When we implemented agile methodologies at Locaweb, the same way that some developers asked to leave because they were not willing to adapt to some of the agile principles that we decided to embrace, some of the existing managers also didn’t adapted well to the changes in their roles and responsibilities and asked to leave.

At the time, I discussed this topic with people from other companies and they mentioned that it’s not unusual to have developers and managers leaving the company when moving to agile. I remember even someone mentioning that in average 10% of developers leave. That was back in 2007 / 2008. I’m not sure if this tendency have lowered lately, since agile is becoming more and more mainstream.

I also read – and continue to read – a lot about the topic. One of the sources I’ve been reading and enjoying is Jurgen Appelo’s posts about agile management. I’ve been reading his posts for a while, since the time he was the CTO of a dutch company. I really like the way he connects agile methodologies and complex adaptive systems theory.

Now he is 100% focused on his agile management coach career. He recently launched a book entitled “Management 3.0: Leading Agile Developers, Developing Agile Leaders“.

He also provides Agile Management courses that seem to be quite interesting:

Checkout also his presentations on slideshare. Checkout this presentation on authority and delegation:

Other posts about the same topic:

• What changes for a manager in a team moving into agile?
• O papel da gerência em times ágeis