Team creation
Managers define boundaries, provide a clear elevating goal, form the teams themselves, change team composition if needed, and empower the teams in the first place. Project Managers are already skilled at procuring teams, and developing them
Team boundaries
Although a self-organizing team manages its response to the environment within which it is placed, the environment is under the influence of managers. Teams themselves do NOT decide what products or projects they will pursue, because managers almost always make these decisions.
Project Managers have negotiation and resource acquisition skills
Team goal
It is managers provide a clear elevating goal to the team giving purpose and direction. Project Managers have experience of working with senior management to set objectives and goals
Team formation
Teams do not normally form themselves nor do they select who will play a part on the team, it is the managers who compose teams.
Although potential team members can request to take part in a team it is normally managers who will make the final decision to ensure that team formation properly balances business needs and constraints.
It is functional managers who are collectively responsible for selecting the proper people from each functional area to form a scrum team. It is managers who will work hard to form teams that are cross-functional diverse and sufficient.
Project Managers have interviewing and resource selection skills plus expertise in creating resource and skills matrices. In addition, they can negotiate the best team balance They will also want to choose such individuals with T-shaped skills.
Such individuals will have deep skills in their functional area, discipline, or specialty, and can also work outside of their core specialty area.
They may not have the best skills in such outside overlap areas, but can contribute and help out when the team is experiencing a bottle-neck. This overlap in skills will greatly provide additional team flexibility.
Team changes
Managers also have the obligation to change the team’s composition, if they believe that would improve the overall health and performance of the team and therefore, the organization. Managers may also have to change the team composition if it seems when doing so better optimizes the organization’s ability to deliver across its portfolio of products.
Project Managers have extensive coaching and sensitive handling of human resource situations
Team empowerment
Only teams that are empowered can self-organize, and this requires authorization and trust from managers. The main way to empower teams is for the manager concerned to delegate responsibilities to them and in doing so allowing them to self-organize and manage themselves more effectively.
Classical management theory tells as that whenever a manager considers delegating to a team, they pick the proper level of authority for empowering the team.
Project Managers must learn this skill, however, they will already have leadership and delegation expertise
The seven levels of delegation – Jurgen Appelo
Appelo defined these seven levels which are:
When a manager delegates the tasks, they must trust that the team will carry out their responsibilities as expected. In the same way, the teams must trust that their managers will not take actions that are in contradiction to the delegated authority.
Managers should help the team trust each other by defining the problem boundary for the environment in which the team operates. Setting these limits clarifies to the team how far trust must be extended.
Project Managers have extensive delegation and team management skills
Energize and nurture teams and people
Creating a clear elevating goal provides a foundation upon which to energize team members. Managers should therefore constantly seek ways to motivate people so that they want to do great work.
All individuals want to work in a fun, creative, value-delivering environment, and managers are responsible for nurturing that environment.
Once a scrum team has been formed, managers must nurture them, not by team management, but by energizing people, focus on developing competencies, providing leadership and maintaining integrity within the team.
Project Managers will want to adopt the servant-leader approach, but already have team and individual motivations skills
Develop team member competence
Just like any other project, within scrum, each team member will still report to a functional or resource manager who is typically not the scrum master nor the product owner.
Such managers will take an active role in coaching and assisting their direct reports in line with meeting their career goals. They normally do this by promoting opportunities for competency development and providing regular actionable feedback on the individual’s performance.
Managers will want to foster an environment where people are constantly learning and adding to their skill sets. They will want to do this by providing team members with time for training or attending conferences as an example.
Managers must also provide frequent feedback to teams and individuals. Traditionally, such feedback is provided at annual performance reviews, but these can be counterproductive within a scrum team.
Far better that managers should align the frequency of such feedback to better match the scrum teamwork effort. For example, providing feedback at every sprint.
Project Managers have extensive experience of people management and getting the best from specialist teams
Team efficiency and effectivity
This means that managers should not pull people off teams during a sprint or unnecessarily assigning people to work on several teams at once. The economics of long-lived teams are compelling so managers should try to keep the teams together if the economics are justified.
Project Managers understand this, and will quite naturally fight for their team – removing impediments at an instinctual level
Organizational impediments
Managers must work cooperatively with scrum masters to remove impediments, particularly those that are environmental in nature or require intervention from managers.
Project Managers understand this, and will quite naturally fight for their team – removing impediments at an instinctual level
Supplier management and outsourcing
Managers must help the organization embrace a more agile approach to supplier management and outsourcing.
Instead of using the traditional contract-heavy, negotiation-style approach, managers should promote the use of agile principles when engaging partners.
A straightforward approach here of outsourcing, is to lease the scrum team of a third party, in this way managers buy access to a high-performance team that others have already created.
In addition, managers should consider alternatives to writing fixed price contracts with outsources.
Such contract types are damaging to the scrum ethos. The contractor wants to deliver as little as possible in order to maximize its gross margins, while the organization wants to get as much as possible for the fixed price.
Project Managers have expertise in all aspects of procurement – negotiating, letting and managing contracts
