Ways to Mitigate the Challenges of moving to Self-Management

If you are considering Self-Management, first you learn what it is.  Then it’s important to understand the difference between Self-Organization and Self-Management. Next you should gain insight on some of the steps to put Self-Management into action. This article, the fourth in this four-part series on Self-Management focuses on the number of challenges you may encounter when moving toward self-management. Let’s explore some of those challenges.

Lacking Management Context

One of the concepts of self-management is that you operate as if there are no managers.  However, this is much harder than it seems.  Most employees do not have the working context of a manager.  Who do you contact for finance questions or issues?  How do you begin the interview process? How do you escalate issues? Do you have enough context to make decisions that cross the border of your team? What do you do to mitigate the lack of context?

• Pick the brain of your manager on the various topics such as budgeting, human resource, hiring, expenses, and any area that they have had responsibility. 
• Become aware of oddities and exceptions on how things work within an organization and what has been tried.     
• Decide who on the team will be the new contact for different areas.  The contact may rotate.
• Connect with and meet with those contacts from other departments.

Unfamiliar with Structures, Processes, and Policies

Within each company, there are often a maze of processes and policies.  Most employees are exposed to only a small number. When becoming self-managed, those on the team must become more familiar with the array of processes and policies. In addition, when there are reorganizations or a change in structure in different departments, a manager typically learns what this means.  What do you do to mitigate this unfamiliarity with structures, processes, and policies?

• After a reorganization or change in structure, take time to fully learn what the change is and how this may impact your team. 
• Take time to learn the processes and policies within the organization.  This will vary from country to country.  Consider doing this as a group. 
• There may be unspoken policies.  Ask your manager if they are aware of any and have them explained.   

Not respecting Knowledge and Experience

There is often a misunderstanding that now that you are self-managed, that everyone is the same.  Self-Management within a team context does not mean everyone is created equal.  You may have some people who have knowledge and experience in self-management and some who have none.  What do you do to mitigate this lack of knowledge and experience?

• If you have little or no knowledge or experience, be honest about it.  Be open to continuously learning as self-management is a journey.  Explore, learn, and adapt.
• Be willing to take guidance from those that have experience.  Recognize and value others’ experiences.
• As moving toward self-management is hard, be honest if you (as a team) are not ready to assume some of the responsibilities early one. 

Lack of discretion about your Self-Management

It is important to understand that few teams will have the unique responsibility and ability to direct their own future with few constraints that self-management brings.  This can make other teams envious. You can find yourself creating problems if you share this too broadly.  What do you do to mitigate the concern of discretion?  

• Act with discretion.  Only share your self-management experience when asked. 
• If a team is exploring the idea of self-organization or self-management, then consider sharing those portions of the topic that may benefit them. 

Confusion around Communications and Stakeholder Management

When there is a manager, there is often communication both from the outside to the manager and the manager to the team.  There is a more complex pattern of communication when everyone from the team is involved.  Who gets the communication?  Who do you communicate with?  How do you solicit feedback from your stakeholders?  What do you do to mitigate the confusion around communication and stakeholder management?

• Create a communication strategy both amongst the team and outside of the team.  This ensures that everyone gets the information in a timely manner and no one is missed.
• Be mindful what you communicate outside of the team.  A manager often adapts the message depending on what information is to be shared so it is delivered in the right tone and balance.  Learn to adapt the message.
• Identify who communicates to whom outside the team.  This may be one person, a rotation, or different people depending on the topic at hand. 

Additional Workload on the Team

When moving to self-management, the team absorbs the responsibility of the manager. This shouldn’t be taken lightly and injects a whole full-time equivalent amount of work onto the team as the manager’s responsibilities are transitioned to the team.  Where does all of this work go?  It gets shared across and amongst the team.  What do you do to mitigate the additional workload?

• If the team already has enough work to fill the number of people on the team, then they will need to reduce the workload in order to absorb the new responsibilities of the manager when moving to self-management.
• Consider creating a percentage of slack time to be able to adapt to the peaks of activity that may be needed.
• Add the manager’s activities as real and visible work on the team backlog

Lack of ownership

There can be an illusion that in self-management that everyone owns the work. While this is generally true, it is misunderstood. There is a saying that ”When everyone owns the thing, no one owns the thing.” There will be a need to have theme owners of work to ensure the work is adequately being guided with appropriate strategy. What do you do to mitigate the lack of ownership?

• Identify theme or epic owners who understand the work more closely, who prioritize the work in increments, who get feedback, and who craft the strategy.
• Add the owner as the primary contact for the work. Anyone can own a particular activity relating to the theme or epic. 
• While there should be owners of buckets of work, input from other team members should be continuously collected. 

Increase Team Conflict

A manager has a certain hierarchical position.  When the manager moves toward the background, team members need to step up.  This can cause conflict when some personality types jump at the chance at leadership roles and some that shrink from it.  However, this doesn’t mean that the extroverts should automatically get the opportunities or are better at the responsibilities.  Who enacts the leadership roles now that the manager is not around?  What do you do to mitigate the potential increase in team conflict?

• Allocate thinking time to discuss how to manage potential conflict.  This may include ways to negotiate leadership opportunities and rotations.
• Work on conflict-management, problem solving, and decision-making soft skills as a team.  
• Build team knowledge and experience in giving and receiving feedback. 
• Recognize that you may be re-entering the forming and storming phases (per Tuckman’s model) and team-forming activities may be needed.   

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It is important to learn about the challenges of self-management so that you don’t stumble into these problems. Instead, proactively be prepared. Consider adding self-management challenges as part of your self-management education.  Also, as you embark on your self-management journey, consider regular retrospectives so that you can understand what is going well and what can be improved.  Good luck!

Consider reading the rest of the Self-Management series:

• What is Self-Management and is it good for Agile - Part 1
• The Difference between Self-Management and Self-Organization - Part 2
• Putting Self-Management into Action - Part 3

Bounded Authority in an Agile World

Much is written about self-organization in an Agile world.  For some, the notion of self-organizing teams scares folks.  Does this mean that a team can decide everything?  Of course, the short answer is no.  I suggest the concern is due to not having boundaries for self-organization.  I call the framework for this context, bounded authority.  Bounded authority is defined by the information, experience, and decisions a group has control over within their context. Within a hierarchical structure of a company, bounded authority can work at multiple levels.  For simplicity, let us focus on the team level, middle management level, and senior management level. 

First, let’s spend a few minutes to explore what self organization means.  A self organizing team is a group of motivated individuals who have a common purpose, owns their work, and has the authority to make decisions on the work they are doing.  This means they can decide how to do the work (e.g., how to build the widget) and who will do the work (e.g., not assigned by a manager).  

Within an Agile context, the goal is to push decision making to the level in which the most information and experience dwells.  For a Scrum team, they self organize around the work in the product backlog that has been prioritized by the Product Owner.  Once that work is available at the team level, the team has the authority to make architecture, design, programming, and coding decisions and can self-organize around the work.

So if the team’s work is defined within the product backlog, what does middle management do?  Can they assign work to the team?  The short answer is that this is not within the bounded authority for the middle management since the team gets their work from the product backlog.  While the team self-organizes around the work, middle management helps optimize flow for their teams and enables the team to be its most effective. By optimizing flow for their organization and teams, this includes removing impediments for their teams to enable them to work faster.   Middle Management may also focus on helping their teams with their career management goals. 

Above the middle management are the senior management (or executives).  Should they be reaching down and telling the teams how to build the product?  To answer this question, another question should be answered.  Does senior management have more knowledge and experience in how something should be built or is this knowledge most known at the team level?  While the answer is the latter (team level), senior management has a bounded authority and duty to provide a strategy for the organization. This means they must help the teams understand the strategy and help them align strategy with their work.

Another example of bounded authority is relating it to your requirements hierarchy.  Consider who has the authority over the strategy, who has the authority over the ideas, who has the authority over the user stories.  This could be senior management who makes the decision to decide the top strategies, the chief product owners who makes the decision on prioritizing the ideas, the product owner who owns the decision to prioritize the backlog, and the and team who makes the decision on how to self-organize around the user stories.   

The key to bounded authority is that each level knows what they can self-organize around, what they have the authority to change, and areas in which they can make decisions.  Within an Agile context, that level of ownership and decision-making should be pushed down to the lowest possible level.  This can be an exercise that occurs at both the senior management and middle management levels, and in all levels within an organization. 

Agile Culture - Are you Stepping Up?

In the traditional and waterfall world, there tends to be a more directive approach to managing the projects. A hierarchy exists where decisions get made not necessarily based on full knowledge, experience, or information, but based on position. Often times, decisions are made by a few folks and then shared with the team. Ultimately this establishes a culture where folks on the project team become timid, lack enthusiasm, and do not feel vested in the work ahead. This is problematic because we are not getting the most brain power from the team members.

Then along comes Agile. When implemented correctly, the Agile culture places a strong emphasis on team empowerment and ownership. There is little to no command-and-control from management and teams are trusted to make the decisions since they are much closer to the working knowledge and have the experience in that specific area. Team members feel invested in the work ahead because they have a say in the direction of the product.

However, transitioning to an Agile culture does not immediately gain the advantages that you desire. There must be a recognition that managers and some overly directive people need to step back. However, when they do step back, the Agile team members must step forward to fill the leadership gap. if you want to want to feel invested in your work, you must be willing to own the decisions and work ahead.  Otherwise, those people that stepped back will have a tendency (per their natural inclination to be directive) to want to step forward again.

This is where being assertive and proactive becomes important. Some engineers may come from a culture where they are relegated to “getting instructions” and being told what to do. They are not expected to be a leader. With Agile, it is now their job to become self-empowered, become leaders, and take assertive steps forward.

What does this mean in the Agile context? First, as you become part of an Agile project, you must truly internalize that you are now equally part of the team and your thoughts, experience, and opinions matter. This does not happen overnight because the dynamics of getting to an Agile culture takes time.  In some cases, there will be those working against you, to sabotage the change in order to maintain the status quo. But make no mistake, it is up to you to step up and assertively empower yourself.  Ensure you are weaving your way onto the Scrum team as an effective team member

So next time you don’t think you are appropriately involved on the project or you think you need permission to speak up, stop for a moment. Change your mindset and be assertive, speak up, get involved, become a leader, and start owning the work. Agile provides that opportunity. It is your opportunity to step up.