2. The Psychology of Agile Team Leadership

For modern managers, one has to adopt a new philosophy, or psychology, for dealing with agile development teams. While process is important to ensure the team delivers quality software that meets customer requirements, it is important to understand that the Agile Method is geared around more of an informal approach to management, while putting more time, effort, and emphasis on flexibility, communication, and transparency between team members and between the team and management. It promotes an environment of less control by managers and more facilitation by managers. The role of the manager takes on a new psychological role, one of removing roadblocks, encouraging openness and communication, and keeping track of the change-driven environment to ensure that the overall product meets in goals and requirements, while not putting too much control on the ebb and flow of the agile development process. Change is no longer wrong, the lack of ability to change is now wrong. Here we discuss the new “soft” people skills required for modern managers, and how they add/detract from modern agile development. How to recognize the skills, how to utilize the skills, and how to build teams with the right “mix” of personalities and soft people skills for effective and efficient development efforts [71].