Making Work Visible

Does unplanned work compete with your planned work? Do conflicting priorities turn your day upside down? Invisible work blindsides people, leaving teams unaware of mutually critical information, until it's too late.
Intertwined with these problems, is the question, how does one plan for, or allocate capacity for the invisible? It's tough to analyze something you can't see. Incognito work doesn't show up in metrics. Hidden work stalls and blocks important priorities and masks dependencies. Risk accumulates from work started late and delivered late.
The solution is to make work visible in a compelling way that allows others to see problems. In this talk, Dominica provides countermeasures to expose time theft due to unplanned work, conflicting priorities, and dependencies, allowing them to be seen and measured. Discover how you can become the voice of reason in your organization by exposing time thieves.

Transcript

1. ddegrandis.com @dominicad Making Work Visible: Exposing Time Theft to Optimize Workflow Dominica DeGrandis Director, Digital Transformation
2. ddegrandis.com @dominicad handoffs aren’t clear or clean as they should be. work request How many get work intake requests via email? Disconnects in communication interferes with collaboration & delays delivery
3. ddegrandis.com @dominicad WHAT’S THE POINT? “Things take too long” is a universal problem. Time matters. A lot.
4. ddegrandis.com @dominicad Dominica DeGrandis The 5Thieves of Time Unplanned work Conflicting Priorities Unknown Dependencies Neglected work Too Much WIP
5. ddegrandis.com @dominicad Dominica DeGrandis Too much WIP comes from too much Yes Thief Too much Work-in-progress (WIP)
6. ddegrandis.com @dominicad The Honey Do List
7. ddegrandis.com @dominicad #1 - I don’t want to let the team down.
8. ddegrandis.com @dominicad #2 I’d rather start a shiny new thing than toil in something unglamorous. optimize for fun
9. ddegrandis.com @dominicad #3 I Didn’t realize how big the request was.
10. ddegrandis.com @dominicad It’s hard to say “no,” to the boss. Who feels okay to refuse a manager’s request? #4 The boss asked me.
11. ddegrandis.com @dominicad Go to www.menti.com and use code: 68 51 36 Why do you take on more work than you have capacity to do?
12. ddegrandis.com @dominicad Flow Load – a measure to balance demand & capacity Flow Load: All the partially completed work. All the work-in- progress (WIP) in the value stream
13. ddegrandis.com @dominicad WIP is a leading indicator • At 100% capacity you have minimal throughput. • High WIP means that other items sit waiting for service longer. • The single most important factor that affects queue size is capacity utilization. Why WIP Matters
14. ddegrandis.com @dominicad Thief Too much Work-in-progress (WIP) • Queuing Theory allows us to quantify the relationship between wait times and capacity utilization. • Wait times increase exponentially as utilization approaches 100%. • If the goal is speed, consider managing work by queues. Queuing Theory: Applied statistics that studies waiting lines http://reinertsenassociates.com/books/
15. ddegrandis.com @dominicad Thief Conflicting Priorities Expose the WIP • Visualize WIP • WIP limit as enabling constraint • Primary factor of speed is the amount of WIP
16. ddegrandis.com @dominicad “The difference between successful people and very successful people is that very successful people say “no” to almost everything.” ~Warren Buffett https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/756.Warren_Buffett
17. ddegrandis.com @dominicad Think twice before saying yes
18. ddegrandis.com @dominicad Dominica DeGrandis Unplanned Work: Interruptions that prevent you from finishing something or from stopping at a better breaking point. Unplanned Work is a time thief b/c unplanned work usurps planned work • Teams rarely work in isolation. • The larger the org, the more teams, the higher probability of unknown dependencies. • The hardest thing we do is communicate across teams. THIEF UNKNOWN DEPENDENCIES
19. ddegrandis.com @dominicad Why Dependencies Matter • 8 ways to have three inputs • 1 in 8 chance of on time delivery • Every dependency doubles your chance of being delayed • Dependencies are asymmetrical in their impact. • 4 dependencies = 16 possible outcomes People aren’t available when needed
20. ddegrandis.com @dominicad Synchronize Coordination across teams Make dependencies visible
21. ddegrandis.com @dominicad Remove Dependencies when possible The more teams, the higher probability of more dependencies. High coordination costs
22. ddegrandis.com @dominicad Dominica DeGrandis Unplanned Work: Interruptions that prevent you from finishing something or from stopping at a better breaking point. Unplanned Work is a time thief b/c unplanned work usurps planned work THIEF UNPLANNED WORK
23. ddegrandis.com @dominicad Dominica DeGrandis Thief Unplanned Work Why Unplanned Work matters Unplanned Work: • Delays planned work • Steals your predictability integrate performance tests into delivery pipeline
24. ddegrandis.com @dominicad Dominica DeGrandis Thief Conflicting Priorities Projects and tasks that compete with each other. Conflicting Priorities is a time thief b/c people take on too much WIP when priorities are unclear. Expose Unplanned Work • Born in doing • Resistance to logging unplanned work
25. ddegrandis.com @dominicad Look at Flow time date Unplanned work delays Planned work Flow Time – a measure of speed
26. ddegrandis.com @dominicad A decision to do one thing is a decision to delay something else. THIEF CONFLICTING PRIORITIES
27. ddegrandis.com @dominicad @dominicad People have a finite amount of capacity https://itrevolution.com/book/the-cornerstone-for-winning/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qav1y7G15JQ Why Conflicting Priorities matter
28. ddegrandis.com @dominicad Explicit Prioritization Policies help teams be more predictable § PNW rainy weather causes unpredictable Landslides § Limited number of rails - freight trains have higher priority
29. ddegrandis.com @dominicad Prioritization & Decision-making frameworks FIFO: First In First Out ROI: Return of investment ÷ Cost of investment CoD: Cost of Delay (Missed revenue + costs) WSJF: HiPPO: Highest Paid Persons Opinion Computer Algorithms: wsjf - http://reinertsenassociates.com/books/ if work is same size, do work w/ high CoD If work is same CoD, do short work 1st if size & CoD are diff, base priority on delay cost divided by duration measure of impact of time on desired outcomes
30. ddegrandis.com @dominicad Go to www.menti.com and use code: 68 51 36 How do you prioritize your work?
31. ddegrandis.com @dominicad Thief Conflicting Priorities Expose Competing work items • Visualize priority indicators (money bag) • identify top 3 things
32. ddegrandis.com @dominicad Dominica DeGrandis Neglected Work is partially completed work that gets postponed. It’s work that sits idle on the bench waiting for attention. Neglected work is a time thief b/c it either gets in the way of higher value work or it delays the delivery of important work. THIEF NEGLECTED WORK
33. ddegrandis.com @dominicad Dominica DeGrandis Thief Neglected Work Neglected Work is partially completed work that gets postponed. It’s work that sits idle on the bench waiting for attention. Neglected work is a time thief b/c it either gets in the way of higher value work or it delays the delivery of important work. Why Neglected Work Matters
34. ddegrandis.com @dominicad Make tradeoffs clear – set strategic direction Flow Distribution – Work-item type allocation
35. ddegrandis.com @dominicad Flow Distribution allocation example (3) (1) (5) (5) WIP limit
36. ddegrandis.com @dominicad What we measure impacts people because people value what is measured.
37. ddegrandis.com @dominicad § Flow Time – a measure of speed § Flow Velocity – a measure of throughput/productivity § Flow Efficiency – work vs. wait ratio § Flow Load – amount of Work-in-Progress (WIP) § Flow Distribution – work-item type allocation 5 Flow Metrics - focused on business outcomes https://go.tasktop.com/Flow_Metrics_Webinar.html
38. ddegrandis.com @dominicad TAKEAWAYS § Make Work Visible § Time matters - expose time thieves § Experiment & measure outcomes
39. ddegrandis.com @dominicad BENEFITS Making Work Visible § Helps diff teams become aware of mutually critical info § Provokes necessary convo’s for change § Exposes time thieves that resonate at all levels
40. ddegrandis.com @dominicad
41. ddegrandis.com @dominicad Email: dominica@SendYourSlides.com Subject: flow To receive: • copy of this presentation deck • excerpts of Making Work Visible • Tasktop video on JIRA/SN tool integration • Forrester article: Agile-Plus-DevOps With Value Stream Management • IT Rev paper: Overcoming inefficiencies in work mgmt. systems
42. ddegrandis.com @dominicad Flow Time – a measure of speed Yes, let’s do this! Flow Time: The duration from when work enters the value stream to its completion.