Scaling Agile: Management & Metrics

When it comes to scaling Agile, proper management is crucial.

A core principle of agile is a “self-organized” team, which means that the team decides the best way to work together and how they will accomplish their mission. But collaboration with stakeholders is also an agile principle. Traditional performance management makes these two principles difficult.

Traditional performance management focuses on the individual’s performance as measured by achieving KPIs or OKRs (doesn’t matter), that were decided upon many months in the past. Even more enlightened organizations that conduct performance reviews throughout the year, rely on individual performance without regard to variables beyond the individual’s control.

If you manage one or two teams, this is perhaps workable, though the manager is constantly in a reactive mode, responding to individual tasks or behavior related to desired outcomes. If one wishes to scale agility, this won’t work unless “performance management” is the only job of the manager.

In a truly agile environment, individual performance must be tied to team performance relative to its mission. Of course, the devil is in the details. What is a mission?

Defining the mission is the first opportunity for collaboration. The mission statement should be jointly developed between team members and stakeholders. The mission statement defines:

• The desired outcome of the team’s work from the perspective of its beneficiaries. Typically, management focuses on overarching goals, such as revenue or costs, in combination with minutiae-like tasks accomplished. Work, however, has an impact on those they work is for, whether internal teams or external customers. The mission must focus on outcomes from their perspective and not just efficiency.
• Metrics that represent the desired outcome, the work’s contribution to a larger entity, and progress toward objectives. Good metrics measure the positive impact on the beneficiaries, often measured by looking at their behavior. Teams are part of a larger entity that has its own objectives. Aggregating team outcomes should achieve the larger entity’s outcomes. Again, management tends to look at tasks to measure progress. X accomplished over Y time period should result in Z. But in an Agile environment, progress can be measured by beneficiary and stakeholder behavior which are much more powerful gauges.
• Strategic and behavioral guardrails. Knowing where one can play and what to avoid sets important limitations to where the teams might go, enabling them to focus on the work that will drive the biggest or most immediate impact. Additionally, company ethics must be reinforced at the team level, where a team’s social interactions tend to reinforce and amplify core values.
• Reporting cadence. Teams should be responsible for sharing progress metrics, challenges, and needs with stakeholders on a regular basis, rather than waiting for management to ask (or demand) updates. This is another way to make managers more proactive and strategic, rather than reactive and micromanaging.

Well defined missions are fundamental to allowing Agile to scale. They allow managers to analyze aggregate outcomes to ensure alignment with strategic priorities. They can reallocate resources and missions on the fly if necessary.

An individual’s performance should be measured by the team’s performance relative to its mission(s). But what about the other responsibilities for managing people’s careers? Mentorship, skill development, and career advancement should be managed outside of the work performed.

Matrix reporting systems have been around for decades, for better or worse, but separating work performance from personal growth is an important part of scaling Agile. It benefits managers as well as workers.

Managers benefit their own careers when learning how to mentor, not just manage. They also learn and benefit from helping others develop expertise in particular domains. It’s also helpful when career development can be objectively managed separately from a performance where the manager’s performance is also relevant.

Employees benefit from having a different view of their trajectory outside of their work for stakeholders. They are more in control of their career trajectory. They can receive mentorship regarding overcoming personal challenges or expanding their skill set in unique and rewarding ways. They benefit from interacting with other parts of the organization.

The biggest potential benefit to the organization is deprioritizing work that doesn’t materially benefit it. One of the biggest obstacles to more innovative thinking or more exploration behavior is time. The time that is limited by execution work often doesn’t achieve the desired outcome.