Book Review: Management 3.0.

What we appreciate

• Jurgen´s book offers a considerable amount of knowledge, combining agile and complexity thinking. It provides an overview of many theoretical elements, tries to inspect and adapt scientific theories and uses interesting imagery and analogies to better understand systemic interrelations.
• Management 3.0 is an impressive tour de force through complexity and management thinking, compiling a kind of “Appelopedia” using a range of sources and ideas.
• Moreover, the book offers various attempts to reduce the complexity of management in an agile environment by developing light touch models such as “Martie”, depicting six views of management 3.0 (p 18 & 270)

What we ask ourselves

• While appreciating Jurgen´s compilation of various building blocks, we can´t help asking what´s actually new in it. Neither can we see a creative combination of these building blocks, nor do we understand how it justifies the label of supposedly future-oriented management 3.0.

• What is innovative about offering 6 views of management, 7 approaches to discipline and competence, 8 steps to improvement, 9 capabilities of communications? What is the specific link to agile here? And what is the link to management practice? We understand how this book raises interesting theoretical challenges, but we ask ourselves how these are to be resolved by applying well-known not to say old-fashioned principles, guidelines or checklists? The book often reminds us of things Thomas learned many years ago in his one-year management training at a bank. Is there really a manager out there who is doing her or his job by applying lists of criteria to make a decision? With its rather bureaucratic stance towards complexity it seems to be, as one of our colleagues pointed out, more like management 1.1. than management 3.0.

• Furthermore, what is the specific link between Jurgen´s management approach and the agile approach to team-based leadership? If complexity is best dealt with by teams (as proposed by agile methods), why does the author seemingly deal with the complexity of management as such all by himself? How does that translate into the advice he’s giving, e.g. “how do I select an authorization level?” (p.129)? Is that indeed necessarily an (arbitrary) solitary decision by one manager? Why shouldn´t management be team sports as well?
• If the task of management is to change the system not the people, then an important part of the existing knowledge base has been left out: Specifically, organizational change management, which would be essential for the chapter “How to grow structure”. Besides, we are wondering why Jurgen skips a wide range of debates around leadership and organizational development while writing a book that is supposed to help agile practitioners to become better managers.
• As there is an evident lack of transfer, it´s a pity that Jurgen didn´t use his apparently rich experience as a line manager to offer more concrete advice on how to cope successfully with complexity on a daily basis. We are quite sure that the book would have a very different relevance if Jurgen was willing to build more on his own lessons learned rather than just telling nice anecdotes. Perhaps, it wasn´t the best decision to exclude, not to say denounce, leadership issues such as critical self-reflection as “right brain” stuff… (pp  xxix)
• For a more balanced and practice-oriented approach see http://p-a-m.org/2010/11/successful-leadership-with-scrum-a-case-study/

What we got out of the book:

• a broad overview of many relevant theories and sources that could be helpful when it comes to clarifying current challenges.
• a lot of basics that could serve as a kick-off for beginners or students.
• the challenge for us to think more in-depth about management in agile and other environments.
• the challenge to inspect and adapt what Jurgen offered in order to keep the discussion about the future of management alive – whether this future is agile or not.

Jurgen Appelo: Management 3.0. Leading Agile Developers, Developing Agile Leaders. Amsterdam, Addison-Wesley Signature (Mike Cohn), 1^st edition 2010, 464 pages.