Leading Modern Technology Teams in Complex Times: Applying the Principles of the Agile Manifesto

The practices of agile software development and DevSecOps (Development integrated with Security integrated with Operations) differ from traditional linear systems of working. The people doing this work - who they are and what they expect - and the way the work gets done in today’s tech industry demand a leadership practice specific to this way of working. This book explores leadership practice in today’s technology industry using the twelve principles of the Agile Manifesto as a framework. Each of the twelve principles includes a section of key takeaways to help the reader apply the principle in practice. It extends traditional notions of leadership, specifically Complexity Leadership Theory (CLT), to one that is post-heroic, acknowledging the processual, conjunctive and generative nature of leadership relationships.

Leader-follower dynamics are complex-they include power dynamics, conflict, ambiguity, and paradox-and technology organizations are complex. This book challenges the suitability of some aspects of complexity theory and offers practices that are more suitable for leading today’s technology organizations.

Kevin R. Lowell is Executive Vice President, Chief People Officer and Head of Communications at UScellular Senior Vice President of Information Technology and an Officer for US Cellular, Illinois, USA. He formally served as Senior Vice President of Information Technology. He has served as a distinguished leader for more than 25 years in the high-tech telecommunications industry. He holds a Ph.D. in Organizational Development and Change from Fielding Graduate University, Santa Barbara, CA, USA, certificates in computer science and artificial intelligence, management analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning from MIT Sloan School of Management, Cambridge, MA, USA and a Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) Certification in Cybersecurity Oversight from the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.

He is a four-time winner of UScellular’s Dynamic Leader Award; five-time Finalist of the ChicagoCIO CIO of the Year Award; and winner of the AITP/SIM Chicago CIO Innovator of the Year Award.

His other books include a how-to guide for making changes in your personal life, and a love story.