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Do’s and Don'ts of Agile Leader

With the era of modernization, the present world has grown significantly in the past few years as there is limitless competition from traditional to non-traditional businesses. Consumers have become more selective than ever before and companies compete with each other to hire the best of the best talents in the market. How a company functions entirely depend on how effective the leaders of the organizations are and how they can communicate their processes and ways of working to the employees. A leader is a person who can effectively envision how the company will progress in the coming future. They churn out ideas and listen to everyone in the organization and plan the best way where the company can succeed. When an organization decides to adopt Agile Methodology, they require the best Agile leaders to implement the methods. With people being used to traditional ways of working, there may be few resistances from the employees’ side. A leader’s role is to overcome all of these shortcomings and make the most of Agile Methods to benefit the organization. 

Agile Methodology emphasizes scaling larger projects into smaller pieces so the product can be released in the market faster, get customer feedback, run experiments, and end up delivering scaling something which everyone wants in the market immediately rather than making them wait for a long time. It becomes a challenging role for a leader in the Agile process to understand what exactly they are supposed to do to maximize their business value. Here is a list of Dos and Don’ts which an Agile Leader should take care of while performing their roles and responsibilities.

Do’s and Don’ts of Agile Leader

Let us start with the Do’s of an Agile Leader:

1. Do start with a “Why”

For the Agile transformation to become a successful one, it is always important for all the members of the organization to understand why the change is needed. It is termed as one of the most critical steps in Agile transition as the implemented Agile methods have to be used by the employees for the business to run smoother. Every person should know how Agile is going to benefit the company and also how it will personally benefit them. This broad communication should be given undoubtedly and should not be transmitted from one person to another. The Agile leader should explain all the advantages and drawbacks of the Agile Methods and have to set clear expectations and benefits. The Agile leader should also explain to the employees why to implement Agile. 

If Agile is applied in the wrong situations, it would result in resistance and confusion. When Agile is applied correctly, it offers teams to deliver on time and obtain valuable customer feedback on time. When you compare this with the waterfall project, you would have had to wait months or maybe years to receive feedback for the project delivered. One of the major responsibilities of the Agile leader is to make sure everyone understands the different Agile techniques and methods and recognize the importance that it provides in adding value to the organization.

2. Do learn to Trust people

As an Agile leader, trust becomes an integral factor for the Agile team to keep running. It becomes your primary duty to build trust within the team. You, as a leader, should also have trust in your fellow team members to complete any task or responsibility given to them. Perceiving trust becomes a key virtue for a team leader to become successful. When people are not working in a shared office space and are working remotely, building a network of trust becomes even more essential. As a team leader, you have to organize meetings and help the team members identify and resolve internal disagreements or points of tension. This is crucial as any conflict between the team members or between the Agile leader and the team may become a major reason for the project to become wrong or incomplete. An Agile leader should make sure that the team’s delivery cadence and communication are valuable so that the project succeeds and delivers the desired value. It is harder to find small behavioral cues which the Agile leader can find out through non-judgemental questions so that employees give honest feedback.

3. Empower Teams to make decisions

As an Agile leader, it is your job to enable team members to make decisions of their own. You should not make the decisions for the team and micromanage the team. The team members should have sound knowledge about the consequences of their decisions and should be taught how to analyze situations and make decisions. The Agile leader should be able to help the individuals facing obstacles and make their process easier. There are many situations where new Agile teams find difficult to handle. In such cases, the Agile leader should guide these teams and ensure that next time when a similar situation arises, the team is able to manage on their own. 

4. Enable Organization-wide Open feedback channels

Enabling organization-wide open-feedback channels is also an important role of an Agile leader. This helps effective communication to take place within the organization and also appropriate measures can be taken to make the company function better. An organization has many different types of people with different types of ideas that may help the company grow better. Providing an open feedback channel to all the employees would help everyone express their concerns over certain departments. This gives chances to implement new ideas in the team or in the organization which would increase the productivity and efficiency of the organization. 

5. Do connect with the team members

As an Agile leader, you may have many things on your plate to complete. But taking care of your team members and guiding them remains the most essential task. Do take time and connect with individual employees. Take one-on-one sessions and have a chat about what is going on with them. Be well informed about the current global situation and offer them any type of help if needed. Point them towards helpful articles whenever necessary and listen to whatever they have to talk about the work. In these unprecedented times, you may not know what your team members are going through. Hence, always have an open mind and understand the other person’s concern. A lot of your employees may also have to balance the household chores and may have to teach their children or become a caregiver for their loved ones and family at this time. It is important to realize that people have a lot on their plates. An Agile leader should make sure that they add the human element to the Agile structure, especially when dealing with remote teams. This helps the process become more productive, and the team becomes more coherent. These are suggestions that could be implemented by any team. Nevertheless, it is your team and you know best about what will be right for your situation and project. 

6. Do Slow Down

While you always may be in a hurry to complete the project and deliver it on time, it is crucial in the initial days that you slow down and make sure everyone is sustainable, understands the process and methods of Agile. Agile is designed in a manner where the team members can learn continuously and improve in every iteration. When a particular iteration has certain features which did not work in the market, feedback must be considered and planned for the next iterations. Instead of doing all the work and taking full control of the project, it is advisable to let things start slowly and let the team members learn from their mistakes. An Agile leader should stick to the process and ensure that prerequisites such as effective communication, actual time and budget, and trust are in place such that continuous improvement can take place. This will build sustainability.

The Don’ts of an Agile Leader

1. Don’t start with the training

One of the most common pitfalls in Agile transformations is that Agile leaders send development teams for Agile training before Agile is implemented in the organization. It seems very reasonable that training for a new methodology would be helpful for the employees. However, training very early on before the implementation could cause multiple problems. There is always a risk of a resistant team member who was used to the old methods and would not comply with using the new methods. They may derail and demotivate other team members and hinder the upskilling efforts of the team. 

It is also possible that your team members may retain only a little information from the training as they are not practically implementing it and only learning it in theory. It is estimated that only 5-15% of the training is retained by the employees when the training is provided very early on. Time and budget are limited and spending it training which would result in non-retention of the knowledge would be a loss for the organization. Hence, always start the training only after you have received the team’s buy-in to the transition. Once you have reached the point, invest in upskilling the entire team even if few of them have previous knowledge of Agile. Make formal training a team-wide priority which will help you align with your team and the terms and processes they have to work on. This serves as a foundation for successful transition and improves communication by decreasing weaponization.

2. Don’t allow or ignore negative behavior

When there is a large change in the organization such as the Agile transition, there would be a fair share of resistance from some people. Some people may feel that the process is more complicated and they do not understand how the change will help them. They may insist that things remain as they are so that the organization becomes successful. There may be few other people who would resist because they do not want to learn something new and risk failing in it. They are afraid of the unknown and don't want to lose their “expert” status in the company. As an Agile leader, it becomes your responsibility to manage these types of resistance to change. Be aware if any employee is disrespecting or showing defiant behavior and take appropriate action immediately. When this type of behavior is shown by employees who are the “best” people on the team and who others look up to, it could spread like a wildfire and there would be strong resistance to any changes. Hence, do not ignore any type of negative behavior and if it comes down, it can even go to parting ways with the best people when they cannot commit to Agile.

3. Don’t Start Micromanaging

As an Agile leader, you are responsible for your team’s work and this anxiety may lead you to micromanage your team members. In Agile methods, it is highly emphasized that the Agile leaders trust their team members and let them do their work. When you have ten team members under you, it is not possible to look over each and every one of the team to see that work is being done. This would waste your time and would also give a sign that you do not trust the people working on the process. Maybe in the initial few days, you can have an idea about how the person is working. But eventually, you have to trust the team members and let them do their job so that they get a sense of accountability.

4. Enter and Exit the state of Wagile ASAP

Wagile is a state between waterfall methodology and Agile Methodology which the company goes through during the Agile transition. It is advisable to enter and exit as soon as possible as there are chances that you may be forced to go back to the waterfall methodology. In Wagile state, the team never fully goes Agile and comes between the worst of both worlds. People who are resisting Agile would point out the drawbacks and would insist on going back and the people who support Agile get frustrated and leave the organization. Hence, do not be naive and think you could avoid it as every company has to face this state. Escape this state as quickly as possible and exit the dreaded state of wagile. 

Conclusion

An Agile leader has many roles and responsibilities which has to be executed efficiently for the project to succeed and the organization to grow. How the leader leads and motivates the team matters a lot during the Agile transition and also after that. Not micromanaging, understanding the team members on a personal level, correcting or identifying negative behaviors are all few of the many duties of an Agile leader. A leader should help the team members grow and reach their potential. This would help the team increase their efficiency and eventually contribute to maximizing the business value of the company. 

References

1.https://www.pluralsight.com/blog/teams/10-dos-and-donts-of-agile-transitions

2.https://www.projectpractical.com/agile-best-practices-dos-and-donts/

3.https://www.insightsforprofessionals.com/it/software/dos-donts-executing-agile-application-development

https://www.atlassian.com/blog/technology/the-dos-and-donts-of-scaling-agile