Leadership - Further Explanation and Models

Self-Determination Theory

Autonomy

A Team should be aligned to an end-to-end value stream such that they can autonomously deliver “Done” increments of value that are as close to releasable as practical. This strategy reduces the inter-team dependencies and hand-offs. Teams should be masters of their own destiny and should not need to routinely hand off work to others.

Leaders should seek actively to remove such handoffs.

Competence

Competence in SDT is defined as “seeking to control the outcome and experience mastery”.

Leaders should:

• Ensure that people have opportunities to improve their skills through, for example, training and practice (e.g. running coding dojos).
• Encourage a culture of finding value in personal growth and motivation. Make sure that people’s need for competence is not removed, for example, by seeking to de-skill work.
• One great way of encouraging competence is to hold regular internal BarCamps.

Relatedness

Individuals have a deep need to be connected, interact with and experience caring for others.

What can leaders do?

• Set up teams so that this can develop - this requires stable teams which have a clear purpose to which the members can relate.
• Don't divide staff into "thinkers" and "doers" (Taylorism), which reduces engagement in those who are tasked with just "delivering" solutions which are invented by others.
• Actively encourage a culture where ideas can come from anyone.

An Example of Applying Self-Determination Theory to Improve Motivation and Engagement

Large multinational company with its own design department. Skilled designers (visual and interaction) were embedded in Scrum teams. These designers were appointed by the design department. Nevertheless, the design department’s creative directors insisted on reviewing and approving all aspects of design. This was demotivating for the teams, after much negotiation and some coaching, the creative directors agreed to:

• Improve the style guide
• Provide feedback on designs as part of sprint review meetings and elsewhere
• Stop requiring that they reviewed and need to approve all design decisions

As a result, the autonomy of the teams improved and motivation and engagement increased.

Impediment Removal Service

The impediment removal service is often provided by an Agile Transition Team or Executive Action Team. The key thing is that senior leaders get involved in action to help agile to flourish, for example by removing impediments.

References:

Diana Larsen, Circles and Soup

Scrum@Scale: The Executive Action Team

Scrum and the Enterprise: Schwaber

Intent Based Leadership: L. David Marquet

Leadership Agility

Bill Joiner et al