The new role of management

What happens to the aspects of the functional manager when you shift to a team centric delivery model? There are many functions the manager fills in terms of resource, line and skill management, so where do those go?

 Join Peter and Dave on this week takeaway: 

• Consider the impact on your managers
• Discuss what their new responsibilities might be
• Understand the number one reason things go sideways

  We love to hear feedback! If you have questions, would like to propose a topic, or even join us for a conversation, contact us here: feedback@definitelymaybeagile.com 

Transcript

Peter 0:06

Welcome to Definitely Maybe Agile, the podcast where Peter Maddison and Dave Sharrock discuss the complexities of adopting new ways of working at scale. Hello and welcome to another exciting episode of Definitely Maybe Agile with your hosts, Dave Sharak and Peter Madison. How are you doing today, Dave? Peter, I am doing excellently well.

Dave 0:26

As are you by the sounds of it. So obviously, things are coming together for you this week.

Peter 0:30

Yeah, I almost nailed that intro. Almost.

Dave 0:35

So what we were going to talk about, just moving swiftly on, as it were, we were looking, and it's an interesting one to get sort of enthusiastic about, but it's the role of those functional managers, the development managers that we walk into. And when we're talking to organizations about exactly what that transformation to a more agile way of working might look like, the role of those functional managers is often ignored or somehow tucked behind the sofa a little bit as we're having these conversations about exciting new roles like product owners and scrum masters and autonomous agile teams that are self-managing in many ways. So what is it around that functional delivery manager role that brings the enthusiasm out?

Peter 1:19

Well, it's an interesting piece because we we tie a lot of things to the term management, and we but we look at the role of a manager as this is where we promote people to, and versus the actual task of management. And this is kind of one of the where this big disconnect often comes from, in that um and why teams are like, well, managers are horrible, and everybody has horrible managers, and that's usually one of the main reasons that people will leave a company is they have a horrible manager. And so at the same time, having a good manager uh allows you to excel. Um like manage management that helps you overcome impediments, helps you overcome problems, helps you look at things from different perspectives. Those managers are actually very useful. So that there is a role for management in this, but it does significantly change once you move to a more uh team-centric structure, one where there's things baked into the teams and you're operating more in that manner.

Dave 2:20

Can I just strengthen what you're just saying there, Peter? Because you're the way it comes across, it's almost like an afterthought of there is a role for management. And I push back a little bit more on that and say, absolutely, there is a role for management. And in fact, it's an essential role that we cannot do without.

Peter 2:37

Yes, and I I've I've seen that in organizations where I've been in and gone through transformation and they made a decision to fire all the management, and there was absolute chaos because nobody knew where to go for anything. Nobody knew where to get the support they needed to resolve issues or to look at things. And it was more than just because they were going through that transition, it was because that was a it's a needed function. You have to have it there, um, that that support. But that's not very often how management is looked at.

Dave 3:05

I I think a part of it is also that the the role of that functional or development manager in many role many organizations has become all things to all people. And so they're actually the reason that things were able to get delivered and the reason that everything sort of worked as smoothly as it did. And one of the things that we have to recognize is if we are getting effective agile teams and agile processes and practices in place, the sort of uh running around and making stuff happen role of that manager disappears. So just as frequently that we'll talk to organizations and say it's essential you hold on to your best managers and we want to make sure that they're supported and they have a very clear role, there is the other side of it, which is one of the reasons that many transformations fail, is because the role of the manager hasn't been thought through and re-assessed so that aspects of that sort of patching everything together to get things out, that's removed. And they're now focusing on the sort of pure role of management, whether it's line management functions, whether it's it's skills uplift and career growth, uh, you know, guidance for teams, or a number of other areas as well. But that there's that aspect that has to be addressed in there.

Peter 4:28

Yeah, you and you see as well where that hasn't been well thought out, that you end up with this orthogonal here. We have a team, and then we have each member of the team has a different reporting structure, and then a different set of directives, and a different set of uh, well, KPIs essentially that they're being directed to do, which are not aligned with what the team is supposed to be delivering to. And uh that is also a high point of friction because it becomes very difficult to uh for people to get things done because their their incentives are coming from very different places.

Dave 4:59

So maybe this is often where the the most successful kind of transformations that we've been involved with, one of the things, the preparation that gets done is looking at what managers are owning and splitting out those responsibilities cleanly. So when you're discuss when you're talking about many of those, that sort of line management responsibility and the alignment with KPIs or some sort of you know annual performance conversations and the number of other things, those all fall under that sort of line management piece. But there are other responsibilities. And what's interesting in an agile context is you can often be line managing as a manager, people in many different teams. So now you it becomes more of an alignment with what those teams' direction and performance, you know, the the expectations on those teams are, rather than me as some sort of a functional development manager grouping everyone together and saying this is everything that's that that you should be getting from from that directive perspective, becomes something that's more about an alignment. On the line management, I mean, there are even teams that handle their own vacations. And certainly as a line manager, I can't authorize a vacation for somebody who's on a team without understanding what impact that would have on that team. So having those things in the team makes a lot more sense in many cases. But there are lots of different aspects of that line management which are subtly different to the way we may have been managing our teams before.

Peter 6:26

So do we go into organizations and look for all of the good managers and tell them apart from the bad managers?

Dave 6:33

But I now you're just trying to provoke a conversation here, a comment. Yep. Um, but I think that here's one of the things to understand there is I think the expectations on management shift quite a lot as you step into uh move towards an agile way of working. So the good and the bad, in a sense, have an opportunity to figure out their new roles. And there will be lots of, you know, there will be people who will surprise an organization because maybe they didn't have a great fit for where they were before. And as you mentioned at the beginning, they were driving people out of the teams, perhaps. But in the new world with a clear uh kind of breakdown of those responsibilities, maybe they step into that really, really nicely. Uh, so that's something that I you know, I'm a fan of kind of giving people a chance, clarity of expectations on them, and then seeing where it goes.

Peter 7:26

I think it also opens up a number of opportunities for uh the people in those management roles to actually step into and become experts at managing, which is something, and this is kind of my differentiation between this uh you you've been put into this position, and it's the position that matters versus the skill that matters, and the the art of management versus the uh the actual just this is a role title that we aspire to, and because it comes with a higher pay and more responsibility, and that's that's where we're aiming to go, um, which brings up another set of topics around that as the organization changes and we introduce teams and we introduce these new roles, and what is that uh that high hierarchy, what is the progression, what is the talent journey as uh people come in and go through the organization there? Um because it isn't necessarily going to be so clear. And so as you introduce change, you need to ensure that you are looking at these things, you are making it clear what those roles and responsibilities are going to be, what is the path forward, what is expected of me, and where can I go? What can I learn while I'm here?

Dave 8:37

This is very true, and I I think um the part of the that progression and the movement up into a management role, what I really like about what you're saying is manage this is kind of weird coming in, but management isn't something that you do off the side of your desk while you do everything else. It is what you do, and the skill, the art of management takes effort to learn, and the best managers spend a lot of time getting that right, that's for sure. Um, what I find in many situations is that managers have got to their role because they're excellent problem solvers. And they end up in a resource management role because effectively, if I give my problem solver access to the people, they can maybe solve more problems more effectively. And as we move into an agile way of working, that problem solving piece is something that we want to see on the teams. And so this can be a big challenge for the managers who are fantastic resource manager, problem-solving managers, because if I take that away, that can be a big hole in how they contribute to the organization. And we have to fill that with something else. We have to help them understand how their role is changed, uh, has changed. And in particular, how the skills, the art of management now comes to the fore a lot more. So I think this is, and again, I'm just thinking of some of the organizations that we've worked with where by not paying enough attention to those problem-solving managers and what they do, they can they can kind of sit by on the on their hands at the side of what's going on for a few weeks, but they're going to get involved and they're going to come in and resource manage and they're going to come in and problem solve for the teams because that's what they understand their role to be, and that's what they're good at. That's how they influence the organization, contribute to it.

Peter 10:24

And I think it's also it can also people often associate the work they do with their identity and who they are. And you see, especially if you if you ask somebody uh what does they do, they describe it by their job title rather than what it is that they do. And so if you're if you're associating who you are with the fact that I am somebody who helps solve problems and I help uh manage this team that's this large, and I do all of these different pieces, and then we've restructured and just taken all of that away, yeah, you you're take you could be very much affecting how somebody thinks of themselves, uh, how they they view themselves when they look in the mirror in the morning. Uh and so you you've really got to be pay a lot of attention to that uh to make sure you're helping support people through any kind of change like that.

Dave 11:09

Now we've talked a little bit about how the management the role of management may change. We've talked a little bit about that influence from a line management, career progression perspective, and so on. What do you think the opportunities are for delivery managers, development managers, functional managers in this the new structure that they may be seeing form in front of them?

Peter 11:31

So they and it you can call them all sorts of different things, but there's a lot of roles from a leadership perspective of helping um identify and overcome different impediments within the different teams, identifying where friction is arising or where being somebody that the members of those teams can come to when they encounter problems or they need to say, hey, like this just isn't working, I'm not comfortable being here. I'm like, I don't get along with Joe, and I I want to go work with somebody else, and this is like how do I make that happen? And being able to help people and individuals navigate the organization and the even within those team structures is is a critical function that needs to occur. There's also uh areas of well, helping understand what is the bigger picture, how does this fit into the the larger organization, how are you uh aligning to those pieces of it? Because um, and the this is always a uh fun piece. As much as we talk about autonomous teams, no teams are truly going to be autonomous because they're gonna be we're wanting them to deliver towards the direction of the organization. So there has to be a translation of what is that direction, what are the outcomes we're looking for? Uh so we're the that needs to come from somewhere, so somebody needs to be helping create some of that alignment, and this is also a role where those managers can also form quite a big part of.

Dave 12:56

I I like the as you're describing that, that feels to me in certainly my journey, the the really rewarding parts of the management role and responsibilities, which is almost a strategic element, which I've certainly been seen many situations and been there myself where all of the work is tactical, very little of it is strategic. And yet what we actually want to see in that those managers as they step in there is much, much more strategic perspective. And I I um what I've seen work really, really nicely is the concept of like an advocacy roles around it could be releases, you know, rapid releases, it could be quality and what's around that. But any some of these sort of strategic areas that need concerted effort from highly talented, you know, uh knowledgeable individuals who understand how things are working and can see how that strategically how they can develop and grow those pieces by working with the teams, by by providing advocacy for different things, which are slightly different to the roles that they may have been in. It's often an aspirational role that suddenly becomes available to them uh in in the right circumstances.

Peter 14:07

Yeah, that ability to grow both their own skills and and one of the things I've always enjoyed most when I've uh when I've been in those management titles is helping people evolve and grow and learning skills, like finding those opportunities, bringing them those different opportunities, looking at uh things like that. So that's uh always very, very rewarding. Um as we're looking to kind of wrap this up today, I think are there ways in which you would sum up all of this uh this conversation?

Dave 14:33

I think um you started off just by mentioning that whole thing of the importance of the management role. And I think unfortunately, uh I've certainly been guilty of this in the past. Sometimes we focus too quickly on pushing the management function to one side while we say, hold on, we're going to reform all your teams and it's going to be so much better. Just stay over there and effectively sit on your hands. And and I think we probably uh one takeaway is engage that management, those management roles early and and understand which parts of their role they're going to be expected to drop because they're going into the teams or wherever it might be, and which parts suddenly become open to them because in the past they've not had the time to do it and they can start looking. So that sort of breakdown and under appreciation of that role, I think, is a huge opportunity there. Um, and certainly in my experience, it's been too late, often addressed too late. The second thing that I look at, and we've discussed this one, is this whole issue of resource management and problem solving. And that's something that has to be addressed pretty much head on because um this is where this is, if you like, the weakness of asking the managers to sit on their hands for a while while we sort things out. Well, that's unreasonable. They're going to get up and do something, and the odds are very high that they're going to get up and solve problems through, you know, the biggest lever they often have is resource management. And that can have a hugely um uh negative impact on the teams, which are just beginning to form in cohesion uh in it some sort of cohesive way of working, and now they start getting people pulled backwards and forwards as as uh the the problem solving starts happening around them. And then maybe you can close out a little bit more on the strategic piece, because I'd like to like there is a strategic element, and this is often invisible or it's there but not talked about, which is the real value of that management role driving in some sort of strategic way, whether it's advocacy that I was talking about, some of the ideas you talked about. So that on the strategic side, is there any takeaways that you would add in?

Peter 16:37

I think strategically being that interconnect for the teams into the broader organization, helping their helping translate what else is going on into uh into a space where the teams can absorb that and ensure that we're we're creating that alignment is is one aspect of it. Uh helping nego uh navigate the all of the things that are going on, especially as organizations get larger. The where do I go for different things? I I'm not getting on in this team. I need help with this. So you need to have a place you can go for that. And that is a very strategic role for managers to play to be able to understand like what can I do, where can I help these people, how can I help them evolve and go into different places, and uh and managers who can uh adapt to operating that way and understand and coach and guide will um will definitely excel in those roles.

Dave 17:28

Excellent. Some great points there that you just closed out with again, Peter. So uh as always, thanks again for a great conversation and and pulling a few key uh sort of bite-sized chunks of of value that we can come out of that. And I'm looking forward to the next time we get a chance to do the same.

Peter 17:44

Likewise, I always enjoy these conversations. They're uh always always great ways to start to spark ideas and think about uh ways of solving things. Uh as always, you can reach out to us at feedback at definitely maybeagile.com and uh look forward to the next time. Thanks. You've been listening to Definitely Maybe Agile, the podcast where your hosts Pete Maddison and Dave Sharrock focus on the art and science of digital, agile, and DevOps at scale.