As a Product Leader, I see so many opportunities for translating Agile Scrum methodologies to leadership in non-development departments. Let’s explore how product management principles can be applied to effectively lead teams and improve performance and morale across non-development departments such as implementation, support, and sales.
Agile Scrum rituals are designed to promote transparency, collaboration, and continuous improvement. These principles can be applied beyond software development to help teams in other departments work more efficiently and effectively. Let’s take a look at how Agile Scrum rituals can be translated to leadership in non-development departments. The overall goal is to make incremental progress allowing your teams to pivot quickly and iterate in real-time. It allows for long-term planning with short-term check-ins creating more available time for teams to work and reducing the overall communication gaps and meeting overload.
Daily Stand-up Meetings
The daily stand-up meeting is an Agile Scrum ritual where team members share updates on their progress and plan their work for the day. In non-development departments, this ritual can be adapted to have a daily check-in where team members share their priorities and any blockers they may have. This can help promote transparency and accountability among team members, as well as identify any issues that need to be addressed. The true goal of the daily standup is to allow a specified time (typically morning) for you as the leader to check-in with your team. Provide any pertinent updates but ultimately hear from each member of the team on what they did yesterday, what they’re doing today, and where they have any blockers. This meeting is specifically to clear blockers and allow the team more time to focus on priorities then provide updates throughout the day.
Sprint Planning
Sprint planning meetings are where the team plans their work for the upcoming sprint. A sprint is a specified time-boxed period where a definable chunk of work is committed to. In traditional product management teams, this is typically a week or two weeks. The team measures their total capacity and plans work based on the capacity. The goal is to complete all work that is scheduled within that sprint. One or two-week sprints allow teams to pivot and adjust throughout a quarter depending on team size and efficiency. Let’s look at a non-development group like an implementation or sales org. You may have a backlog of tickets or a number of sales calls that are required to be made. The bandwidth your team has defines their throughput and by massaging your capacity in two-week increments you can also project much farther into the future and provide more accurate, real-time reporting to your leadership groups.
Sprint Retrospectives
Sprint retrospective meetings are where the team reflects on their work from the previous sprint and identifies areas for improvement. In non-development departments, this can work very much the same. A regular retrospective meeting is held at the end of a sprint where the team reflects on their performance and identifies ways to improve. This can help promote a culture of continuous improvement and innovation, as well as boost team morale by providing an opportunity for feedback and recognition.
One of the keys to success with retrospectives is allowing everyone to be open, honest, and transparent. This is not a finger-pointing exercise but a way to calmly address issues within the team in order to operate more cohesively. Retrospectives are a great opportunity to recognize team members who went above and beyond. It’s a way to grow camaraderie within your team. Doing this on a regular basis can improve your team’s micro-culture and create better working relationships.
Product Backlog Grooming
The product backlog is a prioritized list of work items that the team needs to complete. In product and development orgs this is typically small definable chunks of work that can be completed in two weeks or less (depending on how long your sprints are). The product backlog consists of any and all asks of the product team that needs to be reviewed, groomed (broken down into details), and prioritized against your roadmap and other unplanned work.
In non-development departments, this concept remains the same but the execution may be slightly different. Let’s look at an example. A typical support queue has more work then the team can ever accomplish. Many times these tickets or support requests have SLAs attached to them. Grooming can be a hugely beneficial exercise because it forces a review of the backlog. This grooming allows you to close tickets that are no longer an issue, review tickets against others for priority, and manage your SLA’s better. This can also signal to customer-facing teams where in the workflow their customer’s requests are at.
At the end of the day, the team size and bandwidth are relatively consistent. By regularly reviewing your backlog you can make smarter decisions and ensure none of your high-priority support requests go unanswered.
Sprint Review Meetings
Sprint review meetings are where the team showcases their work from the previous sprint and receives feedback from stakeholders. In non-development departments, this can be adapted to have a regular review meeting where the team showcases their accomplishments and receives feedback from their peers and managers. This can help promote transparency and collaboration, as well as provide an opportunity for recognition and feedback. Most often there is a “thing” being tracked. In an implementation, it can be X number of setups per sprint. In sales it could be did we hit the call quota or meeting quota for the given sprint. These are typically tracked in dashboards providing metrics. While sales quotas and performance dashboards are not directly related to product management principles the cadence is. By shortening the review time you can make better decisions and target problem areas before they get too big.
Agile Scrum methodologies translated to leadership in non-development departments can help promote transparency, collaboration, and continuous improvement. By adapting Agile Scrum rituals to fit the unique needs of non-development departments, leaders can help improve team performance and morale while shortening the cycle time for adjustments and coordination. By focusing on these principles, leaders can help create a culture of innovation and success in their organizations while minimizing stress and providing better visibility to the rest of the business.