What the hell happened to small cross-functional teams?

Let’s take a look at the average “Scrum Team” companies end up with today:

• A Technical Product Owner

• A Scrum Master

• A Delivery Manager

• A Tech Lead

• A line manager lurking in the background

• A Product Manager

• The sponsor

And somewhere in the middle of all that noise… 4–6 people who actually do the real work.

What's wrong with this picture?

This isn’t a team. It’s a bloated, over-engineered org chart in disguise. We’ve stuffed the simple, elegant idea of a cross-functional team into a bureaucratic mess. The people making decisions aren’t the ones doing the work. The ones doing the work are outnumbered by people with clipboards.

The worst part is that there are more managers who manage a self-managing team. 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

What it was meant to be

• A Product Manager taking on the Product Owner accountability, and likely across multiple teams.

• 4–6 developers, with one of them taking on Scrum Master accountability. They are self-managing!

• A line manager in the background who supports the team by keeps the financials, recruiting, logistics, operations and resources needed for a productive team in check. They use their position to help remove impediments where the team are struggling.

• An Agile Coach around for a “call-a-friend” moment if the squad feels stuck

That’s it. No mess. No middle layers. No cargo cult titles or jobs designed to look agile while acting with outdated 1917’s scientific management thinking in a totally different century.

So what’s the cost?

Let’s talk about waste.

How much money are we burning on these overloaded roles and layers of management?
How much time is lost jumping through red tape and second-guessing decisions that should have been made on the spot by the team?
How much value isn’t being delivered because of the additional meetings, delays, approvals, and handoffs?

The cost-of-delay in getting products out the door is real. Every extra layer slows things down. Every person added with conflicting accountability adds friction and confusion.

Agile was meant to empower.
Scrum was meant to simplify.
Instead, the numpties have Frankensteined it into a bloated parody of itself.

Time to cut the crap

We need small, self-managing teams with all the skills needed to complete the job. It works, it’s fast, it’s effective, and it costs less. If you cannot do this, you have a numpty in the management structure. Yep, I am being brutal, but it’s time for a reality check for what it takes to build products in the current market with current challenges. Companies need to move beyond outdated management practices when building complex products.

#FrakAgile

If anyone knows who originally created the idea of that image, I would like to credit them.