1. Benefits of Servant Leadership
& Self-Organisation in Software
Development
Neil Killick
June 2012

2. Who am I?
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16 years in “software industry”, background in
development
Last 3+ years, Agile team leader & coach
 Scrum Master
 Product Owner
Twitter: neil_killick
Blog: http://neilkillick.com

3. Leadership in Agile - The Scrum
Master role
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Scrum Master is specifically Scrum
Also known as Iteration Manager, Agile
Project Manager or (less commonly)
Agile Master
SM focuses purely on the people
aspect of delivering projects (which
is everything)
SM leads, coaches, guides & mentors the
team to its own success

4. What about Project management?
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Project (work) management is shared by the SM, Product
Owner & Team
PO calls the shots in terms of work priorities & release
dates (the “boss” of the product)
SM fosters an environment of team empowerment, selforganisation, positivity & success
People WANT to succeed
& will if encouraged, trusted
& supported rather than
being asked or told to

5. Servant Leadership
Scrum Master is the leader - NOT the “boss” or the
“manager” - of the team (aka Servant Leader)

6. Servant Leadership
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Role of SM embodies what a good leader should
be (as opposed to a good boss)
Opposite of Command &
Control leadership
SM serves the team, not the other
way round
Helps the team achieve their goals, not
tell them what to do or do things for them
SM does not remove impediments;
they help the team remove their own
impediments (“teach a man how to fish…”)

7. Traits of Command and Control
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Subtly present in almost
all (dysfunctional) organisations,
not just those with tyrant bosses
Metrics that encourage
playing the system, e.g. velocity
targets, actual vs. estimate
Metrics that promote
fear of failure, e.g. must complete
all stories by release date, individual performance
targets
Telling people to “work harder”
or work longer hours/weekends

8. Consequences of Command and
Control
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Moaning at the water-cooler (“grrrrr I want to
kill my boss!”)
Intra and inter-team conflicts
Death marches (“get it done
at all costs!!”)
Compromises made in product
quality & employee well-being
Short-term wins vs.
long-term sustainability
Technical debt

9. An alternative: Self-Organisation
“The best architectures, requirements, and designs
emerge from self-organizing teams.”
– from the 12 principles of Agile

10. Self-Organisation
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Team organises itself to work in optimum way
Enabling self-organisation is the most effective way to get
the best out of people
If you have a cross-functional team full of individuals hired
to do a particular job, they will
know best how to do that job
Metrics used by teams because
they want to improve, not by managers
who want their teams to improve
Teams buy in to the vision & are
given the environment and tools to succeed

11. Self-Management
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What about people management? Team manages itself
If a process is pushed upon a team, they may accept it
but will never truly own it or care about it
If the process isn’t working, team will complain rather
than fix the process because that’s all they
think they’re allowed to do
Team wall allows team to visualise,
inspect and adapt their process and
creates a shared story of work

12. Self-Organisation/Management
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Two sides of the same coin; one leads to the other
Leaders emerge, as does process and continuous process
improvements (kaizen, retrospectives)
Particularly true in knowledge management
work such as software development,
which is a creative pursuit for
smart, motivated people
Under which conditions do
you work best?

13. Thank you
Any questions?