What Do Managers Do in an Agile Org?

“If Agile teams are self-organizing, what do the managers do?“ Two decades into the Agile movement, it’s still surprisingly hard to find a clear answer to that simple question. Search the internet for answers, and you’ll find

* over-simplified memes about the difference between leaders and managers

* some experts claiming we should just get rid of all the managers

* others providing well-meaning but fuzzy advice, like telling managers they just needed to learn how to be servant leaders to the teams

None of these answers really help a smart, well-intentioned manager add value in practical ways for an empowered, self-organizing team. So, at Humanizing Work, we’ve studied what the best managers do in highly-empowered orgs.

This session covers what we learned: that there are just three jobs managers need to do in an Agile organization, two things to avoid, and two ways to focus on each job.

This session will help managers understand what to focus on day-to-day in their work for maximum impact, it’ll help coaches coach managers to be more effective, and it’ll help all employees identify what to ask for from their manager for the best results.

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