Webinar: 2 Patterns for Managers

This is another in our Webinar Series.  1 hour.

One: Impediment Removal Team

The basics of the idea are simple.

You form a Scrum Team with Managers.  The job of the team is to fix impediments for a group of Teams (say, 5 to 20 teams).  In the Product Backlog of the IRT is a list of impediments to fix, sliced into right-sized pieces.  And the IRT works as team to fix those impediments.

Typically managers are quite skilled in fixing impediments.

Each Team still has a ScrumMaster, also working on impediments.  So, you need some coordination.

Some advantages:

* The productivity or usefulness of the managers (and each manager) becomes clearer.

* The related Teams become more productive.

* The managers understand Scrum far better, since they are using Scrum to fix the impediments.

* The Teams get to give feedback on whether each impediment was fixed properly.

This can help a lot in getting better alignment between the managers and the teams abou Scrum and any issues about Scrum.  Very helpful.  Still, you will get the pushback: well, the managers are not doing the same kind of work as our team is.  But there is better alignment.

Two: Executive Action Team

This is a similar idea.

This is a pattern that Jeff Sutherland likes to use with the top executives.  The C-suite as they are sometimes called.

You take ~7 people from the C-suite and form a Scrum Team.  Teach them Scrum, etc.

In a similar way, the work of the E.A.T. is all the transformation work and higher level impediments.  So, that becomes the product backlog.  And they deliver “working product” every sprint (every 2 weeks).

Some advantages:

* The CEO gets to see if his.her people are a Team.

* The Agile Transformation is better faster.

* It may take a while before they really work as a Team, but when they do, it makes a difference.

* The E.A.T. gets feedback quickly on their work

* The E.A.T. people now understand Scrum a lot better now, having done it.

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Details:

Date: Thursday, May 27, 2021

Time: 2-3 pm Eastern.

Online via Zoom.

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Finally: If you have suggestions for topics for these webinars (really anything related to agile), please send them to me.  jhlittle@leanagiletraining.com  Thank you!

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