Scaling an agile transformation beyond a few teams requires engaging middle management. Yet a common issue arises: agile coaches sideline middle management in agile transformations and tell them to simply trust the teams. Managers are not clear about their role in the transformation or how to do their jobs.
To make agile stick, middle managers need practical strategies for working with their teams, peers, and leaders, and agile coaches need to see them as partners in the transformation.
Middle management is crucial to the success of an agile transformation.
Middle Management in Agile Transformation is Key
Senior leaders kick off an agile transformation with the vision. But someone else translates these big ideas into new behaviors for teams. Agile coaches are often the ones who make abstract transformation goals feel tangible. They help people understand how to use new ways of working in their daily tasks.
But let’s be real—agile transformations don’t happen in a vacuum. There are competing priorities, resource constraints, and sometimes political landmines to navigate. These are the realities that can make or break an agile transformation.
Agile coaches discover these realities as they work. They face limits in what they can do, yet middle managers navigate this terrain all the time. In technology organizations, managers often have multiple accountabilities and must use their authority as a resource, not a weapon.
At a large transportation company, several teams were experiencing delays with a third-party vendor. This vendor team supported many other companies. Their unpredictable delivery slowed down the teams’ progress, especially if they needed support during their sprints.
The agile coach recognized the issue and helped teams improve their planning. They encouraged the teams to forecast their needs and communicate them earlier. While this helped, the vendor team’s backlog remained long. Non-urgent work piled up, and when true emergencies arose, it was hard to get them escalated quickly.
That’s when a middle manager stepped in to tackle the issue with buy-in from their boss and peers. First, the manager worked with both the vendor and teams to establish service-level agreements (SLAs). These SLAs set clear expectations for response times, delivery windows, and how long it would take for different types of requests to be fulfilled. This made it easier for teams to plan around vendor support.
Also, the manager introduced a formal escalation path for urgent issues. This process allowed teams to push critical requests to the front of the queue when necessary. The escalation path ensured that truly urgent tasks got prioritized while allowing the vendor team to focus on their backlog.
The agile coach had improved team-level planning and reduced the number of urgent last-minute requests. The manager’s intervention with SLAs and an escalation process helped tackle the issue further. By clarifying expectations with the vendor and teams, the manager made sure that teams could rely on the vendor’s support.
Because of their positional authority, middle management can solve real problems that teams are facing every day in agile transformations.
The Power of Being Clear, Curious, and Connected
Middle managers balance the needs of their people and delivery. Team members often look to their manager to decide whether they should trust the agile coach’s guidance or stick with the old ways. This gives managers significant influence in supporting the transformation or prioritizing delivery above all else. A manager’s words and actions set the tone for the transformation in their area.
At an organization in the early stages of an agile transformation, Jasmine was a delivery manager. Her team was selected to have a player-coach work with them for 12 weeks to help them deploy to production more frequently. Jasmine knew this would be an intensive experience for the team. She anticipated that it could be outside of some members’ comfort zone. She allowed team members to opt-in or opt-out of being on the team for the coaching engagement. If someone opted out, Jasmine worked with her peers to move them to another team that was not yet adopting agile. This approach respected the team members’ capacity for change and helped build early buy-in from those eager to try new practices.
Later, as the transformation progressed, Jasmine’s approach shifted. As agile became widespread, Jasmine set firm expectations with her direct reports about how their role was changing. She communicated clearly what they must do to succeed in this new agile environment. She also showed curiosity about how people were adjusting and stayed connected to their progress and concerns. This shift from optional to required signaled that the agile transformation was a long-term change.
But a manager’s role goes beyond supporting individual team members. Managers navigate the intersection of people management, process improvement, and delivery.
Imagine a situation where a product group has created an explicit Definition of Done with the help of an agile coach. This might include passing automated tests, updated documentation, and code reviews. As a release date looms, some teams are struggling to meet these criteria. The pressure to deliver mounts. It’s tempting for the manager to allow exceptions or push the release through despite incomplete work. But, this decision could undermine the agile transformation’s progress.
Here the manager faces a complex challenge. On one hand, they need to protect the team from burnout or failure. On the other, they must maintain quality standards to prevent future problems. To navigate this, the manager must be clear about why the Definition of Done is important for the product’s health and their future efforts. At the same time, the manager needs to stay curious—asking how the team sees the work and identifying issues that need addressing.
Being connected is crucial here too, not just with the team but with peers and senior leadership. The manager may face pushback from other managers or even their boss, who might focus on delivery over the process. A manager who knows the organization’s goals is better positioned to make the case for quality or determine if they should delay a release. They could gather data on how missing the Definition of Done in the past has led to more costly problems.
In situations like this, the middle management becomes a strong influence in an agile transformation. While an agile coach can help introduce new ways of working, managers can navigate the political landscape. By staying clear, curious, and connected throughout the transformation, managers help guide their teams to deliver using agile ways of working.
Sustaining Agile at Scale: Managers and Networks of Mutual Support
A successful agile transformation doesn’t end with high-performing teams. It needs the full support of managers to maintain momentum after agile coaches move on. I once collaborated with an agile coach who described this dynamic: “We can coach teams to perform like a sports car. But if the managers aren’t involved, it’s like handing the keys of an expensive car to someone who’s never driven before.” When the agile coach leaves, managers become the leaders for continuous improvement.
Managers navigate the ongoing realities beyond the team’s day-to-day work. They handle performance reviews, budget processes, and future hiring decisions. Agile coaches can help start change in these areas and influence improvements while they’re involved. But, once the agile coach leaves, it’s the manager who has to live with the constraints—or push for further transformation. This is where the concept of networks of mutual support becomes crucial.
Building networks of mutual support means fostering productive relationships across the organization. It’s not about everyone agreeing all the time. In fact, disagreements are inevitable as you balance competing goals. It might mean influencing HR to adjust evaluation criteria to better fit agile roles. Or it could involve finding ways to support agile practices despite limitations with the budget process. Either way, managers are the ones responsible for making sure that agility continues to grow within the the organization.
In many ways, managers are the bridge for agility to scale beyond isolated pockets and into the core of how the company operates.
Grounding Agile in Real-World Problems: The Middle Management Advantage
It’s tempting to dive into agile with a toolkit of buzzwords and frameworks. But successful transformations that stick are those that solve actual problems. Middle management plays a pivotal role in bridging agile principles with on-the-ground realities.
I often think of a cringe-worthy moment from the musical Book of Mormon whenever I hear someone rave about agile values and mindset changes.
In the scene, missionaries are practicing how they’ll preach the church’s faith in remote communities. Through song, we watch these eager young missionaries role-play what they’ll say when a local person answers their door. The missionaries sound courteous as they recite their dialogue.
Then Elder Cunningham gives it a try and says, “HELLO! Would you like to change religions?! I have a free book written by Jesus!”
Pffffft. A booming voice chides him to stick to the approved dialogue.
I recalled this scene hearing an agile coach try to sell an agile transformation to a group of executives. Their talk felt like, “HELLO! Would you like to change your company’s philosophy?! I have a manifesto written by seventeen guys!”
AWKWARD. Senior leaders who sponsor agile transformations don’t want to reinvent their company! And most middle managers are not signing up for that either when there’s work to get done. Well-meaning agile coaches can get caught up in their own enthusiasm of what’s possible and forget to connect it to the organization’s real needs.
Middle management in agile transformations isn’t about enforcing top-down mandates. It’s about being the network link that translates abstract concepts into concrete, problem-solving actions. Agile transformations thrive when you focus on solving real problems with new ways of working.
