In my opinion, the key to making self-managing teams work is to delegate authority to the team, and also granting flexibility in making its own decisions. I guess the success will depend on building team trust, caring for the team members and also being socially and politically aware.
I guess you need mature trust relation Saving Changes...
No matter how you try to put it, leading self-managed teams is a non-sense. A team simply can't have a leader and be self-managed in the same time. Even if the leader lets the team members to take decisions in a democratic way it is still not a self-managed team since the leader can at any time override the decisions taken by the team.
In IT most PMs are just facilitators who have neither the knowledge nor the formal authority to take work-related decisions but usually you have technical leads who take work-related decisions and impose them on the other members. I have seen this happening even in SCRUM which is an Agile method that is theoretically based on self-managed team.
Empower the team through coaching and mentoring
Equip the team with knowledge, understanding, confidence, toolage, etc.
Enable the team by removing impediments, garnering support, and building partnerships
It will work but a lot of clear delegation and authority level.. Saving Changes...
I worked in such self-managed team in my latest project.
Our VP gave the directions and vision on what was expected. We had guard-rails to use when making decisions.
Definitely an oversight is needed to review the project as such. It is easy for team members to take up more work than they can deliver.
Leave them alone for the most part ;-) only coaching or mentoring as needed.
I did one time and it was not good .. I think you the team members to be mature and professional enough to do so.
...
1 reply by Rani Thompson
Jun 14, 2018 7:10 AM
Rani Thompson
...
I think a self managed team is not a possibility in real world situations. People from different aspects of life think differently. A team thus needs to be lead to the meet the vision/mission. The right collaboration needs to be worked out by some one. He/she can keep every one's interest and the mission in mind and decide on the best interests of all put together. Separate minds make separate decisions and may not be constructive to meet ends.
Too many cooks usually spoil the broth !. The bigger the team the messier it could get..!
Saving Changes...
Eric IsomOwner| learn.pmguaranteed.comUt, United States
Most of the software development teams that I have worked on and managed have been self-managed. To me, self-managed teams are still led, and the leader needs to be able to step in and help resolve disagreements when necessary, but most of the time the team members themselves collaborate on what needs to be done and which team members are best to do which tasks.
...
1 reply by Adrian Carlogea
Jun 14, 2018 3:18 AM
Adrian Carlogea
...
Managing an entity that is self-managed is a contradiction in terms. This simply defies logic.
Software developers usually disagree on technical issues and when this happens it is the lead developer the one who resolves these disagreements. Non-technical people usually don't even understand the disagreement let alone resolve it.
Most of the software development teams that I have worked on and managed have been self-managed. To me, self-managed teams are still led, and the leader needs to be able to step in and help resolve disagreements when necessary, but most of the time the team members themselves collaborate on what needs to be done and which team members are best to do which tasks.
Managing an entity that is self-managed is a contradiction in terms. This simply defies logic.
Software developers usually disagree on technical issues and when this happens it is the lead developer the one who resolves these disagreements. Non-technical people usually don't even understand the disagreement let alone resolve it. Saving Changes...
Rani ThompsonLogistics Supervisor| Grace FCC Catalysts M.E. LLCUnited Arab Emirates
Jun 13, 2018 6:29 PM
Replying to Kevin Drake
...
I did one time and it was not good .. I think you the team members to be mature and professional enough to do so.
I think a self managed team is not a possibility in real world situations. People from different aspects of life think differently. A team thus needs to be lead to the meet the vision/mission. The right collaboration needs to be worked out by some one. He/she can keep every one's interest and the mission in mind and decide on the best interests of all put together. Separate minds make separate decisions and may not be constructive to meet ends.
Too many cooks usually spoil the broth !. The bigger the team the messier it could get..!
...
1 reply by Adrian Carlogea
Jun 14, 2018 5:56 PM
Adrian Carlogea
...
I totally agree. People that claim that you can manage self-managed teams simply don't want to admit that this concept can't and doesn't work. Some teams may work in practice as if they are self-managed but there is always a technical lead or team lead that can take decisions by himself when this is needed.
As project managers are concerned, in IT at least, most of them have no technical background so they can't really manage and lead the team in the true sense of the word. Still even the least powerful PMs still can take some decisions by themselves in some circumstance and these decisions can impact the project team.
Probably most people working on projects wouldn't want to get involved in the project management work so they are not interested in the "power" that the PM may have. They are more interested in being involved in the technical decisions that would directly involve their work.
So trying to transfer project management from the PM to the team most likely would not make the team members happy on the contrary this can have a negative impact on them. Team members, in my opinion, usually want to be involved in the technical decisions that directly impact their work.
I think a self managed team is not a possibility in real world situations. People from different aspects of life think differently. A team thus needs to be lead to the meet the vision/mission. The right collaboration needs to be worked out by some one. He/she can keep every one's interest and the mission in mind and decide on the best interests of all put together. Separate minds make separate decisions and may not be constructive to meet ends.
Too many cooks usually spoil the broth !. The bigger the team the messier it could get..!
I totally agree. People that claim that you can manage self-managed teams simply don't want to admit that this concept can't and doesn't work. Some teams may work in practice as if they are self-managed but there is always a technical lead or team lead that can take decisions by himself when this is needed.
As project managers are concerned, in IT at least, most of them have no technical background so they can't really manage and lead the team in the true sense of the word. Still even the least powerful PMs still can take some decisions by themselves in some circumstance and these decisions can impact the project team.
Probably most people working on projects wouldn't want to get involved in the project management work so they are not interested in the "power" that the PM may have. They are more interested in being involved in the technical decisions that would directly involve their work.
So trying to transfer project management from the PM to the team most likely would not make the team members happy on the contrary this can have a negative impact on them. Team members, in my opinion, usually want to be involved in the technical decisions that directly impact their work. Saving Changes...
