Friday, May 10, 2013

Perception is reality. Especially to the boss.

How involved is your senior management in the day to day?

Probably not a lot.

Which is why it's important to involve them in the Iteration demo's and publicize team achievements and project milestones. This isn't about blowing your own trumpet - it's about keeping the team productive.

The concept of the self organizing team is alien to most managers. A lot of them have probably gotten to where they are using a directive management style. When those management types can't see progress - they usually assume that none is being made. Then they start interfering and trying to fix things that aren't broken.

So make sure progress is visible and publicized - because perception is reality.