Self-management is a powerful practice that can lead to remarkable outcomes when done well. I fully stand behind that as I’ve witnessed first hand how groups of seasoned leaders can come together to form exceptional teams that accomplish wonderful things. The opposite is also true, however. When inexperienced individuals are left to their own devices, the results can be wildly negative.
I remember my first IT job at 18. The idea of taking ownership of a team’s work, creating project plans, understanding capacity, and managing risks was foreign to me. As a novice, I simply didn’t possess the knowledge or experience to manage these aspects of my work yet, let alone be accountable for creating a valuable product.
I got into management early, starting as a junior with a strong mentor and it took me years of collaboration with project, program and portfolio managers, C-Suite, and other professionals to grasp the intricacies of management. As I grew, I began to learn what aspects of management were wasteful and what were valuable, and when and how to apply them. The skills I acquired and the experience I gained have helped me become much more effective when contributing to self-managing teams.
Expecting my younger self to be an expert self-manager would have been unrealistic and unfair. Yet, this is what we often expect from Agile Teams. We anticipate that they will self-manage, but how can a group of recently graduated software developers, for example, be expected to master critical paths, slack, dependency identification and resolution, value management, and other essential tools and techniques for achieving goals?
It’s not impossible and not every Agile Team is made up of inexperienced people, and some people learn quickly. However, it is important to at least ask: if our team is expected to self-manage, do we have sufficient management skills and experience within our team to do so successfully?
When we invite individuals into self-managing roles, we are essentially asking them to become managers and must provide opportunities for them to learn effective management skills. Project management has often been viewed as an impediment to agility, causing many to overlook valuable techniques inspected and adapted over the years. We shouldn't disregard these ideas but learn and apply what is beneficial. Just as organizations invest in other skills, they must recognize when their people are expected to manage and provide the necessary knowledge and support.
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