Joseph A. Blotner

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Its More than Just Toys and FoodLeading Agile
Development in an Enterprise-Class Start-Up

• Joseph A. Blotner
• Senior Manager, Application Development
• Sabrix, Inc.

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Agile Development Conference June, 2003
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INTRODUCTION

• Current Advocated Manager Paradigm
• Minimize time wasters (buffer)
• Communicate with higher-ups and other
  organizations
• Step in when things go wrong
• Provide toys and food
• Do not get involved in day-to-day activities
• Alternative Approach
• Apply management best practices...discerningly
• Be involved, but dont impede productivity
• Be a permanent, consistent member of the team

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Problems with Being Too Hands-Off

• Five reasons to stay involved
• Engineers will try to fix everything they see
• An educated arbiter is sometimes needed
• Must know details to be an effective buffer
• Happy employees respect their manager
• Youve got to give performance reviews

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Sabrix Environment

• The Company
• Start-Up Company
• Enterprise Software
• Handful of customers
• Project schedules, pre-planned scope
• Dynamic requirements set
• The Discipline
• Short cycles, overlaid with traditional
  milestones
• All work estimated, estimates tracked
• Team is buffered from wasted time
• Unit testing, though not test-first
• Pair programming as requested/required
• Constant reworking of priorities as new
  requests come in

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Managing Must-Haves

• For success, a manager must...
• ... provide a safe environment
• ... recognize successes, correct mistakes
• ... keep engineers from fixing everything they
  see
• ... be a communication conduit (and cache)
  between team and other groups
• ... keep the product moving in the right
  direction
• ... keep the team happy, challenged and
  motivated
• ... provide toys and food
• ... know when to get out of the way

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A Good Manager

• What makes a good manager?
• Ability to translate customer requests into
  system architecture
• Intuition for what does and does not make sense
  for the product
• Significant technical knowledge
• Sensitivity
• Courage, humility and a thick skin
• Accountability

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The Player-Coach

• Coach and a Player-Coach
• Coach is on the sidelines, player-coach is in
  the game.
• Coach may remember what it was like to play
  then player-coach knows what its like to play
  now.
• Coach knows that there is much pressure on
  players player-coach feels the pressure every
  day
• Coach works about as much as the players
  player-coach works much more than the players

If you cant be a player coach, you can still be
successful, through the use of trusted proxies.
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Conclusion

• Why an involved Manager?
• Even the best teams need strong, involved
  leadership
• You cant buffer the team if you dont know
  enough
• You cant help with decisions if you dont know
  enough
• Mutual respect is key to motivation
• Its more fun!!

A strong, involved manager makes the product, and
those who work on it, better!
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Q A
Questions?