In a recommendation received from my last client I was described as a man on a missionto change the way the world thinks about [software product] development and teams, and to change the way software serves its purpose. It's true, but for some years now I've had a broader goal. I want to see the end of command-and-control because I don't believe agility can be achieved in a command-and-control environment. I believe that a working environment, which empowers people who are prepared to trust, show courage and make commitments, is capable of delivering so much more than an archaic, hierarchical and bureaucratic organisation that cultivates egos and politics. I want to help companies recognise the inherent problems with command-and-control. I want to help companies realise more benefits by helping them to:
Flatten hierarchies and dismantle departments organised by role or skill-set, to remove bureaucracy and office politics and eliminate waste.
Build cross-functional teams responsible for single products rather than spread that responsibility across groups of people taken from different departments.
Create, nurture and safeguard an open, trusting and empowering environment where everything is kept visible, where people can speak honestly, make commitments, be held accountable and demonstrate the courage to make decisions and take action, fail fast and learn quickly.
Transform managers into servant-leaders who provide facilitation and let their team/s self-organise and decide how they will get things done.
Get stuff done in a repeatable manner.
Have fun.
At the latest Agile Alliance board meeting members were asked to imagine what they would say if they were opening the Agile 2012 conference. I'm encouraged by the closing statements regarding the future of agile methods made by Brian Marick in his imaginary imaginary speech to open Agile 2012:
Agility cuts against the grain [of command-and-control]. It's about devolving authority downwards and creating openness and transparency. The Agile Alliance, to some extent, did not try to solve the 'middle manager' problem. We left it to others and that's a bit of a shirking of responsibility. A lot of people out there today who call themselves ScrumMasters still think of themselves as managers, and think of the job of management as command-and-control. We, in the agile world, will never succeed in transforming organisations into better places to work until we deal with command-and-control.
That time has come. We all need to do more to help companies that want to achieve agility move away from command-and-control and, invariably, change their culture too.
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