Scrum encourages self-managing: towards freedom through accountability
By: Kirill Maksimkin
Tags: Scrum Master, Self Management, Agile, Scrum, Scrum Team

There are no managers now?

It depends on the decision of the whole organization as Frédéric Laloux describes in “Reinventing Organizations: An Illustrated Invitation to Join the Conversation on Next-Stage Organizations”. Despite the fact Agile changes management approach in a company, Scrum keeps an important place for classic management and doesn’t demand to immediately move it away. There are several examples how managers may help to adopt Scrum:

Managers still play a crucial role in the individual development of Scrum team members (both soft & hard skills), ensuring appropriate corporative environment where individuals may flourish; Managers also provide the Team with administrative support and assistance, including hiring process, in the majority of organizations adopting Scrum; Finally, managers may help with some impediment removal if they are asked by the Team or a Scrum Master, e.g., if there is a bottleneck due to some hierarchical issues the Team cannot solve.

Starting Scrum implementation Scrum Masters/Agile coaches should involve managers in the transformation to make the transit process transparent for every participant, show them their new role in the changing environment and mitigate possible misunderstandings.

Managers manage Team’s metrics?

The lose of control is the main fear of organizations and managers starting Agile transformation. It leads to different ways to control Scrum Teams performance by classic management tools. Scrum Team is a self-managed team which means only Teams may decide weather they want to use any metric to estimate its performance, e.g., average velocity or Kanban metrics. It doesn’t mean the company should not asses what’s happening with its funding. The organization still has to understand weather the performed Team work is efficient or not. Team’s success may be estimated by product results, for example, ROI and other metrics the Product owner is accountable for.

Unfortunately, a little number of organizations is ready to fully trust its Scrum Teams. So, I have the following reminder for all managers and companies pretending they adopt Scrum:

“Working software is the primary measure of progress.” — Agile Manifesto

Let me, please, warn you from the worst way to estimate Teams performance by comparing different Scrum Teams by its burnt story points. Story points estimation is an relative way to size work item (PBI, Product Backlog item) conducted by Developers and only for them. Developers who will be doing the work are responsible for the sizing as stated by the Scrum Guide 2020. Relative estimation is used by Developers to understand what PBI is more or less complex comparing to other PBIs personally for Developers. Sizing is not a performance metric unlike throughput or life circle (Scrum with Kanban).

Every Scrum Team may use different story points calculation, for example, the Fibonacci Sequence starting with 1, 2, 3, 5 and etc. or any other approach. Some Teams prefer to start their calculation from 10, 20, 30, 40 and etc.. Also Teams have different cadences (Sprint length). Now let’s try to compare two teams with two different calculation systems? Even if they finished the same scope of work for the same Sprint length, different story points calculation outcomes would vary so much, so there is no chance to find out who has performed better on this basis. It affects transparency and provokes misestimation caused by the fear to be punished due to low story points performance. The crucial idea of transparency and openness may be demolished due to the management attempt to overcontrol Scrum Teams.

Less management more freedom?

Many of us as individuals are afraid of the self-management concept as well as organizations do. However it has different roots and reasons. When an individual is managed by some boss within clear hierarchical boundaries (s)he can share the responsibility for any failure or success with the manager. There is a long chain of co-dependent executors and the final say is missed or vague in endless discussions. So no one can be really blamed of the specific problem as every step is approved and discussed several times.

Scrum radically changes it. Benefiting Scrum framework the Team as well takes accountability for the Increment and the whole done and no-done work. The Team is under pressure of stakeholders and their expectations. There is no “boss” who may protect from unwilling work flow or say how to deal with communication problem between different departments. The Team now has to manage it by itself:

Product Owner communicates with stakeholders through explicit Product vision and manages Product backlog to keep Team’s focus;

Scrum Master protects Team from un-Scrum internal and external behavior and coaches organization in Scrum adaptation;

Developers create value and have to discuss PBIs with stakeholders or customers with (or sometimes without) Product Owner help and take a lot of decisions day by day and Sprint by Sprint.

Not every employee is ready for new “Scrum life” in a company and changing its work approaches and attitudes which including self-transformation on individual and collaborative levels. I guess it’s one of the main reason of unsuccessful Scrum implementation in organization with strong traditional management and poor corporative culture.

Conclusion

Managers still play important role in Scrum Framework. However the management has to break its traditional methods to control and over check employees if the company has decided once to trust the Scrum Team.

Does Scrum make it easier? The answer is not so clear. Scrum brings even more complex accountabilities for Scrum Teams. The Team is self-managed, but also is accountable for the final outcome. Sometimes it may be stressful or even hard to be fully accountable. That’s why, the Team of professional is a key concept of Scrum framework. Scrum Team supports and develops its participants through permanent collaboration which helps to overcome every problem together. Solving complex problems every Sprint Scrum Teams are mastering self-management and become free to deliver business value as efficient as possible.