September 13th, 2007
No More Self-Organizing Teams. Not.
An open letter to Jim Highsmith
Dear Jim,
No More Self-Organizing Teams by Jim Highsmith
Cutter Consortium article, 9/13/2007
I read this article with interest. I am an anarchist at heart, and yes, I believe in grass-roots revolution as a way to fundamentally change the way we think about building software. I use my anarchistic tendencies to help people to reconceive ideas. It is a powerfull and energizing tool.
Anarchism1 has had a useful role to play in the history of democracy in the world. I think it also has (i.e. has had and continues to have) a useful role to play in the Agile space. Let’s not discard it so quickly. Jesus of Nazareth was an anarchist. So was Gandhi. Both initiated great change.
The danger of your article, is that managers will jump on it to utterly dismiss the concept of self-organization. Look at the title of the article, look at the name you have in the Agile space. Many people will not even read the words beyond the first sentence… “I’ve been thinking recently that the term ’self-organizing’ has outlived its usefulness in the agile community and needs to be replaced”. That would be tragic.
The way you used the duck-suit analogy (i.e. calling anarchism self-organizing is like putting a duck-suit on a chicken) was offensive and dismissive of a great number of good people creating magic in staid, crippled, half-dead corporations by injecting the passion of self-organization. Please be careful with your words; they carry a lot of weight. Self-organization may well be misunderstood, and I agree with you that it often is, but that is not cause to dismiss it out of hand. Seek to enlighten rather than to appease.
Self-organization is a key principle of Agile. The concept is utterly essential to changing the way people in the software industry think about their value system, and about how they work together across organizational tiers.
Good self-organization does not exclude leadership, and does not, as you imply only allow for situational leadership. The need for a leader, and more importantly the type of leader, should emerge from the need of the team, not be imposed ahead of time, or indeed at any time. People outside of the team are less well positioned to know what the team requires. Teams should request leaders. Well-functioning self-organized teams do that. I have seen it. It is healthy behavior.
I don’t think I fundamentally disagree with your sentiment: leaders drive teams to success, I was just saddened by the way you said it, and how inevitably it will be (mis)interpreted.
Sincerely,
Tobias
1 I use the term anarchism as defined by the American Heritage College Dictionary: “Rejection of all forms of coercive control and authority” and by other non-inflammatory sources, many of which can be found in the Wikipedia entry for anarchism. In particular this quote by L. Susan Brown helps clarify the true meaning of the idea: “While the popular understanding of anarchism is of a violent, anti-State movement, anarchism is a much more subtle and nuanced tradition then a simple opposition to government power. Anarchists oppose the idea that power and domination are necessary for society, and instead advocate more co-operative, anti-hierarchical forms of social, political and economic organisation.” (The Politics of Individualism, p. 106)
September 13th, 2007 at 5:12 pm
“Jesus of Nazareth was an anarchist. So was Gandhi.”
That’s a bold claim. I wonder, can you can support it with evidence?
Response: Hi MG, That’s a tough challenge :] I suggest you read the Wikipedia entry on anarchism (as a starting point) and then read the New Testament and a Gandhi biography. Draw your own conclusions. To bring it closer to home… perhaps Thomas Paine was an anarchist too.
September 13th, 2007 at 7:47 pm
Thank you Tobias. I got a hold of the article via a friend and I agree with you. I do not quite understand how someone such as Jim Highsmith would make the mistake of posting a publication like that. Thank you.
Update: Jim Highsmith has now made the article public at the Cutter blog.
September 14th, 2007 at 11:20 am
I totally second that. Thumbs up.
I think this basically is a “managerial” form of the usual IT arguments over “Agile or not Agile”. I personnally think the way an IT team is organised is not really a key to success. It certainly is a key to well-being and pleasure at work, but let’s face it: a team of good developers will be successful whatever methodology they use, and a team of crappy ones will always equally fail. If there was a key methodology to success over here, we would all know it, wouldn’t we?
I think this is the same with self-organisation. The way a manager delegates, empower his team or acts as an autoritarian tyran is NOT a key to success.
September 14th, 2007 at 6:13 pm
Thanks, Tobias. My team has been practicing Scrum for over a year. Both our output and our quality are night and day compared to our pre-Scrum environment. Scrum is all about self-organizing teams, but there are still processes and boundaries. It is far from anarchy.
September 18th, 2007 at 12:31 am
I think there are several organizational issues that could be “unpeeled” with Jim’s comments. First, I believe that teams can work well on their own if their mission is well understood and communication channels are honest and transparent. Secondly, I believe a facilitative-like leader can help even the best teams find resources, resolve conflicts, and move towards their destination quicker than if that person was not in position. Thirdly, I believe organizations made up of collaborative leaders, motivated and creative teams of people and a transparent process for allocating resources will always create better results than those in which autocratic controls are enforced.
Having said all that, I also believe that the process of self-organization can only exist within communities that know each other well. And typically, that ability to know each other diminishes severely once the number of people in that community exceeds 150. So, if the self-organization model is going to thrive and not end up in what I might conclude would anacrahnistic chaos, it will depend on a clear and valuable mission, a group of people who take the lead in a facilitative instead of an autocratic approach, and a small enough organization within which people can get to know and trust each other.
Not sure there’s anything new there, but thought I’d add it just in case.
Enjoy,
David Spann
September 25th, 2007 at 2:32 am
It seems as if Jim Highsmith’s efforts to scale Scrum at an enterprise level has caused him to rethink some of his initial mandates. It concerns me that Scrum is becoming a ‘commodity’ that can be purchased. A colleague at work, in a debate over terms, shouted, “If that makes me a Scrum purist, then so be it!”
This smells like positioning. Its unfortunate. Personally, I’m losing interest in Scrum and how its sold to software developers. I’m much more interested in the thoughts and ideas of people working in the trenches and sharing what works for them. Sometimes this is Scrum, sometimes its not.
September 25th, 2007 at 3:48 pm
You say above: “The need for a leader, and more importantly the type of leader, should emerge from the need of the team, not be imposed ahead of time, or indeed at any time.”
If that was true, during World War II the Third Army would have picked Betty Grable to lead them instead of Patton.
Response:
:-) …and your point?
October 16th, 2007 at 5:57 pm
This is a discussion that gets to the essence of Agile methods. Both Jim’s and Tobias’ posts are impassioned and display remarkable shared concern for preserving the hard-won value wrought by Agile methods in tough environments. But there’s also a difference, that though barely perceptible, reveals a divide to those familiar with the territory. The dividing line becomes clearer when one reads the follow up messages – the line faults along manager and non-manager. To managers, this is about something very, very fundamental. Managers are interested in understanding how to add value on Agile teams and discover the best value-adding role for them on Agile projects. So, to my mind this is really about the role of the manager on the Agile team. See my Blog post on this topic here: lithespeed.blogspot.com.
Agile methods have been great about defining how developers can add value. With the product owner role becoming more solidly defined in Scrum, business analysts can jump on board as well as product owners or product owner proxies. But what about managers, and testers (anyone remember those guys who used to show up with reams full of defect listings?). And how about user interface designers (users do like those cool interfaces and design is an increasingly sought-after specialization), production specialists (maintaining production environments that are reliable and secure is an expert skill), etc. The truth is that, as Agile methods are successfully making the transition into the mainstream, they are being quietly adapted to fit into large, complex organizations. And work in large, complex organizations tends to flow across organizational silos. Yes, significant strides have been made in creating integrated teams that collapse some organizational silos. And yes, on those teams, costly handoffs have been eliminated or at least reduced. But, the prevailing reality is that, in most organizations, organizational silos with division of labor exist in some shape or form. And in most large organizations, those silos are represented on Agile projects. Therein, I think, lies the core issue. Can division of labor be completely eliminated from Agile projects and teams?
Most managers, I believe, will take the pragmatic view, press for an integrated team, and then manage work across said silos. Others will hold that the organizational structure itself is flawed, and therefore needs to be completely replaced. Rid organizations of the scourge of division of labor, move to completely integrated teams, adopt a craft model, and everything will be solved, they hold. Managers – at least those not appointed by the team – will then not be necessary, they believe. Perhaps. But, as long as organizational silos exist, some division of labor is necessary for effective functioning, and these discussions will continue.
As for leadership, it’s like mom-and-apple-pie. Everyone seems to agree that leadership is a good thing, don’t they? Though how that leadership is appointed, sanctioned or manifested is the subject of debate, I think we all agree that leadership is a good thing on Agile teams. My own position is that, if we can find ways to reduce non-value added management work caused by the reality of organizational silos (via Lean Kanban systems, etc), we can then all – managers and non-managers alike – get down to the important business of figuring how to lead our Agile teams. To that end, Light Touch Leadership, as Jim articulates, is a great way for managers to lead Agile teams in a way that is completely congruent with the Agile value system, but that also acknowledges the reality of organizational silos and division of labor in most organizations.
October 17th, 2007 at 5:09 pm
OK, I’m an outsider, an organization development consultant. I’ve been very attracted to this discussion as it is one that has been happening in organizations for over 15 years, that I know of. Self-organizing requires very transparent information and communication. It is NOT anarchy it only works well within clear boundaries. Leadership is often needed to interface with those boundaries. Light Touch is a nice term, it maybe an easier sell to autocratic managers and a way to get them to ease up. It does seem to subvert the real issue, it seems to me. Consulting for years I can tell you that names and words change with the times. It seems to be a constant job to language what you do as folks begin to play with and subvert the original meanings. The truth is that groups do not work well is they cannot control their own actions and act appropriately and in a timely fashion to changes. This happens best when they are free to self-organize!