Move back to self organizing teams#32

The Scrum Guide moved away from self organizing teams. They now call it self managing teams. This is confusing and on top of that moves away from the Agile Manifesto.

Best to change it back.

I don’t agree with this @Willem-Jan Ageling . I find that there are too many dysfunctional teams out there that are limited to what they can do or not do. e.g. they are limited to organise themselves as a scrum team as long as it fits in with the traditional waterfall project plan.

Most self-organising teams are held accoutable and responsible to self-organise, but have no authority or ownership to change things that are affecting them. Self-management elevates this and empowers teams to do more. For me it widens the self-organisation boundries and allows ownership and change.

I think the 20 year old manifesto needs to be updated with the modern world. :)

@Brett wgat is according to you self organisation and wgat is self-management?

What does self managing mean? management is supervising or to conduct something, usally according to a plan. In a situation where there is no managing role, what is the team managing and on who’s behalf?

Is it a way to say that the team should operate without supervision so they should also manage finance and strategy?

Self organizing I get as I assume that means the team decide on their structure and how they work within the limittions placed on them.

self-managing is a great term - and it does not have to be super specific. it can be as small as being responsible - besides the organization of their work - for hiring and firing at least and potentially going beyond to be responsible for salaries, bonuses and yes, technical or even product strategy if applicable. It all depends on the organization around them and the competencies within the team.
I think it’s a good idea to aim beyond the organization of the work to the complete management of the team and the product.
Is it realistic in most organizations? Not in the corporates. But in some smaller, healthier environments? probably yes.

@Tamás Hajdu are you sure self-management can mean many things? I was thought self/organisation is that. I vividly remember a great graph by Gunther Verheyen explaining the different stages of self organisation.

I see two issues in this thread of responses:

• there’s no agreement on the terms
• there’s no clarity what I try to say with move back to self organisation

I mean that self organisation allows for more liberty in what a team can organise themselves. And making it clear it aligns with the manifesto

@Willem-Jan Ageling Thanks for mentioning Gunther Verheyen. I could not find the “stages of self organisation” but found his glossary where he defines “self-management” and “self-organization”: https://guntherverheyen.com/scrum-glossary/
I understand now, why you suggest to go back to the term that was previously used. Personally, because many people are not familiar with the actual definition of the terms and the differences, I’m happy the new Scrum Guide calls out that the members of the Scrum Teams “internally decide who does what, when, and how”. In addition to that self-managing teams, as described by Richard Hackman in his book “Leading Teams”, have resposibility not only for executing the task but also for monitoring and managing their own performance. A very critical aspect in my opinion in Scrum that often is ignored. I teach in my LeSS courses this aspect and I like here the clarity that Hackman introduces regarding the definition of self-managing, self-designing and self-governing teams.
I agree with Rich Visotcky who mentions in his article that “self-organization was not removed from Scrum” (https://www.scrum.org/resources/blog/scrum-team-self-managing) and there are aspects of self-designing and even self-governing teams that are encouraged in Scrum, but I don’t think that just using the word “self-organized team” without a clear reference what that means is helpful.