In Praise of Duct Tapers and Problem Solvers

The world of business is shifting and complicated. Billions of dollars are sloshing around the global economy, and currents of this activity impact each of us on the planet. It is hard to make sense of all the motion and activity, so the business press attempts to make sense of it with strange trend articles. Fobes magazine had an article about the five tribes of employees you find in the office and their possible leadership potential. I enjoy these articles as social exercises, but they left out a crucial component, and I feel compelled to discuss it. 

Ryan Hogg in Forbes reported that the good folks at Slack have identified five prominent workplace personalities. He then describes their unique characteristics and possible ability to lead business organizations. These subgroups are detectives, networkers, road warriors, problem solvers, and expressionists. I am including a link to the article here if you want the full details. 

What struck me about the article was the perky and upbeat nature of how Hogg describes these tribes of workers. Detectives are data-oriented, organized, and outcome-oriented, while road warriors are 'feisty' and have a different vision of success than typical employees. It is easy to be glum and write about work with a sense of futility and toil, so I am grateful for Hogg to take a different approach. 

Working in a contemporary office has gotten a bad reputation. As corporations have grown, we need to do a better job developing leaders, and profit-seeking is the central focus of our activities to the detriment of everything else. It is a toxic perfume of alienation and exploitation. It explains television shows like The Office and The IT Crowd have become cultural touchpoints in the UK and the United States. Our work lives contain plenty of farce and pathos. 

According to Hogg, people like me are problem-solvers. We adapt to technology quickly and like using new ideas to solve old problems. Slack's head of customer success said, "I expect to set the problem solver to be an integral part of an organization because they're going to be the people that adopt artificial intelligence much faster and find ways to make their jobs easier." 

Hogg ignored the definitive book about office subculture seven years ago, David Greber's "Bulls#it Jobs." In his book, Graeber uses his experience as an anthropologist to explain the five tribes of people who undermine organizations—he labels these groups flunkies, goons, duct tapers, box tickers, and taskmasters. Graeber's book is an unflattering look at corporate life and the "profound psychological violence" that accompanies it. 

Graeber and Hogg's overlap is the description of problem solvers and duct tapers; both live in an ambiguous realm of decisions requiring judgment and creativity. Duct tapers and problem solvers spend lots of effort fighting corporate red tape, fixing problems before they happen, and keeping the promises of others. They are project managers, scrum masters, and middle management types who support the organization. They also make many enemies because they spend most of their time challenging existing power structures and proposing new ways to do things. It requires technical and people skills with uncertain payoffs. 

I am proud to say that I have been a duct taper for the last twenty years of my career. Along the way, I have earned a few emotional scars and developed a reputation for frankness and delivery. Executives only understand the necessity of problem solvers and duct tapers once they need them. When a deadline is in jeopardy or an existential threat crops up in an organization, these people become saviors. Otherwise, they quit and join other organizations because even the best duct tapers and problem solvers know when to run for cover when an organization is about to blow up. 

So, if you want to ensure the survival of your organization, pay attention to this tribe of employees known as duct tapers and problem solvers. These people know your organization better than you do, from its seedy underbelly to the glamorous product launches. They also have a symbolic roll of duct tape to keep the organization from flying apart. It would help if you had more of them in your organization. 

Until next time. 

 

The Paradox of Certainty

The biggest paradox in business is that business people and shareholders demand certainty. Profits must be steady or growing. The business meets expectations with little struggle, and the organization behaves like a perpetual motion money machine, creating gains and dividends. The reality is that business is a deeply uncertain activity filled with plenty of chaos. Consumer tastes change, regulations tighten, and the human beings who run corporations are frail and prone to mistakes, so while everyone demands certainty, there is never any guarantee that the expectation will happen. This paradox is central to most business challenges, and I want to discuss it this week. 

When you speak with business leaders, particularly executives, you hear them say, "I expect." It provides a veneer of certainty and cloaks the person in a coating of faux confidence and confidence. Often, you hear conversations like, "I expect the realse to go well," or "I expect that report on my desk at the end of the day." Meryl Streep portrays this language of callous efficiency with awful accuracy in the film, "The Devil Wears Prada."

Often, these expectations come into conflict with reality and the chaos that often surrounds technology projects. Developers sprinting toward a deadline and working long hours make mistakes, introducing software defects. Last-minute changes and defects extend timelines. Finally, power imbalances in organizations create situations where decisions create conflicting priorities that seize up progress. 

The empiricism and transparency that come with agile are supposed to address these problems but bump into the paradox of certainty. Decision-makers with expectations often do not want to know about the defects and dysfunctions that riddle their organizations. Instead, they demand results, and if they hear the word no or that the organization is creating a constraint hurting delivery, they will treat the messenger as insubordinate. It creates an atmosphere of fear where people know things are wrong, but no one takes action because their risk does not offer any reward other than unemployment. It is a scary place to be, and the effect resembles gaslighting behavior. 

I do not have a solution to this paradox. Still, as an agile coach and software professional, I know that we can reduce uncertainty by ruthlessly inspecting and adapting each time we finish a sprint. It also requires the swallowing of pride by decision-makers and developers to address each project's good, bad, and ugly. It is complex and requires discipline, which many business people lack, but those who are successful will make the effort and grow in the process. To break out of the paradox of uncertainty, try having observations and opportunities for growth instead of having expectations. 

Until next time. 

Burnout and the Technology Professional

Static, distraction, and stress are present in the lives of technology professionals. To stay relevant in the industry, you are active in internet culture, learning about new technologies and ways of doing things. This dynamic online lifestyle feels like staring at a disconnected television with its black-and-white static pattern. At the same time, you need to concentrate on getting work done while forces outside your control view for your attention. Meetings with senior leadership, instant messages from Slack, and even the dog wanting a walk interrupting our need to concentrate on the task are the battles we face with distraction. Finally, deadlines are cruel in the business world, and there are never enough people to do the job correctly. It creates a level of stress which do not exist in other professions. Combined static, distraction, and stress are adequate conditions to lead to professional burnout, and I would like to discuss that today. 

Global business culture makes it challenging to cover the topic of leadership burnout because it focuses on strength, competence, and confidence. Failure is for the sick and lazy. If you are not succeeding in business, you are not working hard or talented enough. The business press amplifies this attitude and the information ecosystem that thrives around it. Turn on Fox Business News or CNBC and watch it for any length of time, and you will notice that it resembles sports programming with winners, losers, human interest stories, and scores rolling by in the form of stock prices. Executives parade on the screen like celebrities, and nothing is worse than a network anchor pointing out less-than-expected revenue figures. 

The business world is about triumph, wealth, and success, but the business press often ignores the lonely wilderness that leads to that success. It is late nights, missing time with family, red-eye flights to meet clients, and dealing with sef-important jerks who often pay the bills. It is a world of rejection and loneliness where you can hustle for forty years and have nothing to show for the struggle. Talk to any business professional; they will have stories about their sacrifices to stay relevant and employed in this ruthless environment. 

It is why two recent blog posts from people I know and respect inspired me to consider my professional burnout and direction. Alan Dayley is an Agile coach and instructor whom I met on the old Google+ social media platform. He was talking about leading a training session with a group of executives, and a director of engineering boasted, "Engineers are like batteries. When they are exhausted, I replace them." Without skipping a beat, Alan said, "Then I am glad I don't work for you," before continuing the training. I am sure he did not receive an invitation to do another training with that client because he spoke truth to power at that moment. When leaders see human beings as expendable and replaceable, we have moments like that with Alan Dayley.  He was invited back to do more training for the client company. The executive with the "just replace them" attitude was from a partner company working with the client. The director sponsor of the training supported Daily in that situation.*   The attitudes of some leaders explain why burnout is so common in the professional ranks. 

Another person I respect, Angela Dugan, suffered a health scare while in the middle of being acquired by another company. She asked for time off to recover and was told no. Fortunately, she had the option to quit to focus on her health. She calls this intermission in her career her "sabbatical," and she uses it to refresh and recover. I have known Angela for over fifteen years, and she is a competent, empathetic, and results-oriented leader from experience. This reality did not matter to her new bosses when she asked for time off when her body and mind began to break down from the responsibilities of leading technology professionals during a pandemic and acquisition. 

These stories could make you cynical and jaded about the technology business, but I see it differently. People like Angela, Alan, and myself are out in the business world fighting the lonely fight of making business better, one project and person at a time. We sacrifice our youth and sometimes our health to provide for our families and improve the world. It is not a heroic life like the one popularized by the business press but one we should respect in our everyday work experience. 

I suffer from burnout from time to time. Unfortunately, I must muddle through the experience to support myself and my family. It is not fun, but I have come out of the experience stronger and wiser. Others are not so lucky, as they have suffered from heart disease, addiction, and mental health breakdowns. Businesses have gotten so big that they neglect that it is people who keep the global economy spinning. 

I wish I had easy recipes to avoid burnout. I do not. Instead, I have a few strategies to keep it at bay. First, I try to get a healthy amount of sleep. Sleep deprivation has the same effect as intoxication, so getting sleep is an intelligent way to approach work. Next, practice moderation with food and alcohol. I used both to help me cope with stress, and all it did was make me fat and miserable. Drink a glass of wine or a Negroni occasionally, but remember that most of life's problems will not be solved at the bottom of a glass. Often, new issues will appear. Finally, step away from work. Set firm boundaries and avoid answering e-mails during time off. Enjoy the company of your significant other and children. Go to a concert or dance the night away with friends, but do something, anything not related to the office. 

Burnout is real. A combination of perverse incentives and unhealthy expectations causes it. We must admit that it happens and that even the best people suffer. In an environment of static, distraction, and stress, it is surprising it does not occur more often.

Until next time. 

*Correction -  Alan Daily provided an updated account, reflected in the blog today, 6-September-2023.

Your Staff is Not Lazy They Are Exhausted.

The most dramatic event of the American Civil War was called Picket's Charge. During the third and final day of the battle of Gettysburg, fifteen thousand rebel troops attempted to overrun gun positions in the Union lines. The Union greeted the assault with a hailstorm of lead and steel. When it was over, six thousand rebel troops were killed or wounded. The survivors of the attack shambled back to Confederate lines, and General Picket, exhausted and injured, told Robert E. Lee, "I have no division now." Robert E. Lee had pushed his luck and men as far as possible. The confederacy would never invade the North again and be slowly crushed by Union forces until the eventual surrender at Appomattox two years later. Business leaders can learn plenty of wisdom from the story of Picket's charge. 

It is no secret that employee productivity numbers have fallen. The trend began after the subprime mortgage crisis and has continued uninterrupted since. I have some suspicions about why this is happening. First, the increase in inequality in the workplace means that workers have less incentive to be more productive because they are not sharing the benefits of the growing economy. Next, the push for economic efficiency and maximization of shareholder value is cutting staffing to unsustainable levels. Often one or two people are responsible for doing the work of five or six. Naturally, the result will not get done conscientiously, and the people doing it will not approach it with any sense of craftsmanship. Finally, business leaders straining to accommodate the shifting demands of the global economy are attempting to force change through organizations they created to resist change, causing exhaustion in the workforce. They are like Robert E. Lee pushing their people too far. 

These three trends are why there is such a substantial decline in productivity. We can fight it, but it will take years of effort and a paradigm shift in business leadership. First, we need to be more generous with how we compensate employees. Everyone who manufactures or provides services to others should be able to afford these same products and services. Walmart using the food-stamp system to help their employees eat is madness. Next, businesses need to improve the resiliency of their organizations so they can respond to changes. Finally, business leaders must embrace agile reformation because rigid organizations are less likely to survive. It means pushing decision-making down to the people who get the work done and allowing more flexibility to address problems rather than via a bureaucratic process. 

By doing these three things, we will see improvements in employee productivity and better customer satisfaction. Profits will increase accordingly; otherwise, we will exhaust ourselves just like Picket did during his charge. 

Until next time. 

Downtime is Never A Bad Thing

In The Shining, Stanley Kubrick portrays a writer's slow descent into madness. As an audience, we watch him pecking out words on a typewriter as he struggles to finish his first novel. Later in the movie, the writer obsessively typed, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." It is too late when the other characters discover this, and Jack is now delusionally homicidal. Kubrick is poking fun at his obsessive image and, at the same time, highlights it is helpful to take a break from writing. 

I ran away from home this weekend and attended the HMGS Little Wars game convention. It was a chance to catch up with friends, play a few board games, and shop. Instead of pecking away at a typewriter, I decided to experience a change of pace, a healthy antidote to the grind of work. These moments of rest are a great way to recharge my mental batteries and prepare for future challenges. If you are in charge of others or coaching, each business leader should remember to point out the importance of rest because all work and no play is a recipe for disaster. 

Global capitalism is not the most mentally healthy place. The demand for performance and the emotional insincerity necessary to keep customers and colleagues happy is exhausting. That exhaustion can come out at inconvenient times, as it did with MillerKnoll CEO Andi Owen during her town hall meeting with employees. These emotional outbursts create a reign of terror in the cubicles where now the people generating the revenue for the organization are worried about external forces outside their control and internal forces which are equally out of control that could spell doom for their careers. It is a toxic mix that does not have many good outcomes. 

It is why we need to prioritize rest during slow periods and times of retrenchment. Encourage people to train on new technologies. Spend time tinkering with different approaches to work and spend time with family and the ones you love. If you do these things, it will build morale in your teams and could make the office a little less crazy, and that is something we could all appreciate. 

Until next time. 

It is Always About Resilence

Much of my misspent youth was part of the cultural landscape of the late 1970s and 1980s. Before you get too nostalgic, it was a strange time to grow up because parenting was much more permissive, and the technology we take for granted today was non-existent. One of my favorite memories of that time was when I would visit with a relative, and they would allow me to stay up late and watch Saturday Night Live. Before I fell asleep on the couch for a few magical minutes, I witnessed John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, and Bill Murray create comedic gold. Still, my favorite cast member was Gilda Raner, who played the no-nonsense New York Purdo Rican pundant Rosanne Rosannadanna. The character colored my view of New Yorkers for years. During the character's appearance on Saturday Night Live, she often repeated, "It's always something," pointing out that our expectations of the world are always challenging or corrupted. As scrum masters or coaches, we always deal with "something" and should discuss that. 

The current business world is in a weird place. Inflation is starting to fall, profits are substantial, and business leaders are panicking about a possible recession. The strain begins to show as CEOs remove their masks and show off their frustrations to employees. The layoffs in technology and the desire to flatten organizations must be helping. Fear and anxiety are the leading emotions of the contemporary knowledge worker. 

I suspect that the reason why this is happening is that business leaders are more concerned with efficiency rather than resilience. When earning my Master's in Management, I learned many tricks to improve the company's bottom line. I became good at learning how to amortize software licenses and change the brand of toilet paper a company uses to save thousands of dollars over a year. It generated less revenue or helped our customers but made accountants happy. These people get promoted in organizations because they are good with accounting shell games rather than delivering value to customers. 

Since the 1970s, business people have increasingly made the office and factories more efficient, but to accomplish this goal, they have squeezed employees and customers to the breaking point. These systems are so efficient that a hiccup in supply chains or a thunderstorm over Denver can throw an entire business into spasms. 

Engineers and scientists understand that there are limits in nature. A liter of water is not going to fit into a smaller container. Business people raised on "The Power of Positive Thinking" believe otherwise. If you want it badly enough, that liter of water will fit into the smaller bottle and, if appropriately marketed, can sell for more margin. As you can see, this kind of magical thinking is ludicrous, but it permeates business environments. Thus, plenty of skilled people are attempting to make the hallucinations of others a reality. 

When that happens, I keep thinking about Gilda and her phrase, "It's Always Something." We live in a natural world that has limitations. A person can only work so many hours or be productive before they collapse into exhaustion. You cannot manipulate people like a cell in a spreadsheet; they have lives, families, and emotions. It is why I always correct business leadership when they refer to the people doing the work as resources. 

Because people are NOT resources and have limits, making systems super efficient creates the problem of the business needing help to handle surges in business or changes in the marketplace. Edward Demming points out it was a recipe for corporate extinction. Thus, it is up to people like scrum masters and agile coaches to point out that a business should be efficient and resilient to changing market conditions. It will always be something in the industry, but it will be less awful with some resilience.

Until next time. 

Mental Heath is a Management Responsibility.

Kim Scott, the author of Radical Candor, says in her book that management requires emotional labor. It is just part of the job. When you work as an agile coach, scrum master, or product owner, you spend plenty of time guiding others to accomplish complex goals. It requires listening and helping people navigate emotions and thorny problems. I wish it were easy, but it involves self-knowledge and awareness that I have only developed over the last ten years. Today, we are facing a crisis in the workplace. Mental health issues are becoming more visible in the workplace, and it is up to us as leaders to mitigate the damage. 

Chicago radio station WBBM reported that the newest cohort of workers, Gen Z, is facing problems in the workforce. According to the Mary Cristie Institute, more than half of young professionals require emotional or mental health support. Furthermore, a whopping 53% experience burnout once a week. Beginning your professional career is always stressful, but these survey results are inexcusable. It also reminds me of my struggles in the job market thirty years ago. Entry-level work is not glamorous and often resembles ugly hazing. The low pay and the uncertain career advancement in this portion of the job sector are making matters worse. You grind at a job in the hopes of financial security and satisfaction, and these things are elusive in the entry-level slice of the economy. 

A newly minted college graduate has something that most organization employees lack – enthusiasm. Within a year or two, we crush that enthusiasm out of those people because we partner these employees with poor managers who make a bad situation worse. Forbes magazine and the Harvard Business Review point out that 70% of employees want managers to support staff's mental health better. 

First, employees want to feel like they are part of a team and making a difference in the organization. Next, they want to spend time with their families and friends. Work and business are commercial enterprises, not families, because I have never met a professional laid off from their family. Work allows us to support our families, and we would like to enjoy time with them. So for the staff's mental health, let them take time off to be with the people they love. Please do not make them choose between a client presentation or attending a music recital. Finally, workloads need to be better managed so that people do not feel like the weight of work is crushing them. Los Angeles Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda said, "Happy cows make more milk." Ensuring the staff is respected and mentally healthy will do wonders for the bottom line. 

I can already see a few of my colleagues cynically criticizing mental health in the office. They might argue that new employees lack the mental toughness of previous generations. That argument is hogwash. If anything, this latest generation of employees is more robust. Generation Z has more pressure on them than previous generations, including wages that cannot pay for basic living expenses, large amounts of student debt, and a business environment that treats them like red solo cubs. Reducing the tensions among these people will create benefits that will be unexpected. 

Mental health feels like a touch-feely issue that does not impact the bottom line. Mental heal has everything to do with the bottom line because if your staff is sick or burnt out, your customers will know it. Do not be the company people leave because you don't care for the people who support customers. As a manager, we need to do emotional labor to help our employees succeed, and paying attention to mental health is just another part of the job. 

Until next time. 

Some Thoughts About the Great Flattening

Returning to work is a powerful emotional experience. My friends and colleagues were glad to see me, and a pile of work awaited me upon my return. The time away gave me a deep feeling of gratitude. Of course, I had to kick some rust off, but it did not take long to gain my bearings and return to the usual flow of work. My body had other plans, and I had to rest as the healing process continued. It was a strange week in business news. The late reports about technology layoffs pointed out that discharges disproportionally targeted managers at companies. News also surfaced that Meta was attempting to “flatten” its organization. I have spoken about management and leadership on this blog, and I need to share more. 

I always disliked the term manager. In my experience, leadership at any level is more significant than official management titles. It implies an act of authority over others which is short of leadership and greater than building customer value. Serving in a management role also includes plenty of responsibility with none of the corresponding authority. It creates awful paradoxes where people are being pushed and pulled in two different directions, first by executives above and then by the people they serve below. It explains why recent surveys of middle managers show that 43% suffer from burnout. 

It also does not help that many executive suites have the characteristics of the VIP room at an exclusive nightclub. Many executives come from similar MBA programs and have yet to spend time working with customers or employees. When this happens, tunnel vision takes over, prioritizing what the executive team wants versus what the customers might be demanding. It is all fun and games when interest rates are low and business is good, but increasing interest rates and venture capitalists looking for the next big thing trigger over-reactions. The recent tech layoff is an example of these over-reactions. 

So with executive leadership looking out for themselves during difficult economic times, middle managers and front-line employees bear the burden. Naturally, those left behind in the aftermath of layoffs must take on the duties of those who are gone. It is a significant problem in the technology industry because work outstrips the number of competent people to complete that work. It explains why Meta is attempting to flatten by forcing its managers to code with their teams. 

To an executive, this seems logical, but it is fraught with peril. First, programming is a creative skill like music or dance. It is rare for a choreographer or conductor to return to the performing company because they often need help to physically perform the skills. Next, asking technology managers to code and perform their typical management duties means they must improve their skills. Requiring a manager to code means less time for meetings, performance appraisals, and transmitting messages from executive leadership. Executives might say those functions are unimportant but will be when raises and vacations are late for line employees. Finally, managers are connective tissue within the organization because much of the work is too specialized for executive leadership. Someone needs to make sure the network engineers keep the network running. A good accountant must keep accounts payable up to date. Human resources people understand the law and can prevent both strikes and lawsuits. Without this specialized knowledge, most modern businesses would collapse like a house of cards. 

I lived through two downturns in my career. It is not pretty. However, the executives who try to flatten organizations often discover that they need the managers and specialists they depend on to run the organization. You should expect sanity to return to corporate offices in twenty-four to thirty-six months. Let's all tough it out in the meantime.

Until next time. 

Software is NOT transcription!

One of the most challenging things about working in technology is explaining what I do to others outside the business. A chemical engineer at a food company can explain they help create flavors or ensure the potato chips we eat are consistently crispy. A petroleum engineer transforms crude oil into gasoline and other valuable petrochemicals, making modern life worth living. An agile coach, scrum master, or software developer has difficulty explaining what they do. Sometimes it looks like magic, and other times, it resembles tedious bouts of frustration. There are plenty of ways to describe my profession, but today on the blog, I want to explain what it is not. 

Nothing is more frustrating for me professionally than interacting with executives who earn their leadership in their organization by mere survival. These people look like leaders but do not exhibit leadership characteristics because survival in a dysfunctional organization is the only accomplishment they can proclaim. They were mediocre people who were unremarkable employees. Eventually, these people are promoted by someone because they do not threaten the status quo and the leaders above them. These executives are allergic to risk and innovation because it would threaten their position.  

Countless times I have been in the office of these individuals and their faux leadership. One ordered me not to speak to other departments because he did not want the different departments to learn about our challenges with software releases. Another explained that we were not a technology company, so to expect us to behave like a technology company was foolish. I even had a vice president pat me on the head and call me ‘son’ before explaining how I did not understand modern branding. Naturally, when layoffs came, these paragons of leadership remained, and I was made disposable. 

These leaders are toxic and insulting to the professionals who keep the global economy spinning. By far the worst was a salesperson who said, “Software is easy; you just transcribe our order forms into the inventory system.” At that moment of emasculation, I knew it was a matter of time before I would quit the organization to do something else. Software development is not transcription! It is a complex process of taking business artifacts like forms and turning them into strategies that deliver value for the firm. It is not a transcription but countless creative decisions that developers make that have numerous implications for the business and the software development process.

The dismissive notion that software is just transcription is self-defeating. For example, how does an order form behave once a customer fills it out? Developers will ask about the impact of the order on the inventory and accounts receivable system. Software engineers worry about what happens if an item is missing from the warehouse. Can a data team use the inventory to track trends and determine how to serve customers better? Finally, what else should the ordering system do to deliver value to the business? It is a game with thousands of questions, and developers need to answer them to make the software work.

The technology world overflows with intelligent and talented people. Despite layoffs, the technology world has an over-abundance of work and needs more people to do it. Business leaders want to throw as much work at employees as possible because their labor is expensive. It is this crazy ratio of supply and demand which drives much of the dysfunction in the technology business. Instead of creating a cycle of productivity, there are episodes of burnout and failure to deliver. 

Over the years, I have been profoundly disappointed by business leaders who do not understand technology or how to lead others. I joined the agile reformation because I know that there are better ways to lead others and deliver working software. The business world needs reform, and it is up to people like me and you to speed that process along, so now, when a toxic leader says software development is easy, I know what to say to convince them otherwise.

Until next time. 

Focus is the Key

The older I become, the more I am struck by how the contemporary office is resistant to change. The COVID-19 pandemic proved we could work from home and deliver value to customers, but business leaders are pushing employees to return to the office. We are also seeing business leaders demand employees become 'hardcore,' whatever that means simultaneously. We are seeing business leaders juggling more opportunities and distractions than concentrating on the core of the business. The trend of the superstar CEO and founder is becoming tedious, and it is time that coaches and agile professionals emphasize the importance of focus if we are going to make the business world better.  

Ed Zitron in Business Insider this week points out the hypocrisy many business leaders illustrate when they complain about the work ethics of their employees. Zitron points out that many CEOs do not create value for their firms and are "A chaotic blend of unproductive micromanagement and highly paid absenteeism." The problem is that there are too many temptations for an executive to moonlight outside their core responsibilities. Today, a CEO has meetings to attend, boards of directors to sit on, and a television appearance on cable to show the shareholders they are making a difference. Lost in this busy work is the operation of the business and leading the people who work there. 

The lack of focus on the part of executives directly impacts the firm's bottom line. The fact that distracted leaders struggle to deliver value means that as a coach, you must point out the destructive behavior to the organization and then guide people to fix it. Leadership and getting people to work together toward a common goal is hard work. It requires dedication and commitment. The result can get tedious. Frankly, it is more fun to appear on television and make public speaking engagements talking about how good you are at business. 

The sad reality is television opportunities and public speaking engagements are transitory. A business leader who is absent doing other things puts the business's long-term survival at risk. As a coach, you need to concentrate on what is essential, and that focus should be on the company and its executive leadership. Anything else is a wasteful distraction. 

The economy is becoming more challenging, so now is the time for a change of perspective. Instead of building personal brands, concentrate on customers' needs and building the business's brand. Take a good look at your organization's operations and see what you can do to improve. It is not glamorous, but what's best for the business's continued success. 

Until next time. 

Layoffs are Not the End

It was a rough week to be a technology professional. Layoffs hit the industry hard, and the biggest casualty was Meta which ended the careers of eleven thousand employees for its failed bet on the Metaverse and overenthusiastic hiring during the pandemic. I watched the news with a strange pang of memory. My career contains plenty of firings, layoffs, and assorted catastrophes. I know what it is like to not have a job anymore. This week, I feel it is necessary to talk about layoffs and how to muddle through the process of starting over. 

The first thing you should understand about being laid off is that it is not a personal failure. It was a failure of the company to manage it's business and workforce. People who work in professional fields are told from high school that their success is their responsibility. The sad truth is success in a corporate environment is not merit-related but relationship based. Having good mentors, visible success in front of senior leadership, and looking like a leader are often more important than being good at your job or having actual leadership skills. To this day, I am still amazed people are in charge of millions of dollars and the careers of dozens with the emotional understanding and leadership skills of a fraternity member you find urinating in your hedges each week after a home football game.  

Someone I respect in this business once said, "Do your job and if they have a problem with that, let them fire you." It was a bit of wisdom I have carried with me for my entire career. I say this because plenty of business decisions happen without consideration of merit. Thus, layoffs are another example of poor leadership and planning creating problems for others. It is upsetting because one day, you have a job, and the next, it is gone, and you feel guilty, wondering if something could have saved your job. The truth is nothing you could have done would have held your position. Someone put together a spreadsheet showing the cost savings of a reduction in payroll; then, it was up to executives and managers not affiliated with the people doing the work to decide who stayed and who would go. It is not personal, just a cell in a spreadsheet and a business decision. An employee delivering value to the company with a family to support is cast aside like a broken office chair. 

The impersonal nature of layoffs is what is so demeaning about the process. It stings and creates a grieving process that will take a few weeks. One moment you were a valuable employee helping the team, and the next, you were packing your desk and being escorted out of the building. I experienced a workforce reduction numerous times in my career and have found a better job with better pay each time. Career instability will take a toll on your personal life because nothing undermines a romantic relationship like unemployment. Still, the good news is that with the right partner, a layoff is a temporary setback, not a life-ending event. 

The technology business is tiny, and word travels fast in this community. Already support groups are popping up to help people caught up in the layoffs at Meta and Twitter. Recruiters are working the phone, attempting to place skilled engineers with new jobs. Executives at companies are looking to snatch up talent who can provide value immediately for the business. Finally, technology workers are in great demand because there is still too much work and insufficient skilled people. 

As a survivor of layoffs, I understand the disappointment and heartbreak which comes with being let go. Technology is a harsh world. This week was especially rough, but it will improve, and each of us will be better for the experience. 

Until next time. 

Some Reasons Why We Are Less Productive

This week's big news in technology is Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter. He has terrorized the staff quickly, made changes, instituted an 85-hour work week, and laid off half the team. I would love to talk more about this, but Musk already receives too much attention, and I firmly believe in denying trollish people the attention they desperately seek. I will wait for Elon to explain himself to a bankruptcy judge before commenting on his leadership style. Today, I want to concentrate on something which popped up during the week: the decline in productivity among the global workforce.  

The Washington Post featured headlines that productivity is down among U.S. workers. I wanted to dig a little deeper into the headline, and it is clear that a combination of factors is creating a perfect storm of low productivity. I will blame three main elements; inflation, fatigue, and poor leadership.  

It is no secret that inflation is driving plenty of angst in the economy. Supply-side problems and a tight labor market are making prices for gas, food, and rent a significant burden. Pay rates are not keeping up with the inflation rate, which means that as of November 2022, a person's wages can purchase six percent less than one year ago. It means that if you are earning a paycheck, your labor provides less money for you and your family. It creates a cycle of despair where you work each day and fall further behind in your commitments. It is no wonder that people are not working harder because they do not see any benefit from that effort. 

Next, I want to point to an article by Mary McNamara,  who correctly observes that American workers are tired. Fatigue is hallowing out the American workforce. COVID-19 tested American workers and businesses; in the aftermath, people lost their businesses, careers, and lives. Combined with the loss of life of over one million people in the United States, it creates a mourning situation where people must process the things lost during the last three years. Unfortunately, business does not take a break for anyone and relentlessly demands that we set our issues aside and get to work. It is why the World Health Organization has said that the pandemic created a 25% increase in depression and anxiety. Combine this emotional exhaustion with the daily cultural challenges of political polarization, climate change, and concerns about a recession triggered by rising interest rates. Most of us are not right emotionally to be at our best. You have a particular type of demotivation.  

I also suspect a final factor involved in the lack of productivity: the poor leadership of many people in the business today. It looks like plenty of incapable people in leadership roles are using their positions of authority to hurt others. The results show companies that could do no wrong in the past are now losing value with shareholders because their leadership will not face market realities. It also does not help when leaders behave like monarchs and treat their employees like peasants. Working for a bad leader is another factor hurting productivity because people hate working for a jerk.  

As an agile coach and consultant, I take these things seriously. Often, I feel like the kid who points out that the emperor is not wearing any clothes. Work should not be a source of alienation or drudgery. Instead, it is a vehicle for change, empowerment, and value if we allow it. It means recognizing the impact of inflation, fatigue, and poor leadership on the workforce. The entire global economy is counting on us. Once we have that recognition, it is time to take action and prevent it from falling further. 

Until next time.

Learning to Lead in Strange Times

The current economic situation is strange. Inflation is increasing, and at the same point, the employment market looks strong. Prices are rising, but at the same time, employers want to recruit and retain talent. It is enough to make an economist feel like they are being drawn and quartered. What is going on as an agile leader, and what do you do?  

It is easy to be gloomy in the present economic times. Forecasts say a recession is coming, and the price of everything has taken a colossal spike. We even see layoffs at companies like Meta. As much as I like seeing Marc Zuckerburge receive a dose of reality, scratch below the surface, and you will see that the job market is more robust than it has been in my lifetime. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are over 10 million open jobs or 1.7 jobs per person looking for work. It is the best it has been in twenty years. 

Workers are gaining power and can afford to be picky with who and where they work. We can see this in the public conversation about hybrid work and returning to the office. It also includes the discussion about quite quitting and the equally awful practice of quite firing. When you think about it, the debate centers around trust. Workers want to work to be productive and fulfilling, while employers demand their labor dollars to generate a profit.

Employees want to do work that provides for their families and generates some form of fulfillment. Employees also want to take pride in what they are doing; do the widgets they produce help the environment, are the customers thrilled with the gadgets, or do they help improve communities? I do not know an individual who wants to sell a product that causes cancer or is flammable on children. Workers also realize that with modern technology, they can work anywhere. Long commutes to the office are unnecessary, and saving time allows people to look after their kids and aging parents. I also think it eliminated a form of theater where office workers looked busy to their managers because those managers were outside their doors, snooping on the employees in the cubicles. With the charade, gone employees could do their jobs and be authentic without playing games in an office. 

Amy Chow, the former CEO of AT&T Business, this week in Forbes magazine says as business people and leaders, we need to be aware of the “…what, where, when, and how” of work. The ‘what’ is non-negotiable. Accounts receivable need to be collected, sales calls need to be made, and new products need development. Thanks to COVID-19, the ‘when’ and ‘where’ of work do not need to happen in an office during business hours. Not it can occur in coffee shops around lunchtime or late at night after story time with the children. The ‘how’ was always up to employees, and technology makes creating high-quality results that deliver customer value easier. An old line manager wants to control three of these parameters. Agile leaders must respect that they can only handle one of them. 

Business people love fancy offices and corporate campuses because they represent the physical manifestation of their company. The coffee bars, ping-pong tables, and minimalist architecture are all a façade to entice workers and customers. The last three years have shown that image as empty because innovation can happen anywhere. It might be time for business leaders to review their construction and lease plans. 

These economic times are strange, but one clear thing is that workers are growing in power, which is changing the office. If we are serious about agile, we must respond to the change instead of following the old plan. 

Until next time. 

Not just coders

I have spent the last few days hiding from cable news.  The death of the Queen of England and the mourning and celebration it generates is overwhelming.  I have spent my time reading David Forster Wallace's essays and working on white papers focusing on creating cross-functional teams.  It has been a welcome respite.  As I was writing, I stumbled upon some online forums discussing the role of developers in an agile team, and I felt that I needed to make an important point.   

I have commented on the attitude of a minority of people in the project management profession that the only role of a development team is to write code.  It is an incorrect assertion.  A development team not only includes people who write software code but quality professionals, data specialists, user interface professionals, and business analysts.  Each team member has a say in delivering value to a customer.  The combination of these diverse skills makes an agile team so powerful.  

Leaders with command and control mindsets think that developers are interchangeable.  A developer understands a computer language and can take business requirements and translate them into that language.  What these leaders do not understand is that developers are people.  Developers have children and spouses.  Like all human beings, they are struggling with emotional and existential challenges.  Software developers deal with deadline pressure and problem-solving differently than others because each is unique.  A software developer is not some nameless worker bee working for the company hive; they are flesh and blood struggling to get along in the world just like everyone else.    

Along with Marx's observation that work alienates people from themselves, I believe the dehumanization of people keeping the global economy spinning is the biggest challenge of our time.  People should take pride in what they do, and saying a software developer is just a coder dismisses all the intelligence and effort they put into mastering their craft.  Influential bureaucratic organizations often make the work process impersonal and anonymous, whether in government or business.  

A competent software developer requires creativity, attention to detail, intelligence, and the ability to deal with oppressive levels of frustration and doubt.  The middle ground of healthy self-esteem is elusive when you are on deadline with a gnarly problem to solve.  Some days you feel like the dumbest person on the planet, and other days you want to revel in your intelligence.  It is emotionally taxing, and treating these people like mindless drones is insulting.  

Treating people like people instead of nameless cogs in a global machine is the key to success in a global economy.  I have come up the technology ranks as a hobbyist, student, entry-level developer, and finally, a scrum master.  This experience in the trench of software development makes me a better leader and agile coach.  

Until next time. 

Don't Hate Agile, Hate Bad Agile

The internet is awash in pixels about the trend of “quiet quitting.” Plenty of talented people have sounded off on the subject online.  I do not think I can contribute anything more substantive to the debate.  Instead, I want to talk about another trend popping up on the web.  Many people are talking about poor agile implementations, and I think we need to discuss it.   

Agile is a growing paradigm in the business world, and as an early adopter, I have seen a few bothersome trends.  Allen Holub on the Continuous Delivery YouTube channel gave some strong opinions about agile and how it is failing organizations.  I am an outspoken critic of poor agile implementations and dark scrum, so when I heard Holub bemoan the state of Agile, I found myself chuckling along in agreement about most of the things he had to say.  

The first trend is the shift from technology professionals becoming agile advocates to project management professionals advocating agile.  It is a standard survival strategy for business people to pivot when they see changes in the market.  The cohort of PMP-certified professionals witnessed the changes in the market and then retrained to become scrum masters and SAFe professionals.  It is not an alarming trend, but they took the values from traditional project management and business leadership and attempted to dress them up with agile terminology.  The effect was the worst of conventional project management combined with the frantic nature of iterative development.  Not to over-generalize, but these people are dogmatic and accustomed to enforcing rules instead of the pragmatic delivery of solutions.  These people enforce laws and generate outputs, but customer value is an afterthought rather than a central focus.  

Next, business leaders feel that their problems will evaporate if they do agile instead of having an agile mindset.  Jeff Sutherland points out that agile and scum hold a mirror up to the organization.  It is then up to the organization to effect change based on what they see.  Often problems are hiding in plain sight.  Philosopher Slavoj Zizek calls this unpleasant part of human nature Unknown-Knows.  We can ignore evidence when confronted with it.  I have witnessed many business leaders act this way because they cannot effect change or feel the necessary change might impact them negatively.  A manager loves the rapid cycle times, feedback, and transparency that agile offers but only sees accountability pushed down to the teams as valuable instead of accountability, which percolates into the organization as part of the agile mindset.  I liken the situation to someone who wants to get into better shape but can’t seem to quit smoking.  

Finally, the licensing and training for agile professionals are creating what Holub calls “a priesthood that does not understand the scripture they are professing.”  I am a big supporter of formal training in the technology business.  The pace of change requires any good professional to relearn their job every eighteen months.  The proper training and curriculum by the various organizations like SAFe, Scrum.org, and the Scrum Alliance are exceptional at teaching the formal theory of Agile, but in the trenches work of delivering software is often ignored.  It creates a situation where people trained in this manner fall back on the processes they were taught instead of concentrating on the individuals and interactions necessary to get work done.

A classic example is my recent interaction with an agile coach with a PMP certification and SPC credentials.  This person never wrote a line of software or delivered value to customers.  The only experience they had was providing reports to upper management.  Suffice to say; they failed spectacularly.  

The agile reformation is over twenty years old and is starting to show growing pains as the initial enthusiasts become supplemented with careerists and ticket punchers in organizations.  Don’t hate agile; instead, let us hate the people diluting and undermining its effectiveness.  I fight that lonely fight each day. 

Until next time. 

Organize Development Teams to Deliver Value

I am working on a large software development project.  By my estimate, we have over one hundred teams working on this project.  Since it is a significant financial client, we use Scaled Agile Framework for the Enterprise, or SAFe for short.  It is a complex process with lots of moving parts and little room for error.  I am also experiencing a common problem with large SAFe implementations, and I want to discuss it today.  

SAFe is the de facto standard for large software projects.   For executives, it helps standardize the process and is a reasonable attempt to coordinate numerous agile teams.  Unfortunately, most business leaders do not understand how value flows through the organization.  The larger the organization, the more difficult it is to know how the firm generates value for customers.  Thus, teams are organized not around value but by technical specialty.  Front-end developers work on one team, database specialists on another, and middle-ware experts on APIs are on a different team.  It is a logical way to organize technical professionals, but it makes delivering software on large projects a headache.  

Specialized teams are fantastic if you organize your business to embrace the status quo.  Still, suppose you are attempting to innovate or build new services to help customers.  In that case, you need cross-functional teams because specialization means no individual team is accountable for getting work finished.  It becomes a deranged relay race where work passes to others, and no one is sure it has reached the finish line.  

For instance, if you are a clothing company offering a new mobile application for customers to customize their styles.  You could do the following: hire a design firm to build the mobile application and take an in-house technology team to hook into the current sales and invoicing system.  Finally, you have a group of manufacturing engineers take that data to reconfigure the factories to address the customer demands.  As an executive, it makes perfect sense, but the reality is that the mobile application developers do not understand how to communicate with the sales system.  The manufacturing team does not have what they need from the mobile application or the sales system to create high-quality products on demand.  They are traveling a logical path along a road to ruin.  

What makes the situation more troublesome is that SAFe has the concept of release trains which says these three teams above should be able to work together, hand off work, and get things done.  The trouble is the decision maker does not understand how the software and system should work, so they do not know how to construct the teams.  A team of mobile specialists, a team of sales and invoicing specialists, and manufacturing engineers is a straightforward way to break down the groups.  Alas, these teams will not work well together.  Instead, reconstitute the units, so mobile developers, sales and invoice specialists, and manufacturing engineers work on the same team.  Condense these three teams into two.  

What will happen is when a mobile developer has a question about the data they receive from the sales and invoice system, an engineer with experience will be able to help on the spot.  Likewise, the manufacturing engineers will understand what the sales and invoice system is doing because they will be working side by side with the necessary technical professionals.  Finally, the three teams blended into two sections, one for standard sizes and the other for children's; they can share solutions to make each group more efficient.  Instead of work being passed around like a hot potato, people work together to deliver value.  

Some of the biggest problems in SAFe happen when work passes between teams.  As a coach and agile professional, it is your responsibility to reduce this dysfunction as much as possible.  Organizes teams around value to the customer instead of technical proficiency, ensuring work when assigned can be taken from beginning to end with zero handoffs between teams.  It will make your release trains more efficient and save you from unnecessary headaches.  

Leadership as a Way to Defeat Tragedy

The last week has been particularly brutal if you follow current events.  It is relevant to me because my life partner is a teacher, and I cannot imagine her sacrificing her life to protect children from a shooter.  The news and social media are awash in hot takes and lurid details.  It is overwhelming and tragic.  Amid all of this grief, we need to ask ourselves in the Agile community what lessons we can learn and how we can help others. 

I have been adamant that I would not write about politics on this blog.  There are plenty of people who have opinions on the political left and right.  I will defer to them.  When I talk about politics, it is often in business law and policy—being a professional as long as I have gives you a unique perspective on how a business succeeds and fails.  A lifetime of experience colors your opinions.  A kaleidoscope of people dominates the world of business.  The foremost thing I have observed is that strong servant leadership is a force multiplier in the success of an organization.  Outstanding leadership makes the difference between slogging away at a job and finding purpose and camaraderie at work. 

I pointed out last week that mental health is a serious concern and business environments actively undermine mental health.  Violence in the workplace is a symptom of deep sickness.  It shows a failure of leadership and collective vision.  It should not be this way.  

A school or workplace should never drive a person to violence.  It is up to people like me to help others be heard and understood.  People want to work and learn with others in situations where they can succeed and thrive.  The agile reformation was born because the business world was failing to deliver value to customers.  That failure was impacting the lives of millions of people around the world.  

I do not have easy answers, but I want to make the world less unequal, cruel, and stupid.  I intend to do that in the context of the business world.  First, I try to do my best to be a servant leader each day.  I am an example of behavior, and it is the best teaching tool for small teams.  If you have the back of your team when times are tough they will have your back.  Others will either model the behavior or understand the norms accepted on the team. 

Next, radical candor should allow you to communicate effectively with your team and others.  Care personally about your people and challenge them directly so they can grow and develop.  Not everyone will succeed, but you should allow everyone to try.  

Finally, we need to stop treating people like “resources.”  Each person is a unique individual with hopes, dreams, and families.  Grinding people down like pencils is bad business because it will drive good people away from the organization.  Burning out people will also turn potential customers into vandals against the firm.  In the worst case, they will resort to violence.  

Leadership is complex and a lonely road to travel, but it can make the world better if done correctly.  It gives me a little small comfort as we attempt to make sense of the death of nineteen students and two teachers.  

Be safe and kind to each other; until next time. 

A Few Words About Mental Health and Agile.

The month of May is mental health awareness month.  In many businesses and cultures, discussing mental health is a death sentence for your career.  Business leaders are afraid to trust people who struggle with symptoms of mental illness, and the stigmas associated with being mentally ill stretch back hundreds of years, forcing people to mask and self-medicate their problems.  I speak from experience because I have witnessed too many neurotic, damaged, and plain mean people placed in leadership roles to hurt others.  These are people with the self-awareness of small furry woodland creatures who then inflict harm on the people they are supposed to serve.   

I have written about mental health before on this blog.  My primary thesis is that the pressures of contemporary business combined with poor leadership create a cycle of abuse and illness in industry.  The situation is made worse with alcohol and other drugs to self-medicate.  It is a prescription for a decline in mental health and business success.  As agile coaches or scrum masters, we need to be frank with ourselves and others when we see this cycle perpetuated. 

Many of the worst environments I have worked in have leaders who are not accustomed to hearing no and possess deep wells of rage.  These individuals were also good at something called gaslighting.  I have had serious moments of doubt about my competency and sanity working for these individuals throughout my career.  Each lay-off or termination became a liberation as time and distance taught me that working someplace else was a good career move.  

It is deeply dispiriting to work for an organization that sets you up to fail.  It could be unrealistic deadline pressures or workloads that require more people than the organization is willing to hire.  It could also be giving people responsibility for situations without the requisite authority.  You have not been in technology until you have seen an IT director in the cardiology unit receiving a phone call from the CIO about a software system before they experience an angioplasty.  The organization demoted that person when they returned from the hospital because he did not deliver the software on time.  Ironically, his replacement received more people to do the work and money to get the job done.  

Organizational dysfunction requires people to work together in good faith to attempt to fix those problems.  Do not drive yourself insane for organizations or people who do not care.  If the organization does not care, neither should you, and you should work elsewhere.  As my mentor, Monica Gilroy, says, “do not run yourself ragged for a ragged organization.”

Work should be sustainable, satisfying, and sane.  If it is not, then walk away for your mental health.  Life is too short to wallow in madness. 

Until next time. 

When the Going Gets Tough Emotional Intelligence is a Force Multiplier

One of the most frustrating things I experience is business people making promises to customers and expecting technical professionals to keep those promises.  It is a clear violation of the social compact of agile.  Sadly, it is also a common occurrence.  In these high-pressure moments, it is clear that the people making the promises do not have the technical knowledge necessary to keep those promises.  If the situation becomes, egregious people can wind up in jail.  I have spent plenty of time working on these intense projects, and I want to try and provide a few tools to keep you from going insane.  

William H. Janeway is a founding silicon valley venture capitalist; his book “Doing Capitalism in the Innovation Economy” includes a great piece of wisdom about times of crisis in the investment world.  When situations deteriorate in a business, investors want cash and control.  The money is necessary in case of more economic hardship, and the control ensures work gets accomplished.  It is a harsh truism.  

With deadlines looming, executives are under intense pressure.  An executive often micromanages a team because it is the only way to look like they are in control.  It feels like playing a game of twenty questions with someone on amphetamines, pointing a gun at your head.  

Conversations resemble the following.

Executive #1 – “Those two bugs, when are they going to get fixed?”

Product Owner – “We wrote up the bugs five minutes ago when we were testing, so we are going to diagnose the problems and provide logs for the development team.“

Executive #2 – “We promised the client a release date on X.”

Product Owner – “I am aware, but releasing buggy code is going to undermine our relationship with the customer.”

Executive #2 – “We need that by X.”

Executive #1 –  “Can you give me an ETA on those defects so I can report them to my boss.”

Product Owner – “Yes, as soon as we trouble-shoot the problem and gather response object from the failed service.”

Executive #1 – “So when?”

Product Owner – “I am not sure.  Let us work the problem.”

Executive #2 – “We could lose millions of dollars if we don’t release by X.”

As you can see, conversations like this resemble something out of a Kurt Vonnegut novel.  The stress levels increase, and no one benefits from the increased attention other than the executive. 

Often you are working with people inside your team and outside to address crises.  It requires plenty of emotional intelligence to do this correctly because many of the people around you begin to panic and are frazzled.  When confronted with situations like this, it is best to be the calmest person in the room.  State the facts and tell people what you are doing to work the problem.  Also, share with leadership the others working with you to fix the problem.

Next, let people know they are creating unnecessary stress.  If a manager is asking for updates each hour for a bug in testing, point out that their concern, while necessary, is not improving the situation.  

Finally, be kind to others and yourself.  Deadline pressure is never fun, but everyone is in the same difficult situation.  Being mean or showing a lack of kindness will create a feedback loop of reprisals on the team.  If the unit is fighting, they are not focusing on the deadline.  Kindness and grace are not easy during a deadline, but they are necessary to get the job done. 

High pressure and uncomfortable situations happen in software development.  As a coach or scrum master, you must show emotional intelligence when others are not.  

Until next time. 

Disagree and Commit is the Agile Way to Resolve Disputes

Presently, I am working on a gigantic project.  It is the replacement of a forty-year-old enterprise system.  Teams reside over three continents, and conference calls have hundreds of participants.  Projects like this require millions of dollars and the patience of Job.  I exist as a product owner who intersects with the organization's remaining units.  It is a tremendous amount of responsibility.  Today, I want to discuss a vital work component on a gigantic agile project. 

When working on a massive project, the biggest challenge is making sure the work is completed quickly and with sufficient quality.  Teams hand off work to each other, and those are usually the pain points as one group takes over the work of another.  It is why scaling frameworks like SAFe, LeSS, and Scrum at scale have become so popular in enterprise-scale projects.  The additional artifacts and rituals of scaling frameworks are supposed to prevent botched handoffs and production environment problems. 

Disagreements are going to happen.  Large agile projects are strange because there is a tension between the need to manage hundreds of people to get a job done and the desire for those people to be empowered and autonomous to get the job done.  How we handle those disagreements can make the difference between success and failure.

I received a directive from an executive to do something, contradicting over twenty years of my experience as a technology professional.  I objected and said it violated both the letter and spirit of agile.  The response was terse, "We are a SAFe project, not an agile project." At that point, I had some choices.  I could be insubordinate and not carry out the order.  My other choice is to follow the directive unquestionably.  I chose a third path that agile coaches embrace called "disagree and commit."  I explained the foolishness of estimating research spike and then said, "You are in charge of this project, so to save time, I am going to disagree with you but commit to this course of action."  You are not being insubordinate, and you are pointing out a future complication or challenge which the team can resolve when deadline pressure is not severe. 

Six years ago, Jeff Bezos, in his letter to shareholders, said the disagree and commit approach is how Amazon was able to create Amazon studios.  It is also a decision that can easily be reversed.  Any discussion about the merit of a process can get vetoed.  Fortunately, you can change most decisions, so the quality of a decision is not what matters but the speed.  

In my brief tenure on this project, I have delivered software and improved the process for the team.  I believe that my approach will be vindicated, but for now, I will commit to the other one because it is easy to reverse when the time is correct. 

The manifesto says working software is the accurate measure of the progress of an agile project.  Disagreement is a natural part of creating working software.  Saying you disagree with someone is not insubordinate; it is sticking up for your development team, quality of work, and professional ethics.  Committing after disagreement means you want to get the working software into production sooner.  It keeps the bills paid and ensures a massive project does not collapse into a big ball of mud.  

Until next time.