Doing complexity leadership theory: How agile coaches at Spotify practise enabling leadership

Bäcklander, Gisela

doi:10.1111/caim.12303

Cited by 69 publications

(100 citation statements)

References 74 publications

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“…Research in other project industries has found horizontal leadership practices to boost team coordination (Carte et al 2006;Galli et al 2016;Hsu et al 2017;Sullivan et al 2015), increase the ability of organisations to cope with change (Chreim et al 2010;Kempster et al 2014; Rambe and Dzansi 2016) and enhance innovativeness and creativity (Hu et al 2017;Kakar 2017;Lee et al 2015;Sun et al 2016;Wu and Cormican 2016). Importantly, horizontal leadership has also been found to dramatically improve the effectiveness of agile approaches to project delivery in other industries (Bäcklander 2018;Dybå et al 2014;Li et al 2018;Moe et al 2015;Moe et al 2019;Xu and Shen 2018). is an organizational quality shared by all'.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They argue that as organizations rally in response to volatile industry demands, horizontal leadership should be implemented as it creates 'an atmosphere that consists of high levels of involvement, cooperation, shared understandings about team goals and purpose, and a sense of recognition'. Additionally, horizontal leadership has been demonstrated to be effective in situations where agile project management methods are employed, particular in software development (Bäcklander 2018;Dybå et al 2014;Li et al 2018;Moe et al 2015;Moe et al 2019;Xu and Shen 2018). For instance, Li et al (2018) consider integrated software development teams employing agile project management practices and highlight how 'shared leadership provides the opportunity for team members to utilize their expertise and identify the best solution for a problem'.…”

Section: Exploring New Possibilities For Construction Leadershipmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Tension between Leadership Archetypes: Systematic Review to Inform Construction Research and Practice

2020

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In the literature on construction projects, the role of project managers in maintaining control over tasks and activities has been theorised comprehensively, placing a firm focus on vertical forms of leadership. Increasingly, construction firms are challenged with unprecedented operational uncertainty, brought about by changes to project environments, technology and labour. Similar challenges in other contexts have led to growing research on shared or horizontal approaches to leadership, which have been particularly effective in making organisations more agile in uncertain environments. Through a systematic review of 289 peerreviewed articles on leadership in construction, this paper considers the extent to which traditional vertical approaches to leadership are supplemented with horizontal and emerging balanced approaches to leadership across six bodies of construction leadership research. It contends that despite evidence for the increasing implementation of horizontal leadership practices on construction projects, vertical leadership theory dominates construction leadership research. In comparison, there is a dearth of research addressing horizontal leadership and 2 scarce consideration of balanced leadership. Based on the review, stronger integration of the balanced leadership archetype in research on leadership in construction is proposed as a logical means of advancing leadership theory in relation to six research vectors.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Exploring New Possibilities For Construction Leadershipmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tension between Leadership Archetypes: Systematic Review to Inform Construction Research and Practice

2020

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“…An agile coach is often hired to help teams and companies adopt and take advantage of agile methods [5]- [7]. The role is also called a Scrum coach [8], kanban coach [9], lean coach [8], or devOps coach [10].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The agile coach role has become especially popular following the recognition of its success at Spotify [12]. Currently, more than 58,000 people on LinkedIn have "agile coach" as a job title.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…1 The success of the agile coach at Spotify can be explained by the Agile Coach Guild, a community for coaches to develop their practices and spread knowledge about agile transformation to the whole company [13]. The agile coach role at Spotify started to differentiate from that of a Scrum Master, becoming less associated with the Scrum framework and more associated with teamwork, performance, and leadership [12]. An agile coach works on increasing motivation and improving coordination, knowledge sharing, and problem solving [14].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Agile Coach Role: Coaching for Agile Performance Impact

Stray¹,

Tkalich²,

Moe³

2021

Proceedings of the Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences

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It is increasingly common to introduce agile coaches to help gain speed and advantage in agile companies. Following the success of Spotify, the role of the agile coach has branched out in terms of tasks and responsibilities, but little research has been conducted to examine how this role is practiced. This paper examines the role of the agile coach through 19 semistructured interviews with agile coaches from ten different companies. We describe the role in terms of the tasks the coach has in agile projects, valuable traits, skills, tools, and the enablers of agile coaching. Our findings indicate that agile coaches perform at the team and organizational levels. They affect effort, strategies, knowledge, and skills of the agile teams. The most essential traits of an agile coach are being emphatic, people-oriented, able to listen, diplomatic, and persistent. We suggest empirically based advice for agile coaching, for example companies giving their agile coaches the authority to implement the required organizational changes within and outside the teams.

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Equity at the edge of chaos: Applying complex adaptive systems theory to higher education

Ueland

Hinds²,

Floyd

2021

New Drctns for Instit Rsrch

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Complex adaptive systems (CASs) theory provides a framework for understanding how systems of multiple, independent, and intelligent agents interact with each other in a nested and overlapping set of environments to create both a whole that has an identity apart from any of its individual components as well as a setting in which simple cause‐and‐effect relationships are rarely linear or predictable. CASs are resilient and ever‐evolving, adapting both to internal and external stimuli according to both tacit and explicit rule structures to move continually toward the better realization of an ideal state as defined by those rules. Managing change within CAS requires capitalizing on moments of disruption, sometimes referred to as the edge of chaos, to guide the system toward a different, more desired state. Higher education institutions and systems can easily be described as meeting the criteria for CAS, containing multiple layers of both hierarchical and collegial networks that seem at times to stubbornly resist transformative change, while simultaneously adapting and evolving. This article will use Minnesota State's Equity 2030 strategic priority and efforts to implement a shared understanding of data democratization as examples to explain the application of CAS theory to higher education and discuss how applying transition management approaches from the CAS literature has the potential to lead to long‐term and sustainable structural change.

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Doing complexity leadership theory: How agile coaches at Spotify practise enabling leadership

Cited by 69 publications

References 74 publications

Tension between Leadership Archetypes: Systematic Review to Inform Construction Research and Practice

Tension between Leadership Archetypes: Systematic Review to Inform Construction Research and Practice

The Agile Coach Role: Coaching for Agile Performance Impact

Equity at the edge of chaos: Applying complex adaptive systems theory to higher education

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