Management 3.0: Leading Agile Developers, Developing Agile Leaders

Chapter 10. The Craft of Rulemaking

Criticism comes easier than craftsmanship.

—Zeuxis, painter (5th century BC)

People often attempt to prevent future problems by introducing rules in an organization in the form of “When situation X occurs, people must do Y.” I readily admit that I have been guilty of such attempts; although I am now convinced that rulemaking by managers is not the best approach to organizational stability.

In previous chapters, we have seen that a business can best organize itself and move to the edge of chaos when rule-discovery and rulemaking are delegated to team members, whereas managers concern themselves primarily with defining direction and imposing the right constraints. But many teams cannot succeed if there is not ...