Micro-Management: The Path to Disappointment with Scrum
Are you a manager or director of a Scrum team that isn’t producing value as you expected? After all, Scrum is supposed to be the silver bullet, right? “Do” Scrum and watch the code fly out to production! Not seeing those results? You may be sabotaging your Scrum team through micro-management.
Take a moment to think about one of the core principles behind the Agile Manifesto:
`“The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams.”
The Agile Manifesto and the principles behind it are taught as part of almost all Scrum trainings. These ideals set the expectations for teams transitioning to an agile framework. Trained Scrum teams expect to adhere to these principles. Micro-managing undermines a team’s attempts to self-organize at every turn. The two simply cannot coexist within a team.
When managers and directors violate core agile principles, Scrum teams, especially newly formed teams, become discouraged and distrustful. Teams begin to question which principles will or will not apply in their organization. They feel lied to and betrayed. The excitement of working in a Scrum environment soon turns sour. The team works the same way they always did, they just have more meetings now.
