I initially wanted to title this post ‘Command And Control Is The Primary Impediment’ but found I could not because I felt that would be misleading. Misleading in the sense that I would seem to espouse never using command and control as a method of management, especially in an Agile company on a Scrum team.

On the surface this is actually correct, command and control is the antithesis of what is required for a Scrum team and an Agile organization to survive and thrive. What is absolutely needed is self-organization and self-management in teams and servant leaders as managers and executives. Yet this does not mean that command and control behavior has no place in Agile, no place in Scrum. It does in my view it is just a subservient role.

Command and control is useful when it comes to breaking a deadlock when a team cannot make a decision or between teams differing priorities but most especially when dealing with organizational impediments outside of a team’s control. Sometime command and control is the only way to get something done. Especially when a team is not used to self organization or is flat out refusing to take responsibility for something they should.

In my view the best leaders know when to command and when to be servants to those that they lead. It is not an either or proposition but a ‘both and’ situation.