In this episode of the podcast, Agile Coach Dan Eberle is back to help me respond to a student question that is complicated, confusing, and more common than it should be…

Ivan (not the person’s real name) explained the situation like this…

Six Product Owners/Developers oversee 20 reports within the org. Each of the reports has a specialized role. They are broken up into teams that range in size from 1-5 people, and the team size tends to fluctuate. Some of the Product Owners/Developers oversee teams and are also the people managers of the individuals on the team. Some of the team members report to people managers who are Product Owner/Developers of other teams, team members of other teams, or people completely outside the grouping of 6 + 20. There is competition for the attention/efforts of team members who are allocated to more than one project and/or reporting to a people manager who has different priorities than the PO/Dev they are assigned to work with.

Basically, everyone is over-allocated and the people on your team, who you need to do the work you are responsible for, are being pulled in other directions either by the person they report to, or the other projects they are assigned to.

I tried to draw a picture of this. Ivan confirmed this was pretty accurate. https://bit.ly/30doyyk

During the conversation, Dan and I discuss the challenges this situation creates, potential responses, what the root cause of this problem might be and how to pursue solving that, rather than simply finding a coping strategy

To Learn More about the Lean Agile Visual Management course Dan and I are taking with Modus Cooperandi -> https://bit.ly/3HbZ6u6

Contacting Dan

LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3wGScbC

Twitter: https://bit.ly/3F6dkec