Ryan Ripley says that Scrum failures can often be traced back to management not understanding their role in an agile world. What gets managed during an agile project? How is success measured? Will I keep my job in the transition? Managers have all these questions and more during an agile transformation. Unfortunately, these fears are not covered during the two-day certification courses. Agile coaches need a plan for how to talk with managers and teach them the best ways to contribute to agile projects. To better understand managers’ concerns, Ryan introduces the concept of personas, representing different managers. He explores ways to “coach up” management and help them get past their concerns and issues. Ryan shares his insights on where managers can improve agile projects, how they can add value in a newly transformed organization, and help pave the way for agile teams to succeed.

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Teaching Pointy-Haired Bosses
to be Agile Enablers
@ryanripley

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#BSCADC

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“Regardless of what we discover, we
understand and truly believe that everyone did
the best job they could, given what they knew
at the time, their skills and abilities, the
resources available, and the situation at hand.”
--Norm Kerth, Project Retrospectives: A Handbook for Team Reviews

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Agile coaches can gain buy-in
from managers during an agile
transformation by focusing on
their needs.
What is a manager?

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What does a manager do?
“Yet 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

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DILBERT © 2007 Scott Adams. Used By permission of UNIVERSAL UCLICK. All rights reserved.

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SCRUM IN ONE SLIDE
Development
Sprint Planning Sprint Review
Sprint Retrospective
Sprint
ROLES: Scrum Master, Product Owner, Developer
ARTIFACTS: Product Backlog, Sprint Backlog, Product Increment

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EVERYTHING YOU’VE DONE BEFORE IS WRONG

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??????
AGILE IMPACTS EVERYONE
• Organizational Change
• Leadership Change
• Team Change
• Status Change
• Job Description Change
• Role Change
• Culture Change
What does a manager stand to lose?

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We are telling managers to
give up the tools, methods,
processes, and behaviors
that have made them
successful.

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Management support is critical
to the success of agile projects
and agile adoptions.
LEADING CAUSES OF FAILED AGILE PROJECTS
From the 9th Annual VersionOne State of Agile Report
©2015 VersionOne, Inc. - State of Agile is a trademark of VersionOne, Inc. and VersionOne is a registered trademark of VersionOne, Inc.
42%
Company philosophy
or culture at odds
with core agile values
37%
External pressure to
follow traditional
waterfall processes
38%
Lack of management
support
30%
Insufficient training
33%
A broader organizational
or communications
problem
33%
Unwillingness of
team to follow agile

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BARRIERS TO FURTHER AGILE ADOPTION
From the 9th Annual VersionOne State of Agile Report
©2015 VersionOne, Inc. - State of Agile is a trademark of VersionOne, Inc. and VersionOne is a registered trademark of VersionOne, Inc.
22%
Concerns about a
loss of management
control
24%
Management
concerns about lack
of upfront planning
29%
Management support
44%
Ability to change
organizational culture
34%
General organizational
resistance to change
35%
Not enough personnel
with necessary agile
experience
“People who ask others to change may not
understand what value they are asking
people to give up. And in fact, they may not
appreciate or even notice what’s valuable
to the people they expect to change.”
--Esther Derby

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MANAGER PERSONAS

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•NEEDS
•WANTS
•GOALS
•LIMITATIONS
How do we build personas?

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Talk to a manager!
What is your goal?

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Managers communicate their
concerns and fears through the
questions they ask.
What must be true for a
person to ask that
question?

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“What does it matter how many
times I reassign team members,
isn’t that what self-organization
is for?”
“Agile is for IT. Why are you
talking to HR and finance?"

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“Your team leaves at 5:00pm
and refuse to work weekends.
Why don’t they have a sense of
urgency?”
“That developer is slacking.
When is the scrum master
going to take care of the poor
performer?”

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Pay attention to the statements
that managers make.
What must be true for a
person to say that?

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“If the candidate does not have
CSM after their name, they aren’t
worth interviewing."
“You can’t coach if you’ve
never developed software. Pick
another scrum master for this
team."

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“Teams ship working software
at the end of each sprint. That’s
why we implemented scrum.
Work the weekends if you’re
behind. The team needs to
deliver on their commitments.”
“You teams velocity is worse
than the other scrums teams.
Find a way to get your velocity
up, or we may have to reassign
resources.”

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RESPONSES TO CHANGE ARE INVALUABLE
What is the source of their resistance?
Does the
manager know
how to do what
they are being
asked to do?
Is there a
personal conflict
that is causing
resistance?
Is the manager a
champion of the
old process?
Are there
systems in place
that reward
disruptive
behavior?
Is the path to
success unclear
to them?
What does the
manager lose due
to the change?
Ryan Ripley
PSM I, PSM II, PSE, CSM, PMI-ACP, PSPO I, PSD
10+ years experience on agile teams
GOALS
Add value back to the
organization
NEEDS
To be recognized for
the work and
contributions
delivered to the team
WANTS
To foster a safe
environment for
people to experiment
and do creative work
LIMITATIONS
Lack of agile
certifications

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“All mankind is divided into three
classes: those that are immovable,
those that are movable, and those that
move.”
--Benjamin Franklin
Movers
• Aligned with
change
• Motivated
• Eager to
learn
• Coach the
coaches
candidates
Movables
• Some
convincing
required
• Early trust
issues likely
• Support and
coaching
necessary
Immovables
• Resistant to
change
• Disruptive
• Low trust
• Seeks to
control
change
• Requires
significant
coaching

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IMMOVABLES
MOVABLES
MOVERS
GOAL
“People don’t resist change. Change
that’s presented as “Follow, or be fired!”
feels like coercion. And most people
resist coercion”
--Esther Derby

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IMMOVABLES
MOVABLES
MOVERS
GOAL
Influence vs Coercion

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There are no shortcuts
But here are some shortcuts

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Make sure people are ready
to hear what you have to say.
You are going to face a lot of
wrong premises about what
makes safety and speed
possible.

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“500 YARDS OF FOUL-SMELLING MUCK”
--Red “The Shawshank Redemption”
The management agile transformation
pipeline
Self-organization does not
initially feel safe or fast to
a traditional manager.

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“A scrum teams job is to self-organize
around the challenges, and within the
boundaries and constraints, put in place
by management.”
--Mike Cohn, Succeeding with Agile
SCRUM MANAGEMENT • Manage the boundaries
• Build Stable Teams
• Hire people – Grow skills
• Act transparently
• Examine systems &
correct faulty ones
• Give guidance when
asked/needed
• Reach across org charts
• Definition of Done
• Continuous improvement
• Expect working software
every sprint
Vision – Direction – Goals
“I finally have time to do my job.”

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“Managers are still needed. Not so
much for their planning and controlling
ability, but for that important job of
interfacing on the teams behalf with the
rest of the organization.”
--Diana Larsen
“Managers are still needed. Not so
much for their planning and controlling
ability, but for that important job of
interfacing on the teams behalf with the
rest of the organization.”
--Diana Larsen

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http://agileanswerman.com
ryan@agileanswerman.com
@ryanripley
Podcast available on iTunes,
Stitcher, and
AgileAnswerMan.Com
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