"Team managers should till the soil with their teams. Anything else is waste and waste must be rooted out."
This is not as easy to do as it may seem.
Ken sums the obstacles into what he calls "the two tremendous challenges":
- How to limit distractions in order to remain a reliable contributor
- How to balance your roles as both the boss and peer
In Ken's article, he describes a manager he oversees and describes that manager's practice as a good pattern to solve these problems.
His recipe consists of two parts:
- An experienced coach with people skills and authority over development practices pairing with the developers
- An experienced scrum master
Functional management, says Ken, can reside in one or the other or be divided up in some sensible and easily described way among the two of them. This, he says, enables direct participation in ongoing work, management attention to the team, and strategic contribution to the rest of the company.
I hear Ken loud and clear, and I agree—in principal, but this practice is so much easier described than executed.
In the weeks ahead, I will attempt to kick the tires of Ken's practice, and I'll report back with my findings.
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