Being a successful Agile software developer manager requires you to be a motivator, translator, and taskmaster. Many companies have separate teams that can work on different projects and produce valuable applications. These companies expect their code to be high-quality, secure, easy-to-maintenance, with low defects, and capable of meeting business objectives while minimizing technical debt. Many large companies that have multiple Agile teams need to recognize the roles and responsibilities of key members and the management team in order to achieve a balance between standard principles and self-organizing.
It is therefore important to define the role of the manager. Agile development provides guidelines for product owners, scrum masters, and team members. There are many gray areas in most frameworks and practices that address the role of software developers managers. Let’s dive deeper and reveal the five main responsibilities of an Agile software developer manager.
1. Discuss Implementation Trade-Offs With Product Owners
To align teams with requirements and acceptance criteria, the user and feature stories must clearly define ‘what’ and ‘why’. Technically, it is not necessary to specify how the feature will be implemented. However, many product owners would like to include the details of the implementation in the user stories. The problem with a prescriptive model for a story or feature is that it binds the development teams to a rigid implementation framework that can be costly or difficult to scale. When there aren’t many requirements, the team can take initiative and create the plan that best suits the business and the needs. If the requirements are too complex, the software development manager should clarify and classify multiple implementation options with product owners. This approach is more effective and produces better results.
2. Provide best practices and standards to members of the team
The most difficult task for an architect is explaining best practices and standards to the team. It is also difficult to get them to use these standards correctly, especially in large software companies. There may be experts within your team who are willing to explore other ways of doing things beyond what is recommended in the best practices and standards. You might also have less-experienced professional developers who don’t understand the coding challenges or the practices. You must be able to understand the mindset and skills of each member in order to manage Agile software development. You must also review the implementations objectively to identify the best practices and standards that are applicable. These can be translated to your team and shared with architects.
3. It is not possible to challenge backlogs that are not focused on innovation and technical debt
Product owners usually work with customers and stakeholders to establish product visions, feature priorities and roadmaps. They are constantly under pressure to deliver more features and satisfy stakeholders with their priorities. Sometimes, this pressure can lead to an excessive Agile Backlog, which is overloaded with features, aswell as insufficient ability to innovate, experiment, or deal with technical debt. Sometimes, it is necessary to do some projects quickly when critical business functionality must be delivered in a short amount of time. The team must return to stability, where innovation, technical debt priorities, as well as features, are balanced. Dashboards on the backlog are one way to make priorities more transparent and effective. While the teams can create additional processes and governance to manage technical debt, there should always be an active leader at the helm of affairs.
4. High-Quality Releases on an Agreed Schedule
An Agile software development manager’s most important responsibility is to ensure that high-quality releases are delivered on time. Poor implementation can put an organization at risk if it is perceived as inconsistent, undependable, or negligent in terms of timeline and quality. The Agile manager is responsible to identify the root cause of the problem and handle it. You should consider all options. You might also consider demonstrating your frustrations and discussing them. This will help you identify the problem and work together to solve them. Another option is to review the data and collect additional information.
