Operating Agile Management Teams Competency

By Jeroen Stoter, Co-owner and author, Connected Movement | A Community Contribution

Which roles would benefit from mastering this competency? 

This competency is intended for leaders and change agents who play a pivotal role in steering the organization during an Agile transformation. It is particularly relevant for management teams and senior leaders responsible for aligning strategy, execution, and organizational culture. The focus is on developing leadership practices and team dynamics that foster agility, enable value delivery, and create the conditions in which teams can thrive. By mastering this competency, leaders enhance their ability to navigate complexity, address systemic impediments, and sustain business success in a constantly changing environment.

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Learning about the Operating Agile Management Teams Competency

In this competency, a Management Team (MT) refers to the formal leadership group responsible for the overall direction, coordination, and performance of a business unit, department, or value stream. Typically composed of managers from different functional areas, MTs have shared accountability for delivering outcomes, executing strategy, and enabling teams to succeed.

Unlike ad hoc leadership collectives or steering groups, an MT meets regularly, governs day-to-day priorities, makes portfolio-level decisions, and sets the tone for organizational culture. In Agile transformations, this group plays a pivotal role—not only in aligning on strategy, but in modelling the behaviors and mindset shifts needed to create an adaptive, value-driven organization.

A truly Agile Management Team does not just oversee work; it actively shapes the conditions in which teams can thrive. It functions as one team with a shared purpose, rather than a collection of managers each responsible for their own silo. The MT becomes a key enabler of cross-functional collaboration, continuous improvement, and strategic alignment.

This competency is critical for enabling a sustainable Agile culture, one in which people are inspired by purpose, empowered to act, and supported in their development. It provides the leadership DNA that underpins a truly Agile organization.

Steering in an Agile organization

A traditional Management Team traditionally operates from a mindset informed by the iron triangle, focusing on the independent elements of time, costs, and scope.

• Time concerns the available time to achieve results.
• Costs encompass the labor hours and other expenses allocated to the task.
• Scope outlines the work to be executed.

The level of quality is a result of investments in time, costs, and scope. Traditionally, projects are often approached using a project-based method, where each project is broken down into sequential phases. Each phase is fully developed, documented, and completed before the next one begins.

In an agile organization, a Management Team that truly embraces Agile principles shifts its focus to a different triangle: namely, enhancing value, reliably delivering quality, and continuously improving the system by resolving impediments and experimenting.

In this approach, the elements of scope and time are flexible, and costs are considered a given. With this approach, prioritizing the delivery of value is fundamental. This value can be customer value, employee value, and/or technological value. The realized value is central to all activities and is transparently visible to everyone. The success of activities is measured by the quality of delivery and the organization’s ability to adapt to changing customer demands, new regulations, and technology.

Finally, the Management Team (MT) guides the continuous improvement of the system by actively addressing the impediments that every organization constantly faces. These are constraints that hinder individuals, teams, or the organization from achieving their goals. Another aspect of continuous system improvement involves establishing an ongoing cycle of experimentation and learning, ensuring that each day brings incremental improvement.

It’s worth noting that continuous improvement doesn’t imply that the MT is constantly solving problems. Instead, the MT encourages employees to resolve issues themselves as much as possible. Only when it’s impossible for them to do so does the MT step in.

The Agile triangle forms the foundation for everything the Agile MT engages with. This translates into various new tasks, starting with continuously inspiring employees about the organization’s purpose. Additionally, the Agile MT transparently prioritizes based on strategy, steers using the right metrics, and integrates a cycle of learning and improvement. Previously, the MT was heavily involved in decision-making, daily operations, and the execution of day-to-day tasks while simultaneously managing stakeholders and the board. During an Agile transformation, many of these responsibilities shift to the teams. Finally, the Agile MT works towards a healthy organizational ecosystem where individuals and teams have the opportunity to grow systematically.

Managing in an Agile organization

The Management Team is the crucial factor in whether an organization truly becomes Agile or not. As a member of the executive team, you’ll quickly discover that sometimes contradictory demands are placed on you. I have translated this into six paradoxes

Acknowledging that there are paradoxes and recognizing them in practice are crucial conditions for managing them effectively. Let’s examine them each in turn.

Stable and Dynamic: An Agile organization is dynamic (fast, agile, and adaptive) but also stable (resilient, reliable, and efficient). The organization keeps only the essential processes simple and stable to ensure smooth daily operations. All other processes are kept flexible so the organization can respond quickly when needed.

The paradox for the executive team is to be dynamic and stable enough. In the transformation, an executive team is usually busy streamlining unnecessary heavy control processes, but if this goes too far and results in a lack of processes, chaos ensues. The keyword here is balance.

Serving and Directing: In an Agile organization, the executive team is both serving and directing. In many organizations, management is clearly present and directs both content and process. In the Agile transformation, more ownership is given to the teams, requiring serving and visionary leadership.

The paradox for the executive team is that this leadership is contextual. Sometimes, guiding leadership is necessary to prevent chaos and inefficiency; most of the time, the emphasis will be on visionary leadership tested against the organization’s why. The leadership style doesn’t change in neat cycles but is erratic and contextual.

Autonomy and Coherence: An Agile executive team delegates autonomy as low as possible in the organization, empowering self-sufficient teams. In a large organization, teams collaborate on a product or service. Because coherence is necessary, a natural tension arises between granting ownership to the teams and collectively working towards the same goal.

The paradox for the executive team is that cohesion, collective agility, and organizational effectiveness may conflict with the effectiveness of an individual team. Also, organizational priorities can impact team autonomy. The organization’s focus, for example, may shift to other products, leading to teams shrinking or growing. It’s up to the executive team to be aware of this and communicate transparently to prevent frustration.

Compassionate and Ruthless: In an Agile organization, the focus is on people: empathy and understanding matter. At the same time, ownership comes with not only rights but also responsibilities. It’s crucial to hold people accountable for their behavior and address them if the same mistakes are made repeatedly. Because the customer’s question and the solution are not fully known in advance, learning occurs through experimentation. However, this doesn’t mean that anything goes, and every result is acceptable.

A fitting expression for this paradox is that avoiding difficult conversations can allow problems to fester. The executive team provides space for experimentation and learning, but also addresses persistent underperformance when necessary. By setting clear boundaries and holding people accountable, they create the foundation for trust. Empathy sometimes means recognizing that a person’s talents and skills may be better suited to a different role or environment. Such realizations rarely come all at once—they often develop gradually over time.

Individual and Team: In an Agile organization, the value of the team result is more important than the value of the individual result. The executive team keeps in mind that each person serves the team. Employees are not there for themselves but for the organization as a whole and the team they work in.

The paradox is that, on the one hand, there is a desire to let individuals grow, and on the other hand, it’s crucial that this personal development aligns with the team’s and the organization’s development.

Performance-driven and Values-driven: In many organizations, the Anglo-Saxon model prevails. Simply put, performance is a key metric, so processes are managed as efficiently and cost-effectively as possible. The Rhineland model stands in contrast to this, emphasizing values such as solidarity, trust, coherence, and mutual consultation.

MT members often find themselves in a dilemma when Agile working has not been fully embraced throughout the organization. They may need to speak in an Anglo-Saxon manner upwards and in a Rhineland manner downwards. A prerequisite for a successful Agile transformation is that, if there are multiple layers of executive teams, the higher governing layer provides the MT with the space to bring about change

What is the result

Agile Management Teams are becoming increasingly aware that traditional ways of steering—focused on time, budget, and scope—no longer serve today’s fast-changing environment. They are shifting towards the Agile triangle: delivering value, enabling continuous improvement, and ensuring quality.

Along the way, Agile MTs learn to embrace six core paradoxes—such as structure vs. flexibility, individual vs. team, and leading with both empathy and decisiveness. Mastering these tensions is key to sustainable Agile leadership. This transition is grounded in a new leadership DNA: inspired by a shared “why,” improving the organizational ecosystem, and fostering ownership and intrinsic motivation.

Applying the Operating Agile Management Teams competency

Applying this competency begins with embracing a new way of working as a management team.

They actively apply the Agile triangle—value, quality, and system improvement—as their new steering mechanism. By naming and exploring the six Agile paradoxes, they develop a common language for navigating leadership tensions. The emphasis is on building rhythm, trust, and shared responsibility within the MT itself. They plan in sprints, prioritize based on purpose, and regularly reflect on how they steer the organization.

Additionally, they create shared visibility of their work, using practical tools such as the MT Canvas and a team manifesto, both of which are described in more detail below. Each field in the canvas includes instructions on how to complete it.

Agile Management Team Canvas

The Management Team Canvas supports in clarifying the added value of the management team, facilitating discussions about team dynamics, and designing processes that align with an organization that delegates more autonomy to teams. Additionally, the canvas helps establish effective collaboration agreements and serves as a benchmark when making decisions. You can use the canvas to structure meetings, onboard new team members, and engage in collective reflection. The Management Team Canvas is not meant to be shared with the entire organization; it is intended as a tool to align the entire management team.

MT Manifesto Workshop 
This workshop helps management teams articulate their shared values, working agreements, and leadership principles. In a half-day, the team co-creates a manifesto that reflects how they want to operate together—both in their daily rhythm and in how they lead the organization. The result is a tangible, co-owned statement that anchors future decisions and fosters accountability within the MT. 

Mastering the Operating Agile Management Teams competency

Mastery of this competency becomes visible when the management team operates from a fundamentally different paradigm—one rooted in agility, shared purpose, and adaptive leadership. The traditional iron triangle of time, budget, and scope is no longer their default lens. Instead, Agile Management Teams steer based on value delivery, continuous system improvement, and quality—embracing the Agile triangle as their new compass.

This shift is more than a technique; it’s a mindset embedded in the team’s daily rhythm and decision-making. A high-performing Agile MT prioritizes strategic goals transparently, empowers teams with clear guardrails, and focuses on eliminating systemic impediments rather than managing individual tasks. They no longer just support Agile ways of working—they embody them.

Along the way, Agile MTs learn to embrace six core paradoxes—such as structure vs. flexibility, individual vs. team, and leading with both empathy and decisiveness. Mastering these tensions is key to sustainable Agile leadership. Mature MTs don’t resolve paradoxes by choosing one side; they learn to hold both in creative balance, recognizing that leadership in an Agile context is filled with intentional dualities.

A further sign of mastery is that the management team no longer operates as a collection of siloed managers but as one cohesive leadership team with shared ownership of outcomes. They have embedded a leadership rhythm that includes sprints, retrospectives, and system-level reflection. Prioritization is done openly and anchored in the organization’s deeper “why.”

The team’s behavior reflects the three essential DNA building blocks of Agile Management:

1. Inspiring from the why and leading transparently – grounding decisions in purpose and direction that everyone understands
2. Improving the organizational ecosystem – simplifying governance, removing friction, and creating space for teams to thrive
3. Fostering intrinsic motivation and ownership – encouraging autonomy, mastery, and alignment across all levels

Organizations led by such teams experience higher engagement, stronger alignment, and increased agility. The management team becomes the backbone of a learning, adaptive organization—not only enabling transformation, but sustaining it.

Creating more autonomy – The autonomy 8 exercise

This exercise helps management teams reflect on and shift their leadership behavior to foster greater autonomy within their teams. Using the Autonomy 8 model, MT members learn to break out of the reactive leader–follower cycle—where employees ask, managers answer, and dependency grows—and instead move into the leader–leader cycle, where trust, growth, and self-leadership are cultivated.

Through guided dialogue, role-play, and reflection, participants practice listening without solving, asking open-ended questions, and setting clear frameworks that support ownership. The session emphasizes the power of not giving answers, but rather helping others develop their own. As Tom Peters said: “Great leaders do not create followers, they create more leaders.”

This exercise strengthens leadership maturity, increases employee engagement, and is a key step toward building a truly Agile, self-managing organization.

Powerful Questions Exercise

This exercise helps management teams strengthen their coaching and leadership presence by practicing the art of asking open, reflective, and non-directive questions. Instead of offering solutions, leaders learn to hold space, listen deeply, and guide conversations through curiosity. Using a structured set of “Powerful Questions,” MT members practice conversations that uncover insights, support ownership, and spark new thinking.

The exercise builds the team’s ability to lead through dialogue—creating psychological safety, empowering teams, and encouraging reflection. It also shifts the focus from “telling” to “exploring,” a key capability in Agile leadership.

Quick tips for getting started:

• Reflect weekly: Are we steering from the old or the new triangle?
• Facilitate retrospectives for the MT itself or start working in sprints
• Identify one process to remove or simplify each quarter

Reflect on the balance between “working in the company and for the company”

The journey of the ICT Management Team of a water supply company

The Management Team of a water utility’s company embarked on a two-day Agile Management Team training to rethink how they worked together. During this offsite, they co-created their MT manifesto, completed the Agile MT canvas, and made a bold decision: to organize their work in sprints—just like their teams.

One key insight from the workshop became their guiding principle: “Working in the organization versus working on the organization.” This distinction helped the team see that their own leadership rhythm needed to evolve to better serve the whole system.

The sprint-based approach brought surprising clarity. First, it created a shared understanding of time—how much there really was, and how to use it more intentionally. Second, the team stopped assigning tasks to individuals and started taking shared responsibility for collective outcomes. Finally, they began breaking down large initiatives into smaller, actionable items, making progress more visible and manageable.

As a result, the group began to function as a real team—aligned, focused, and collaborative. They leveraged each other’s strengths more effectively and started steering based on the Agile triangle: delivering value, solving systemic impediments, and improving quality. Over time, they noticed not only more ownership and clarity but also a rise in their employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS), indicating a more engaged and motivated organization. This story illustrates how an Agile Management Team can shift its mindset and rhythm—and in doing so, become the driving force behind a truly adaptive and resilient organization.

Continuing your Journey through the Leadership and Culture Discipline

Last Update: 9 September 2025