Can Agile Improve Employee Engagement?

Ronica Roth (Rally Software Development), Amy J. Zuckerman (The Gallup Organization)

Discovery Sessions · Individuals & Teams, Leadership

Wednesday, 10:30, 1 hour 30 minutes | Meeting Room 4

Through extensive research, The Gallup Organization has discovered how employee engagement positively correlates to business success and has identified 12 items that accurately measure employee engagement. These engaged employees and workgroups look a lot like Agile's empowered, self-directed teams.

How do the best managers engage their teams? Managers can view the 12 items, known as the Q12(TM), as a management framework for ways to drive engagement in one-on-one or team interactions. These Q12(TM) management best practices align closely with the principles and practices of Agile, particularly the paradigm shift from command-and-control project manager to servant-leader. Potentially, Agile adoption leads to better engaged teams, who in turn produce better results.

In this workshop, we will explore Gallup's employee engagement research, assess participants' engagement, and begin to theorize about the relationship between engagement and level of Agile adoption. Small group discussion will allow participants to apply these concepts to their own teams. We will compile a set of participants' recommendations for Agile teams building the empowerment, servant-leadership, and trust needed to be successful at delivering value-driven software.

Ronica Roth is an Agile coach and consultant with Rally Software. Her 10-year software career is rooted in facilitating clear communication and close collaboration across disciplines, resulting in software that more often met customer needs. She has extensive experience discovering, evolving and managing software requirements, which provides Product Owner expertise and a deep understanding of the customer side of Agile software development. Her passion for helping people work together creatively and efficiently led her to embrace Agile practices. She has guided many organizations—from small, private firms to large government agencies, from technology companies to internal software development groups—through successful adoption of Agile principles and best practices. Ronica is a Certified ScrumMaster-Practitioner and Certified JAD Facilitator and holds a Master of Science in Journalism (MSJ) from Northwestern University.