Presented at MAE in October 2015

1. Leading Agile
Tom (TC) Churchwell
SenteConsulting.Com

2. What is Leadership?

3. What is Servant Leadership?

4. Moving From
Command & Control
To
Inspire & Enroll
20

5. 7

6. Agile Culture
9

7. What is agility?
6How do we “Know” we are agile?

8. Why it matters

9. Here’s what I look for:
● Organization:
● Teams over Projects
● Safety to buck the system & disagree
● Teams
● Self-Organizing
● Autonomous
● Craftsmanship
● Fun
● Development
● Whole Team Quality
20

10. 10

11. Peak Performance Cycles
●High Performing Teams have conflicts
●They also have robust methods for resolving conflicts
●Conflicts DON’T become roadblocks
●Safety to surface issues
●All complaining is not bad -
●We have to start somewhere - Just take ownership
●Gripes go UP, not down - Saving Private Ryan
●Self-Organizing
●Sometimes leaders inject anomalies for the team to
overcome
●Exploratory Testing to eliminate dreaded “punch-lists”
●Personnel reductions
●Change the People or “Change the People”
●It is a disservice to keep someone on who is not a fit
20

12. Why it matters
●Teams Over Projects
●Form, Storm, Norm, Perform - only once
●Safety
●People with authentic voices produce 100X better results
●Self-Organizing
●First Stage of lower cost for delivery
●Autonomy
●Projects get delivered on-time/on-budget
●Craftsmanship
●Competitive Advantage/Innovation
●Fun
●Peak Flow
●Whole Team Quality
●TCO
20

13. What is Self-Organization?
● Teams Self-Determine:
● Who will do what
● When
● In what order
● With what tools
● Marked by:
● Lots of Collaboration
● Arguing
● Banter
● Laughter
● Creativity, Ownership, Innovation, High-
Performance, Quality!
20

14. What is Autonomy?
● Organization:
● Scary Loss Of Control
● Death of Micro-Management
● Teams
● Self-Determination of Commitments
● Ownership of Commitments
● Sustainable Pace
● The Death Of Involuntary Death Marches
● Individuals
● Qualitative Life-Change
20

15. What is Craftsmanship/Innovation?
Practices NOT Directly Related To Our
Projects or Industry, Yet, Essential To High
Performance & Flow
● Life-Long Learning
● Team Building Off-Sites
● Lazer-Tag, etc…
● WISE (Weekly Information Sharing/Education)
● Functional Areas Shared Practices
● Retrospectives
● Innovation Tournaments
20

16. 16
Craftsmanship - Context - Innovation

17. 17
Keys
● Leaders
● Provide Context - Tell a Story - Start With Why
● Inspire Life-Long Learning
● Put Teams First - Servant Leaders Eat Last
● Organization:
● Inspire & Enroll NOT Command & Control
● Teams and Team-full Behaviors
● Safety to Complain and Have Healthy Conflict
● Teams
● Self-Organizing
● Autonomous - Self-Determined
● Crafts-People
● Have Fun!

18. 18
Next Steps For Leaders
● Organization:
● Teams over projects
● Safety to buck the system & disagree
● Teams
● Encourage Ownership - Self-Organizing
● Create a Clearing for Autonomy
● Build in Time for Craftsmanship
● Organize Fun Events
● Products
● Insist on Whole Team Ownership of Quality