![]() They have shifted the goal of the entire organization from maximizing shareholder value to delighting the customer. These firms constitute what has been called the Creative Economy. Some organizations, like Apple, Google and Zara, do things differently. ![]() All that remains are the empty phrases and labels of Agile, not the reality. Like the failed management fads of the 20th Century, it degrades and undermines everything in Agile that is authentic and useful. The approach preserves and supports the existing management top-down shareholder-focused ideology, as well as C-suite's extravagant bonuses for maintaining it.īut in the process of “aligning” Agile teams with corporate goals such as making quarterly profits and pumping up the stock price, SAFe destroys the very essence of Agile. One can see why such an approach will be popular with traditional managers because it saves them the trouble of making any change. In effect, they seek to shoehorn the customer-focused practices of Agile into top-down shareholder-focused goals and structures of the organization. They aim to resolve the tension between Agile and management under the guise of “aligning” teams with corporate goals. The consequence is that, economy-wide, only one in five employees is fully engaged in his or her work, and even fewer are passionate.Įqually, some of the current efforts to “scale Agile,” such as the Scaled Agile Framework or SAFe, are counterproductive. In effect, the C-suite must compel employees to obey. The alliance makes for an environment that is hostile to Agile and dispiriting for staff. The result is an unholy alliance between shareholder value and hierarchical bureaucracy. So the top management has no choice but to use command-and-control in order to get a tight focus on producing strong quarterly profits and a rising stock price. Making money for the boss doesn’t put a spring in their step as they come to work. One reason for the adherence to top-down command-and-control approaches to management is that the goal of making money for the shareholders and the top executives is inherently uninspiring to those doing the work. Is it feasible to get the upper layers of a large organization to buy into Agile and the new role of managers without reaching agreement on the goal of the organization? Experience suggests not. Unless this issue is resolved, the adoption of Agile at the team level is unlikely to stick. When those two different goals are espoused in different parts or different levels of the organization, there is permanent friction. In Agile, making money is the result, not the goal. The primary goal of making money for shareholders is at odds with the values of Agile where the primary focus is on delivering value to the customer. This approach is known in management circles as, “maximizing shareholder value.” The goal has been widely condemned, even by Jack Welch, as " the dumbest idea in the world,” but it is still very prevalent in large organizations. One reason why the upper layers are working at odds with Agile is that the goal of big firms is usually to make money for the shareholders and the top executives, by way of quarterly profits that can be reported to the stock market. It is unlikely to stick if all the layers above haven’t also bought into the new goal and approach. Yet this approach offers only a partial and temporary solution, for several reasons.įirst, how robust will this formal approval be in a big organization where there may be three or more layers above the manager’s manager? In other words, the friction between the Agile team and the hierarchy has simply been moved one layer up the hierarchy. With luck, this job description may even be formally approved by his or her manager. A new job description can be developed for the supervising manager that is consistent with the enabling ideology of Agile. ![]() A partial fix to deal with the tension between Agile and management can be to redefine the role of the immediate supervisor of the Agile team in a way that is more consistent with Agile.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |