This slideset features a summary of the study on "Successful agile leadership". The study is based on structured interviews with teams and their management in 5 companies using agile methods and was conducted in 2011 by the platform for agile management (PAM). http://p-a-m.org

1. Successful Leadership in
Agile Organizations
Results of the 2011 Study
www.p-a-m.org

2. What we wanted to find out:
 What is required to successfully
lead in an agile environment?
 What are the key factors from
the point of view of teams and
their managers using agile
methods?

3. Our approach:
 58 face-to-face interviews with IT and business-
experts from 5 different companies
 7 clusters of qualitative and quantitative questions
 Aggregation of the questions both per company
and across companies
 Interdisciplinary research team with backgrounds
of agile and traditional project management,
organizational development and line management

4. Success factors of agile leadership
Quality
of
communica2on
Organizational Change Management
Trust
Professional self-management
Middle
Management
as Change Agents
Context Management & Coaching
Leadership as Teamsport

5. Quality of communication
„Internal communication has become more honest, more specific, things are
said more straightforward” – team member
 Communication has
improved in all 5
companies
 This is perceived very
similarly by all
hierarchical levels
 IT sees improvement
in a better light than Impact of agile transition on communication
business (1: very positiv 3: neutral: 5: very negativ)

6. Trust
„To work agile is like climbing stairs without handrails“
– Senior Management Business
Trust in ...
 the competence of the team
 their ability to self-organize
... requires leaders to...
 adopt to change
 learn
 sincerely delegate responsibility
 cope with uncertainty and democracy
Also see www.p-a-m.org: „A recipe for trust building“

7. Middle Management as Change
Agents
„Why do we have line managers – so that someone signs our vacation forms?“
– team member
 Not middle
management, but
command & control
leadership becomes
obsolete
 New core challenges:
Recruiting, Role
Clarification, Change How do you rate the potential that the entire company
can benefit from the agile transition?
Management,… (1: very positiv, 3: neutral, 5: very negativ)

8. Leadership as team sport
 Team decisions instead of individual
decisions
 All key players are involved in major
decisions:
Business, Product Owner, Scrum Master,
Team and IT-Line-management
 Affected stakeholder become involved
stakeholder
 Complex problems are viewed and
solved from different perspectives

9. Authors of the study
 Siegfried Kaltenecker (siegfried.kaltenecker@p-a-m.org)
 Thomas Spielhofer (thomas.spielhofer@p-a-m.org)
 Sabine Eybl
 Johanna Schober
 Stefan Jäger