Managing Manager‐less Processes • Fred George • GOTO 2017

This presentation was recorded at GOTO Chicago 2017. #GOTOcon #GOTOchgo

Fred George - Early Adopter of OO & Agile, Advocating MicroServices & Programmer Anarchy

ABSTRACT
A new generation of Agile processes are emerging, frequently omitting the role of a dedicated manager. Erik Meijer has termed his flavor as One Hacker Way; my version was originally titled Programmer Anarchy.
We explore the reasons for the emergence of these managerless processes [...]

TIMECODES
0:00 Introduction
0:21 Fred George
1:40 Requirements Uncertainty
8:59 Age of Agents
9:49 Industry "Hot" Topics
11:00 XP Values: Cornerstones of Morale
11:21 Agile Practices and Roles
12:04 Case Study: From 2006!
14:23 Actions to Complement Fuzzy
17:03 Agile Roles
17:45 Fate of Roles: BA
22:00 Fate of Roles: Manager
23:55 Anarchy Roles
24:53 Trust
27:28 Delivery Focus
30:48 Management Inversion Enforced
34:35 Specialization Institutionalized with Titles
36:26 New Titles for New Projects
39:52 Fix the Furniture
41:28 Non-dedicated Leadership
42:25 Ambassador Role
44:51 Bring Work to the Team...
45:16 Appraisals & Coaching
46:13 Appraisals in Mangerless Teams
47:35 Coaching in Mangerless Teams
48:36 Anti-Patterns in Mangerless Teams

Download slides and read the full abstract here:

#Managerless #OneHackerWay #AgileProcesses #FredGeorge

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[SeanPeterson]

At first I really thought "Managing Manager-less Processes" was a pipe-dream, until Fred delved into the dynamics and forces that make effective teams. Teams are real teams when titles are replaced by a combination of peer review and autonomy, defined as the right of members to select the leadership.

So in complex (high risk) endeavors, teams switch leadership (from one leader to another) depending on the problem at hand and select the "most suitable" person from the pool of potential leaders based on their combination of technical knowledge and interpersonal skills. This means the techie (expert) is not automatically the most suitable, but may still provide leadership for a period of time and then is transferred out when the team shifts into another problem domain.

Key Points

This leadership dynamic creates natural feedback loop that creates self-guiding team that learns from their mistakes, hence the "trust the team" mantra that supports speedy corrections over preventing mistakes, aka the Waterfall Approach.

* leadership is a service (an activity) rather than a role (I'm the "leader")
* waterfall cuts down on mistakes (aka "resource waste")
* experimentation requires mistakes (relying on feedback to rapidly "course correct")

[UnicornLaunching]

9:30 interoperability is the future 50:40 one bad apple spoils 12

[JeremyAndersonBoise]

I am always amused by downvotes on great videos like this one.