Self-Organizing does not mean Self-Managing!

I hear quite often someone referring to the importance of ‘self-management’ of an agile team.  I want to dispel that myth.  Agile teams are Self-Organizing, but not Self-Managing!

Agile Principle #11 “The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.”(1)

Self-organizing means that a team can see a

piece of value to deliver, and within their own ranks, organize around how to accomplish the work.  This is a core tenant of Agile as it has been proven over and over that the most effective teams are simply given the Principle of Mission (2) and the minimal constraints within which they must operate, and allowed to organize themselves around the work.  By self-organizing around the work the team self-optimizes for the best approach, using the localized knowledge they have of the domain, skill sets, etc of the team environment.  True efficiency, as well as team satisfaction, is gained only through self-organization.  However, when teams try to Self-Manage in most organizations (the Spotify’s or Holocracy organizations of the world excluded) they will struggle. Why?  Because every agile team has intrinsic needs to be truly successful, and many of these cannot or should not be handled within the team alone.

Current management patterns are based on 17th century Taylorist styles that essentially state that the workers are too uninformed/ignorant/uncaring/stupid to figure things out for themselves, so they have to be told what to do at every step (my bias shows through in that statement).  True management is about maintaining the systems we build for the teams to thrive in.  To paraphrase John Kotter, ‘Leadership builds systems, management maintains systems”(3).  This style of management does not mean controlling the teams, but instead acting as a bulldozer to clear the obstacles out of the team’s way.  This includes things like supporting the teams in limiting and adding visibility to WIP and identifying and removing impediments for the teams to focus on the work.

There are many attributes of management that work well in a lean and agile environment, but some of the characteristics I have seen are: challenging the teams in a positive manner, helping the team to create and continuously update improvement metrics, and enabling and encouraging career and skill growth, Team formation is also a key role of agile management; I once heard Esther Derby state that over 60% of the success of any agile team is based on its initial creation, and I have experienced that same approximate importance.  Also, and unfortunately, not every agile team can deal with the ‘voting off the island’ time when a team member is just not in the right situation; good agile management can turn that potentially negative situation into a positive.

To enable true self-organization, Agile Managers need to exhibit the same lifelong learner and knowledge hungry approach that they expect from their teams.  They are not in the role for the title but for the sake of advancing the careers of others and for the ‘greater good’.  This takes a special mindset, and one that will take time to bake in, but the underlying desire to move towards that type of role is essential. 

If this definition of the Agile Manager is not what you see at your organization, then I can understand the desire to make agile teams self-managing.  However, let’s fix the root of the problem: let’s train and educate our managers to drop the draconian practices and become true agile managers.  That’s when, IMO, you will start to see the difference between self-organizing and self-managing agile teams.  The added benefit is that these agile managers will find more career satisfaction and enjoyment in their new role.

1) AgileManifesto.Org

2) Humble, Molesky, O’Riely, “Lean Enterprise: How High Performance Organizations Innovate at Scale”

3) John P. Kotter ‘Leading Change”