The agile manager

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An article by Aaron De Smet focusing on the role od agile manager. He tries to explain these fundamental questions: who manages in an agile organization? And what exactly do they do?

In a McKinsey survey (Oct 2017) of more than 2,500 people across company sizes, functional specialties, industries, regions, and tenures, 37 percent of respondents said their organizations are carrying out company-wide agile transformations, and another 4 percent said their companies have fully implemented such transformations.

Small teams, often called “squads”, have a great deal of autonomy. Typically composed of eight to ten individuals, they have end-to-end accountability for specific outcomes and make their own decisions about how to achieve their goals.

The typical agile company employs a dynamic matrix structure with two types of reporting lines:

  • Capability line
  • Value-creation line

Above is then explained in detail and includes “squads”, “chapters”, “tribes” and management roles – e.g. chapter leader, tribe leader and their comparison to traditional managers.

The article also touches on the most difficult challenges for traditional managers tackling the tribe-leader role are letting go of the need to fully “own” all the people working for them

Well written!

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Tags agile programming teams miscellaneous cloud