Compared to other management styles, agile team management is rarely given the spotlight it deserves. Mostly, those leading agile teams simply try to balance doing their jobs and not getting in the way of their team. It’s not a bad strategy, but it’s probably not as effective as you’d hope.
Agile team management is a very new leadership strategy that follows the very new management style born from the Agile Manifesto created in 2007. In this post, we’re going to explain how you can keep your head on straight while leading a fast-paced, creative, and autonomous team.
We’ll discuss each of the following.
- What is team management?
- What is agile project management?
- Traditional Team Management & How It Fails Agile Teams
- In-Depth Breakdown of Agile Team Management
- How To Improve Agile Team Management, 8 Tips
Keep in mind that this management system will feel wholly unfamiliar to anyone used to the usual project management roles, responsibilities, and leadership structures.
What is Team Management?
We like to define team management as “the act of using managerial tactics to meet business goals and improve performance.” It’s possible by mixing elements like guidance, support, teamwork, coordination, and communication to help the team meet its goals. There also tends to be problem-solving and emotional intelligence as managers need to navigate tons of relational boundaries to benefit the team.
It’s not unreasonable to see team management and leadership in general as an interesting combination of skills that has to be reorganized all the time depending on what issues the team is facing.
But, when used the right way, it’s an extremely beneficial tool in reducing turnover, meeting organizational goals, and helping team members feel satisfied with their role in the bigger picture. It’s an act that has to be handled with great care and consideration, no matter what kind of team you are leading.
Overall, there is no “one way” to manage teams. What style or technique you use depends on the people on your team, your organization’s goals, and many, many other factors. Team management has a general way of it, sure, but the details will drastically depend.
What is Agile Project Management?
Agile project management is a system for completing projects modeled in the “agile” style born from the Agile Manifesto, written in 2007. Software development teams were finding that usual project management styles were stifling their productivity and effectiveness. Traditional project management is based on the idea of planning basically everything before the project ever starts. It often can’t start without planning, permission, and permits. Agile projects aren’t like that.
Rather, they’re born from ideas that need to be acted on sooner rather than later, and they have very unique requirements. From one project to the next, every single aspect could be different. Normal project management can’t keep up with that level of change. If anything, it would delay progress and weigh down creativity with processes that are essentially unnecessary.
Agile project management is focused on supporting a team of highly capable and skilled individuals who are mostly left alone to do their jobs.
Traditional Team Management & How It Fails Agile
It’s not that traditional project management is useless. That’s not the case at all. It’s just focused a little too much on task management and planning. Management is enforcing organizational standards and trying to ensure quality. On creatively driven projects, these features are hard to control.
In fact, on creative projects, it’s better not to “control” them at all. Agile project management gives people the freedom and flexibility to step out of the box, be freed from organizational processes, and try something new. This is especially important in spaces such as tech, marketing, and design, as trends change so quickly. Agile team management is the only one that really keeps up.
Breakdown of Agile Team Management
Agile projects are started and gain momentum a lot faster than your usual projects, which means agile management has to be just as fast—and a bit more hands-off. Generally speaking, agile team management is the application of agile values and principles to managing the team rather than just the management of tasks.
Agile teams are self-organized, experienced self-starters, and fully capable of completing the project. Agile team management has to accommodate that group, not direct the work of a group of contractors and team members who have been taken from all different avenues over the course of years.
You could argue that agile team management is really about building the right team and assisting them on their way to project completion. So, let’s talk about building your team.
Agile Team Management Step #1: Building Your Team
Sometimes, leaders have to simply make do with what and who they have available to them. And while that might not always be ideal, you can still work with it. Usually, building an agile team happens in four steps, specifically when a new team is created at the start of a new project.
- Forming – Each role is unclear, processes aren’t solid, and leadership is very involved in getting everyone settled.
- Storming – The team understands what they are working toward, but they aren’t sure exactly of their unique role in that vision or of how to work with others.
- Norming – People are settling into their new normal, new relationships, and new roles. At this point, their focus shifts to optimization, understanding their teammates, and growing more confident in their ability to serve the team.
- Performing – The team is moving along nicely but gets more intentional and strategic. They need very little oversight, and any support they receive is specific to optimization.
Agile Team Management Step #2: Differentiate Agile Teams From Tasks
It’s not uncommon for agile teams to handle their tasks with agility and not their teams. Teams often report that they don’t feel very agile because they lack the full support and trust of their management, blocking the complete implementation of agile practices.
The way you handle your tasks and the way you handle your team are intertwined, but they are not the same. Recognize that.
Agile Team Management Step #3: Adopt Servant Leadership
Leaders in normal settings are sort of like the wizard behind the Land of Oz. They’re the ones making moves and changes behind the curtain. Agile project management does not align with that style at all. Instead, you have to be more like Toto, Dorothy’s dog. You serve your team and support your main character along their journey while biting the ankles of anyone who threatens that.
You put the needs of others first, share your power, and help the team perform to the best of their ability. This looks like
- Influencing the team, not commanding them
- Encouraging the inner leader in everyone
- Encouraging trust whenever possible
- Taking feedback as much as you give it
We see managers tend to have this idea that the team serves them. And in most management situations, that is true. The team acts as an executory extension of management, carrying out designated assignments and tasks. That is not the case in agile settings.
Agile Team Management Step #4: Encourage Self-Organized Teams
This is crucial in agile teams. People know what they are good at, so giving them the space to discuss amongst themselves who does what is extremely helpful on agile projects. You have to encourage team members to go for it.
Agile team managers are responsible for setting up, maintaining, and improving the environment where the team performs. And while it takes time for team members to explore their potential, you can help them with some of the following.
- Improving access to resources and information so that people can increase their understanding
- Use team building activities to improve the understanding and trust of their colleagues
- Provide professional development opportunities
- Motivate the team with what they enjoy (time off, compensation, gifts, etc.)
When your team knows the objective, step back. Let them decide whose skills and experiences are best placed on each task. You’ll see creativity, quality, and general satisfaction improve when you let people take the lead like that.
Agile Team Management Step #5: Enjoy The Process
People need to enjoy and appreciate why they do what they do. Encourage everyone to participate in building processes that work for them and their team members. Allow people to add feedback loops wherever they deem necessary, limit what is “in progress,” change physical location in the workplace, and more. Make sure your team feels like their needs are being met. That is the true magic sauce in agile team management.
Agile Team Management Step #6: Implement Hardcore Accountability
Agile team management is built on the idea that everyone owns their work. It also means people feel safe to own every aspect of it—wins, failures, and more. On top of that, there needs to be a heavy dose of respect, collaboration, and willingness to improve in every interaction this team has.
The goal of agile team management is to support the delivery of value and adaption to change. A team can only do those things if they are fully accountable. You can support this by encouraging communication, sharing information, and transparency throughout the team.
8 Tips To Improve Agile Team Management, “Lean It Out”
Most organizations cannot base every goal and project around agile principles. If anything, they use general managerial and business principles to meet obstacles as they come, limiting their use of anything “agile” to projects that require a unique approach and a good dose of creativity. They don’t often spend time dissecting this management approach and understanding its complexities.
They slap it on the wall and hope it sticks. And then, a manager finds themselves having to balance agile team management inside of extremely un-agile conditions. We recommend that you attempt to “lean out” your organization.
- Never Have Large Agile Teams – Always reorganize them. We recommend you don’t let that number pass seven.
- Let People Self-Organize – Your team knows their strengths and weaknesses, so let them decide who takes on what task.
- Don’t Be Pressured To Task-Switch – Traditional management styles have a nasty habit of tabling projects. That does not work for agile teams, so don’t let it happen to you. Educate your colleagues on why that is a bad move.
- Change Work Performance Measurements – The metrics that are used to understand a business’s performance might not be attuned to agile processes. You might have to ask your colleagues to zoom out to annual or semi-annual cycles. However you proceed, make sure there is harmony between the inspect/adapt style and the rest of the organization.
- Harness Metrics – Let the team and the product owner guide you through measuring output. Through the agile team management process, you might have to adjust your idea of what using metrics is good for. Tracking sprint progress can also be really helpful here.
- Remember The Portfolio – Agile project management can feel like its own world, but it exists inside of another one. As you improve your processes and move through a couple of cycles, adjust how you work the portfolio objectives into the details of your projects.
- Introduce Completionist Mindset – As an agile team manager, you will have plenty of experience with leaders who are not using agile principles and lack any understanding of them. Help your colleagues develop more of a completionist mindset and spread “lean” values in all of your interactions.
- Be Careful With Contracting – Outsourcing and contracting can also be quite difficult to manage in an agile setting. Make sure you implement agile practices into the contracts you develop with your contractors. Be prepared to help your team work with contractors who do not use agile practices.
Ultimately, you’ll need to be your team’s advocate. You’ll notice that a lot of usual practices are really stifling for agile teams.
Let Your Team Do Their Thing
Agile team management is an incredible way to support your team. Agile project management isn’t perfect, but with the power of intentional, careful, and continuous leadership, your organization will see this system flourish.
We understand that these principles are very different than what a lot of leadership will be used to. It can feel like you are opening yourself up to issues or signing yourself up for a life of firefighting because there is no way this can go right. But using agile team management is simply management and leadership putting their money where their mouth is.
Using traditional management styles over an agile team is going to slow down momentum—a critical aspect of creative and innovative work. New ideas and solutions don’t come out of old processes. They come from letting your team stretch out and test their wings. Agile team management is the only way to allow that to happen while keeping up with production needs.
