agile architect as servant leader

Agile Architect as Servant Leader

Johanna RothmanAgile and Lean Program Management: Scaling Collaboration Across the Organization

@[email protected]

781-641-4046

http://www.jrothman.com

© 2015 Johanna Rothman@johannarothman

Poll for Context

• How many of you feel as if you are the “one and only” architect for your organization?

• How many of you feel as if you are the lead architect for several projects/products in the organization?

• How many of you work on programs (collections of projects with one business objective)?

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Problems with Agile Architecture

• We don’t want BDUF

• We don’t want a central “authority”

• Destroys autonomy

• Teams will do what they want anyway

• We do want to have an idea of where we’re headed

• Wo do want to know the architecture will have integrity

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Architecture Helps Products

• We have a coherent vision

• We might have a clearer idea about when to make decisions

• We have a way to discuss the whole and the parts

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Architecture Helps Us See and Solve Problems

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The bigger the product, the bigger the problems.

The more we need architecture.

How do architects fit?

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Agile Invites Collaboration and Change

• The bigger the product, the more people work on architecture

• Unless you are doing advanced development with one or two people, more teams will address architecture

• Architect-as-Lone-Wizard doesn’t fit with agile culture

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Architects as Servant Leaders

They are self-aware.

They listen.

They share the power.

They help other people grow.

They coach people, not control them.

They unleash the energy and intelligence of others.

They work to develop their foresight, so they can act, not react.

— From Keith: The Case for Servant Leadership

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Self Aware

• Reflection to understand own strengths and weaknesses

• Build on strengths

• Manage weaknesses

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Listen

• Gather feedback and data

• Exploring

• Wayfinding

• Balancing the different needs

• Align to business needs

• Optimize for the product

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Share the Power• Collaborate, rather than

dictate

• Tempting to tell people what the answer is, rather than explore possibilities with them

• What do you do if you can’t get other people to collaborate with you or someone thinks there is no time to collaborate?

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Help Other People Grow

• Who has the capabilities to be a great architect?

• How can you help that person grow?

• How are you working yourself out of your current job to a better one?

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Coach, Not Control

• We don’t control other people’s actions. We offer them possibilities.

• Coaching is offering options with support

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Unleash Others’ Potential

• When you help other people succeed, you look like a star

• Consider

• Autonomy

• Mastery

• Purpose

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Develop Foresight• With significant experience

you can predict (some of) the future

• Potential risks for the product

• Potential performance/reliability concerns

• Potential technical debt concerns

• …15


Satir Change Model

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Many Changes• For you:

• Your sense of worth

• What you do

• How you work

• For the organization

• Compensation

• How people work together

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Experiment• Agile changes everything (by

inviting change)

• Your organization might not consider servant leadership

• With experiments, you:

• Measure

• Try something for a short timebox

• Measure again and see what happens

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Possibilities for Experiments• Architectural kanban

• Architectural spikes with a feature team

• Architecture CoP

• Direct coaching

• Work with people across the organization

• What else can you imagine experimenting with?

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How can you, as an agile architect, shepherd the business

value of the architecture?

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We Need Great Architects & Architecture

• How will you make it happen?

• How can you serve the product and the people on the project so you increase the organization’s capability?

• What’s your superpower?

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Let’s Stay in Touch• Please link with me on LinkedIn:

• www.linkedin.com/in/johannarothman

• Subscribe to the Pragmatic Manager newsletter:

• http://www.jrothman.com/pragmaticmanager/

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agile architect as servant leader

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