Lately I’ve been noticing a pattern: everyone feels the need to attend the scrum team’s daily standup. By “everyone”, I mean functional managers, project managers, architects, agile coaches — you name it.
What are these people doing there? Ostensibly it’s to:
- Be ready in case the team “needs help”
- Jump on any issues that arise
- Show management support
- Help resolve technical questions
All of which sounds good. But it does leave me wondering: “why does the team suddenly need everyone’s help?” And do we see how this can be abused?
What if the motivation is really to:
- “Keep an eye” on the team
- Make sure the design is being “done right”
- Maintain the pressure to deliver
- Report “actual status” back to executives
- Make sure no one is “slacking off”
- Ensure no one gets carried away with this “self-organizing business”
- Remind them “who’s the boss”
- Put them under a magnifying glass
See how quickly this can go awry? Welcome to the Agile Fishbowl.
Think about it: the daily standup is meant for the team. It’s how they sync up, making sure everyone has what they need to keep the flow and “get to done”. This is not the time to inject management oversight or demand real-time status updates. It’s not the time to put the team under the magnifying glass.
Fortunately we have the Agile Manifesto to help us out here:
The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.
And:
At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.
Finally:
Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.
Environment. Trust. Support.
There you have it. Do we really trust our teams to figure out “the ask”, come up with a solution and deliver each sprint? Or are we concerned they’ll fail? (hint: they just might). Are we afraid that we’re losing management control (quite possibly)? Better said:
Do we trust that the best people to manage the work is the team that does the work?
If we have a hard time answering this in the affirmative then it’s likely we’ve trapped our team in an Agile Fishbowl. And for those of you starting to panic, I’m assuming the Scrum Master and Product Owner are in the room with the team. This should ease your concerns regarding product or process.
Don’t get me wrong. I do think there’s a positive — and necessary — role for managers in agile. It’s just not the fishbowl.