We're now about 3/4 of the way through Year Two of Agile at my company - Year One is chronicled, at least from my point-of-view, in The Real-Life Adventures of AgileMan (Lessons Learned in Going Agile) - and change is happening at a pretty impressive rate all of a sudden. It's an unfortunate constant of my life recently that, the more change is introduced, the more certain people get pissed off (usually at me). I'm sure there's a way to introduce change effectively where everyone enjoys the experience and they all belt out songs of joy while it's happening, but I've never figured out how to make that a reality. Instead, people - being people! - seem to mostly react one of two ways: they either scramble to consolidate their current power base - lest it be lost - or they race to divest themselves of the things that they never wanted to have in the first place. When I'm one of the people saying "no, I really don't think you can do that" to someone in either of those two camps, then I'm seen as the bad guy. And lately I've felt very much like the bad guy, when all I'm really trying to do is help clarify the new roles so that we all know who does what. We've also got a recent history of having the teams take on too much responsibility that actually resides elsewhere, and so I've been trying to correct that... despite the fact that there may or may not be anyone available yet to pick up what should never have been left with the teams in the first place! Not a popular stance, to be sure; but I'm not sure how else to finally make the pain felt where it belongs, instead of by the teams.
On the other hand, I had a couple of terrific conversations with various people today in which we were able to work through a scenario or problem really well together, and all involved seemed to be happy with the outcome. So there's lots of reason to believe that more good days lie ahead.
I'm also in the process of getting the 15 employees who now report to me "handed off" from their previous manager over to me. This involves interviewing the former managers and taking notes, and then setting up 1-on-1s with each employee. I'm about halfway through the former and haven't yet started the latter, so I've got lots of work ahead of me still. Hopefully my new teams will bear with me while this transition continues!
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So, do I still get props for embracing this even if I don't have a power base to lose? :-)
I thought we were in the calm between the storms, but I guess I just don't get invited to the fun meetings.
Remember, the ball is round and you play for 90 minutes... everything else is pure theory.
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