The bottleneck of false import

Dec 14, 11

I have only been at my current organization one year, but somehow I am already the definitive source for information. I am no technical expert, but find myself making technical decisions. I care so much about getting the job done (both well and on time) that I weigh in on technical decisions just to expedite.
Here’s the problem: with every new system and each project, more information is in my head and I become even more relied upon. But I am still one person with only so many waking hours, two ears, one mouth, and one tired brain. I have become a bottleneck without meaning to. No matter how much I decide or how many people rely on me to “be in charge,” projects aren’t getting done better or faster.
The solution: use all the knowledge I have of Scrum development and being an agile coach to forge a new path.
Turns out moving from the guy who knows everything to the agile coach ain’t easy. At this point, it’s equally changing my internal behavior as much as teaching others to adjust to my new external behavior.
I turned a meeting that was “standup” by name into a real scrum stand up. We answered the three questions, we tried to move conversations into follow ups; it was beautiful. Not perfect but beautiful.
Here’s how we did it: I acted as the Scrum Master. I told everyone the rules and enforced them. I tried to assist by recording the blockers so the speaker felt he could safely move on to the next person and his blocker would soon be addressed. The team did the rest. For now, I’ll setup the follow up meetings. One change at a time. Tomorrow we’ll do it again and hopefully it will be easier. By next week, I will try to have encouraged everyone enough that they setup the meetings and resolve their own blockers as a team.