Giving up control - lessons from barcamp
Now that the impressions from the barcamp e-government un-conference had a chance to settle in a bit it is time to look at some of the lessons learned.
First and foremost I saw the stunning results achieved if reverting from a command-control pattern to giving up control. Traditional projects are typically managed with tight control constraints. The project manager often has the feeling he/she must maintain control over the development process - even though it usually is not his/her core competency at all.
Most agile software development methodologies (particularly Scrum) hand over control of the development to the team and the customer. The project manager becomes more of a facilitator and administrator. That’s not to degrade him/her - on the contrary his/her relationship skills are very valuable to the team as he/she removes obstacles in the way of the team.
By giving up control of the session content and structure the organizers allowed the audience to steer the conference towards maximum value. There were some core themes but whenever something else (related or not) was closer to the heart of the attendants then it was addressed. Very much like an evolving “product”!
Another related lesson is probably that the initial organisation should be kept to a minimum and restricted to finding a venue and sponsors and getting the word out. Don’t worry too much about a structure or speakers as all that will change (anybody seeing familiarities with software projects?).
September 21st, 2007 at 2:06 am
In doing years of research on agile leadership with my consulting partner, Stephen Josephs, we discovered that agile leaders are adept in letting go of the control that most managers weild, yet in doing so they gain a more subtle and collaborative form of power that makes them and their team/organization more successful. For more connections between our new book, Leadership Agility, and the leadership of agile software products, see my recent short article in The Agile Journal: http://www.agilejournal.com/articles/articles/three-levels-of-leadership-agility.html