Enterprise Coaching

Defining Jobs and Roles in an Agile Organization

How to grow individuals out of a job description that is rigid, constrained and lacks empowerment.

Jeff Anderson

Apr 24, 2020 • 19 min read

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Self-Organization

Roles & Responsibilities

Autonomy

Roles

Job Satisfaction

Summary

An in-depth analysis of defining jobs and roles in organizations by Jeff Anderson. The writer walks us through the traditional approaches to roles and jobs noting that they don't allow self-organization - as they lead to rigidity, constrain, and lack of empowerment in the workplace. He further pinpoints that we can however define roles and jobs in an Agile organization without undermining self-organization to create a borderless workplace where employees focus on getting to the outcome rather than creating deliverables, specialists train and mentor others, and leaders step in to help when necessary.

Takeaways

The traditional approaches to roles and jobs don't serve Agile Organizations well because:
1. Roles are coarse-grained, and tightly coupled to rigid job descriptions
2. They are used to restrict individuals to very specific accountability and responsibility
3. Written based on functional expertise rather than outcomes
4. Are largely static, change infrequently, and are always out of date
5. Are also used to define levels of authority and reporting structure
True Team Agile organizations have no job description boundaries, employees focus on getting to the outcome rather than creating deliverables, specialists train and mentor others, and leaders step in to help when necessary.
We can define jobs and roles in an Agile organization for clarity without undermining self-organization. The benefits of doing so include helping individuals build a career path, making it easier for teams to identify jobs to be done including any gaps, as well as providing opportunities for people to form communities of practice and coach common skills and practices.