or praise; feedback
When you use a peer-to-peer feedback approach:
Create an opening
Describe behavior or results
State the impact
Make a request
16 © 2013 Johanna Rothman

17. Coaching and Meta-Coaching
Not just teaching, offering options with support
17 © 2013 Johanna Rothman

18. Career Development
Where can people go in their careers?
How do they know?
How can you help them?
18 © 2013 Johanna Rothman

19. Build Organizational Capacity
How many of you know your organizational velocity now?
Remove system obstacles
Recognize when a team’s velocity is stuck
19 © 2013 Johanna Rothman

20. Lead Hiring Effort
Recognize when you need more people
Initiate the hiring
Job analysis
Job description
Manage the phone screens
Manage the interviews and interactions with HR
20 © 2013 Johanna Rothman

21. Enable Communities of Practice
Consider the small world network approach to problem
solving
Six degrees of separation
Communities of practice
21 © 2013 Johanna Rothman

22. Agile Management is Leadership
Managers serve the people in the organization
Guiding
Coaching
Using their influence to ease the way for the work
22 © 2013 Johanna Rothman

23. References and Reading
http://www.influentialagileleader.com/
Rothman, Johanna. Agile Managers: The Essence of Leadership,
Cutter IT Journal,Vol. 23, No. 3, March 2010.
Much more on jrothman.com
Stay in touch?
Pragmatic Manager: www.jrothman.com/pragmaticmanager
Please link with me on LinkedIn
23 © 2013 Johanna Rothman