Resource Manager

1. Hires and coaches new development staff both full time or consultants

2. Allocates team members time and team resources assignments

3. Ensure teams are following security standards, standard operating procedures and development best practices.

4. Conducts performance management on team members.

5. Balancing activities (such as training, all-hands meetings, on-boarding, etc.) with work assigned through the scrum teams

6. Support team members to fully enable the agile development process

7. Supports on call rotation for production issues

In waterfall-based organizations, stable teams are often organized by function.

Managers of functional teams have many kinds of responsibilities--some more than others depending on the organization's culture and their personal strengths and style.

• Expertise: Experts in their field (e.g., business analysis, development, testing) are often promoted into leadership positions within a functional management structure because they excel at that function. As a result, resource managers of technical teams often also provide technical guidance and direction.

• Resource allocation and prioritization: Because team stability is organized around job function, projects require multiple resource managers to get together and forecast, prioritize, and allocate resources in order to accomplish work. As waterfall-style projects get disrupted by shifting priorities, resource allocation and prioritization require constant re-adjustment.

• Task management: Managers are often very involved in project tracking--particularly, in the sequencing, assignment, and reporting of the progress of the tasks assigned to their functional team members.

• Team facilitation: Managers take on monitoring blockers, removing impediments, and fighting fires for their staff--sometimes across multiple projects with competing priorities.

• Skill and people development: Managers provide a focus on skill development and creating high performing teams (within that function).

• Process improvement: Managers may also establish standards for tools and processes for the work associated with that function.

• Performance evaluation: Most organizations require yearly performance evaluations, and managers are expected to track individual performance throughout the year, to summarize these in yearly (or more frequent) reports, and to create individual professional development and performance improvement plans.

• Capacity planning, hiring, and firing: Resource managers work with program and portfolio managers to make sure that the organization has the capacity to meet the long-term needs in growing or shrinking areas of expertise.

In agile-based organizations, stable teams are self organizing and cross-functional.

Any responsibilities or functions upon which project work is dependent are moved to be within the cross-functional team.

• Expertise: Technical expertise is embedded within the team (e.g., as one of the few Technical Leads that make up an agile team), and these experts are expected to mentor and transfer their knowledge to others over time.

• Resource allocation and prioritization: Because the stability is organized around the cross-functional team, resources are already organized and available to take on work (projects) at predictable intervals (e.g., the end of a sprint or release). Prioritization is handled through the backlog grooming and release planning processes. The Product Owner is now responsible for telling the team what to work on, in what order, and why.

• Team facilitation: The Scrum Master manages the day to day facilitation of the meetings, adhering to process, removing impediments.

Agile Resource Managers can make or break agile teams.

While the expertise and team facilitation roles have been moved to other roles within the agile team, agile managers are key for providing ...

• Skill and people development: This is an area of greater emphasis than ever before. In fact, relieved of the responsibility to direct project work, managers have the opportunity to coach their people one-on-one, addressing individual growth plans, skill development, and behavior issues. Also, because individual success on agile teams is based on ability to collaborate and give healthy, transparent feedback, managers are needed more than ever to mentor team members through maturity in this process.

• Process improvement: Chair centers of excellence (aka Communities of Practice) around the functional areas in order to share best practices, create cross-team standards, and adopt common tools. The need for communities of practice is even greater in the agile methodology.

• Capacity planning, hiring, and firing: Resource managers still work with program managers and portfolio managers to do long-term capacity planning.

But what about individual performance evaluation?

In agile, individuals are, first and foremost, part of a team. Agile eschews creating unique superstars. (These individuals often become organizational bottlenecks.) Performance evaluations and rewards need to support the importance of collaboration and honoring team commitments. Resource managers in agile do provide input on individual performance, but they also collect feedback from others.

Ideas for planning for and evaluating individual performance:

• Write job descriptions that align with agile organizational vision and goals.

• Provide clear, role-based expectations.

• Request team goals as well as individual goals.

• Share individual goals openly with the team.

• Define up front the balance of meeting team-based goals and individual goals. (For example, 75% of performance is based on the team meeting its goals, and 25% on the individual meeting their individual goals.)

• Allow for guided 360 feedback (from the entire team) for each contributor, including a self evaluation. Get feedback from ~15 people to provide enough input to average out feedback.

• Match requested skill areas with mentors. Some of this can be handled through the Communities of Practice/Centers of Excellence. Get feedback from mentors.

• Provide multiple levels of rewards. Individual rewards build on team rewards.

• Other ideas in this video.

I'm a traditional resource manager. Where do I fit?

Switching from a traditional (functional) manager to an Agile Resource manager model asks managers to revisit what they love doing, what their strengths are, and how they want to grow. In all agile leadership positions (manager, Product Owner, Scrum Master, technical lead), servant leadership is key. Agile leaders trust their teams, allow for healthy mistake making, and coach their teams to share knowledge, rise to the occasion, and solve problems together. Except in the case of technical leads, giving solutions to them outright is rare. If servant leadership is your management style anyway, your skills and style are integral to agile. If your strengths are in other areas, consider which role fits you best.

"The real challenge is many managers are so used to being in the day-to-day details and managing the work level that this shift might be difficult, if not impossible, for some. It makes sense to put managers in the role that fits them best. So find for them a work management-related role such as Program Manager, Solution Lead, Architect, Systems/Business Advisor, etc. and grow the managers who are passionate about developing people into the Resource Manager role. " - [1]