Tag Archives: leadership

Agile helps you say no

At my son’s kindergarten, they have practiced saying “Stop, no” since he started there. When they don’t like what another child is doing they are supposed to say “Stop, no” and put up their hand like a stop sign. This is to give them a tool to handle conflicts without starting to fight and to teach them to set limits. It seems to work quite well there. It can cause some challenges at home though when I want to brush his teeth and he puts up his hand and clearly says “Stop, no”.

Many organizations don’t have a tool to say no. There are no ways to set limits and handle conflicts in a constructive way. When a manager or stakeholder comes with a request, we are supposed to say “yes, of course”. Even when we know it is not possible. And if we say it is not possible, then we are supposed to just make it happen. This causes a lot of stress, and it creates a culture of having many things ongoing instead of finishing things.

When you start with Agile you give people a tool to say no

The reason we limit the amount of work in progress in Kanban is to say no to new work until the things we are working on are finished.

The reason we have sprints in Scrum is to focus on and finish something that is truly valuable to the organization.

The reason we always want a prioritized backlog is to make it very clear to what we say not to, and what we should say yes to.

The reason we measure how much we produce is to show real data on what is possible.

The reason we measure lead time is to give stakeholders a good expectation on when something will be finished.

The reason many management teams are starting with Scrum or Kanban is to say no to firefighting and give themselves time to think and work strategically.

Agile is a tool to say no!

This might sound negative, but when you start saying no, you can say yes to the important things.

Good leaders sit at their desks

Many managers I meet are running from meeting to meeting, and then work late nights to finish all their work. They rarely have time to think and work strategically with their organization. And many have little time for the people they are leading. A leader should not micromanage and be part of every detail of their organization. Their job is to be available when their colleagues need to talk through a problem or make the decisions others can not.

Some of the best managers I have worked with are the ones that spend a lot of their time behind their desks. When people go looking for them, they get surprised that they are not there. The best leaders are the ones that people talk to.

Why do we have managers?

The science of group development is quite clear on this, well-functioning teams need
* A clear and common goal
* Clear roles
* A structure that enables collaboration

Goals, roles, and structure are not fixed entities and they continuously need to be changed and clarified depending on what is happening. A good leader needs to continuously listen and see when one of these are not working anymore. And then act. If the organization has a clear goal, and the roles and structure are aligned to move towards that goal then the leader’s job is to give feedback and coaching on this.

Two decisions

The two decisions a manager needs to make is when
* People feel that they don’t know what to do to best fulfill the goal. If this always happens it means that you don’t have a clear goal.
* The goal needs to change because the rest of the world has changed.

And then help the organization improve the roles and structure to better achieve the new goal.

The best way to make these types of decisions, respond to change, and know what is actually happening in the organization is to be at your desk and in the coffee room talking to people. So you have an overview and the extra capacity when the shit hits the fan. This will also give you the time and input to create a clear strategy and vision for your team, department, and organization.

Relax to get things done

Many years ago I practiced Aikido, and I still remember one session where I was trying one of the basic techniques with one of the black belts. No matter what I did she just stood there, and I couldn’t get her to move at all. I pushed and strained and put all my strength into it, and she calmly stood there. Then she said: “Try relaxing your arm, if you tense all your muscles then your muscles are working against one another and you can’t do the technique properly and you don’t have any strength left to use. You need to be relaxed to move.” I then relaxed, tried the technique again, and she fell. I’m still not sure if she made it really easy for me, or if I managed to do the technique properly, but the lesson stuck with me.

We are much stronger when we are relaxed and have extra capacity. If we push ourselves to our limits and don’t have any time to think then our actions will be very short term and weak. Long term and sustainable change come from having extra energy and time.

How much time do you spend at your desk every day?