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In the fourth chapter of the Agile Practice Guide, the Agile Alliance talks about creating an agile environment.   The first focus is on the role of the “servant leader” which is a change from the role of the traditional project manager.

A project manager manages and coordinates the activities of the project team; a servant leader, on the other hand, facilitates cooperation among members of the team.   Rather than making decisions on behalf of the team, they encourage the team to come up with its own solutions.

What does a facilitator do?

• Encourage collaboration–holding interactive meetings, promoting informal dialog between team members, encouraging knowledge sharing
• Expose and communicate bottlenecks–if there are impediments having to do with resources, then the facilitator needs to get the organization to provide those needed resources.   If the bottlenecks have to do with navigating the documentation required by the organization, the facilitator assists with this or tries to streamline the process in the organization at large in order to reduce unnecessary documentation that does not add value.  If the bottlenecks are internal having to do with communication issues or personality conflicts, then the facilitator helps resolve these.

The next post covers the other responsibilities of a servant leader.

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