You might have heard of management 3.0 or was it 4.0 !?! … in these inflationary times, I just have to bring you the latest.

The trigger for this post was the panel discussion at India Agile Week (IAW), 2014 event held in Bangalore last week. I was part of the panel discussions, sharing space (and the mike) with Mr . Tathagat Verma (aka TV), Mr Manish Mishra and Mr Raj Stanley.

We discussed a variety of topics and issues. The exchange was interesting and informative. At some point,  the role of  managers came up and TV remarked that managers are rewarded for doing (more of) the same tasks/activities. They do not have an incentive to innovate.

TV could not have put it better. This is how it is. This view of the manager’s role is so trite, that such a mode of working and the resulting work environment is seldom questioned,  let alone overturned.   Nevertheless a more mature view of management (and one that Scrum espouses) is that “Managers are not there to make the inevitable happen”. A well- written explanation of the manager’s role is at http://www.goodagile.com and much material on related ideas can be gleaned from http://www.stevedenning.com

At the conference, there was a comment/question about the lack of conclusive answers as to how team appraisals can be conducted as well as redefining the role of  managers . In such a case, due consideration must be given to long-term  planning and changes  needed in “agile”.

Lack of time precluded a detailed explication. However, the Scrum community has had some well- formed answers to these Questions for sometime. Briefly,  appraisals are team based (with 360 degree feedback) with the manager providing a conducive environment for self-organised teams to flourish. Long- term planning is done based on an aggregation of current team capacity to deliver working software increments. Each of these can be the topic of a post in itself, and I intend to share my views and information in the coming weeks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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