Aug 27, 2021
This week, Dan Neumann is joined
by two Agile colleagues, Sam Falco and M.C. Moore. In today’s episode, they are taking a little
trip back in time to explore the impact Frederick Winslow Taylor
had on modern work. Taylor has been called the father of Scientific
Management and his thinking pervades the way teams work
today.
In this episode, the book
The Principles of Scientific
Management and its
principles are explored in comparison to the Agile modern ways. You
will hear about effectiveness, interactions, trust, productivity,
creativity, and accountability, among other valuable concepts that
today are seen and approached in significantly different manners as
a result of the evolution and progress in this field.
Key Takeaways
- The Principles of Scientific
Management was written
by Frederick Winslow Taylor and published in 1911
-
- Taylor had a special disdain for working people
that showed in his writings.
- How is Taylorism showing up today in modern
management?
-
- Overemphasizing Agile metrics
- The use of certain nomenclature
- Work smarter and harder.
- Productivity depends on the company to manage
not the people who are actually doing the work.
- What motivates people?
-
- The ability to be autonomous about the
work
- To have mastery and purpose
- Give people the goal and let them figure out
the “how.”
- Trust in workers is crucial and they need to be
motivated by their managers; if they receive fulfilling work to do
they will have the way to get it done
- Agility vs. Taylorism
-
- Agile considers interactions more important
than processes and tools, while in Taylorism the system is all that
matters and must be first.
- M.C. More shares a real Agile example where an
individual was very motivated to grow and expand in a company that
didn’t offer an opportunity for that at that point, so instead of
letting him leave, the organization created a new space for that
worker to thrive.
- Decentralizing decision-making down to the
level of the Agile Team is a break away from Scientific
Management.
- Taylorism wants to separate people from
decision-making as much as possible, exactly the opposite of what
Agile teams aim for.
- Companies are supposed to attack the system
when it is broken, not to try to manage the
individuals.
- It is really hard to be creative when you are
being micromanaged.
- Taylorism uses results for accountability while
in an Agile team everyone is holding each other accountable for the
work as one of the Agile principles says: Build projects around motivated individuals,
give them the environment, support their needs, and trust them to
get the job done.
- How does an Agile Team manage innovation and
new ideas?
-
- The biggest challenge in knowledge work is that
you are doing something that has never been done before
- New good ideas should diffuse across the team;
that does not mean everyone should be doing the same but they
should try them and see if they make sense with each team’s local
context.
Mentioned in this Episode:
The Principles of Scientific
Management, by
Frederick Winslow Taylor
Drive: The Surprising Truth
About What Motivates Us, by Daniel Pink
Humanocracy: Creating
Organizations as Amazing as the People Inside
Them, by
Gary Hamel and Michele
Zanini
Project Gutenberg: Books by Frederick Winslow
Taylor
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