Create Your Successful Agile Project-PMI-CentralMA

Many teams and organizations decide on a specific agile approach and “install practices.” However, agility has little to do with practices and everything to do with a team’s context. Instead of practices, start with four principles that reinforce an agile culture. Use these principles and watch your team improve daily.

You will learn about and see examples of these principles:
• How to create a project rhythm
• Ways to visualize the work
• Which measures reinforce delivery and improvement
• How to create a culture of continuous improvement with experiments.

Transcript

1. Create Your Successful Agile Project: Principles Over Practices Johanna Rothman @johannarothman www.jrothman.com
2. © 2022 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman 4 Principles 1. Create a project rhythm 2. Visualize work and the bottlenecks 3. Develop and use measures that reinforce the team’s delivery and improvement 4. Create a culture of continuous improvement with experiments 2 Ideas Responsible Person Ranked Backlog Cross-Functional Team The team produces shippable product on a regular basis Demo Retrospective General Agile Picture
3. © 2022 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Principle 1: Create a Project Rhythm • Many teams start with Scrum in 2-week iterations • Timeboxes create a regular cadence for everything 3
4. © 2022 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Iterations Work Well When… • Everyone understands when the iteration starts and fi nishes: • Enough hours of overlap • The entire team works together on one product • You can right-size features to fi t into an iteration • You don’t need to accommodate too much interrupting work 4
5. © 2020 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Flow-Based Agile Perspective • Team creates its own cadence for all the various pieces of work 5
6. © 2022 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Which Project Rhythms Might You Need? • Finish a story—every day or two. • Kaizen to address a small improvement. • Assess team satisfaction—daily. • Demo—weekly or biweekly. • Re fi ne more stories to prepare for more work—once or twice a week. • Weekly or biweekly retrospective. • Weekly or biweekly planning. • Standups—do you need them?? 6
7. © 2022 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman How One Team Manages Its Flow & Cadences • One team always re fi nes stories on Mondays and Thursdays for 20-30 minutes. • They demo every Wednesday at the PO’s 10 am (and record the demo) • They conduct a kaizen on demand (often 2-3 times per week) • A more formal retro on Fridays at noon Eastern 7
8. © 2022 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Principle 2: Visualize Work and Bottlenecks • If we can see the work, we can choose how to manage it • If we can see where the bottlenecks are, we can choose to experiment or change 8
9. © 2022 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Different Boards Solve Different Problems 9
10. © 2022 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Where Is Your Work? 10
11. © 2022 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Map Your Current Work States • What states does your team need to fi nish work? Example: code review. • Use those states to de fi ne your board. • This is a value stream map. The work time is the cycle time. 11
12. © 2022 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Principle 3: “Virtuous” Metrics • Measures that reinforce: • More of what we want and • Less of what we don’t want 12
13. © 2022 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Possible (Virtuous) Measures • Team-visible measures • Cycle time (and/or lead time) (Want to reduce cycle time) • Cumulative fl ow (Want to reduce/manage WIP in various states) • Share the team’s progress outside the team: • Demos • Features chart • Product backlog burnup chart • Done and not yet released 13
14. © 2022 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Velocity is not a useful measure for anything 14
15. © 2022 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Never Report Velocity or Story Points • Velocity is a measure of capacity, not productivity or acceleration nor speed • Story points are personal to a team • Assume you walk at a normal pace of 4 mph, normal velocity. • How to account for: • Weather • Talk to a neighbor • Detour • Same duration, different fi nishing. 15
16. © 2022 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Relative Size Estimates Don’t Include Delays • One team: • Estimated this item would be a day or so (1 story point) • People only spent a day or so on it • But, the team took many days or weeks to deliver it • Where did the time go? (Cycle time explains) 16
17. © 2022 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Cycle Time Example 1: Team Works as Individuals 17
18. © 2022 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Cycle Time Example 2: Work as aCollaborative Team 18
19. © 2022 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Cycle Time Example 3: Insuf fi cient Hours of Overlap 19
20. © 2022 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Notes About the Value Stream Images • Most of the teams I work with have much longer cycle times • Work times of one day or so. Wait times of 4-7 days, for a total of 8 days of cycle time • Count weekends. Your customers don’t stop wanting work just because it’s a weekend 20
21. © 2022 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Cycle Time Offers Helpful Forecasting 21
22. © 2022 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Forecasting: See How Many of Your Items Complete at What Cycle Time 22
23. © 2022 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Measure Completed Features • Completed features (running, tested features) • Your customers use them • You can release them • They are valuable • Include total and remaining features so we have a sense of where we are • Depends on deliverables, not epics or themes 23
24. © 2022 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Product Backlog Burnup • Real earned value • Partial answer to “Where are we?” • Shows value feature-by-feature • Shows when features grow 24
25. © 2022 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Done and Not Yet Released 25
26. © 2022 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman What Do You Want Less of? • Work In Progress (across entire program) • How often release • Other “Less of”: • Defects • Multitasking • ? 26
27. © 2022 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Principle 4: Continuous Improvement with Experiments • Retrospectives • Kaizen • Choose one thing to experiment with every week or two • This is more important than any other meeting you have 27
28. © 2022 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Entire Team Re fl ects • All the people who create the product re fl ect together • Kaizen: 20-60 minutes to discuss issue, select alternative, create action plan • Retrospective: 60-120 minutes on a regular basis to gather data and decide what to do. (Highly recommend Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great) 28 Ideas Responsible Person Ranked Backlog Cross-Functional Team The team produces shippable product on a regular basis Demo Retrospective General Agile Picture
29. © 2022 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman What Might You Change to Use These 4 Principles? 1. Create a project rhythm 2. Visualize work and the bottlenecks 3. Develop and use measures that reinforce the team’s delivery and improvement 4. Create a culture of continuous improvement with experiments 29 Ideas Responsible Person Ranked Backlog Cross-Functional Team The team produces shippable product on a regular basis Demo Retrospective General Agile Picture
30. © 2022 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Flow Ef fi ciency Thinking: A Helpful Frame • Focus on the work item, not the person doing the work • Resource ef fi ciency focuses on the person • Flow ef fi ciency focuses on the work • Make this the one standup question: “What do we, as a team, need to do move this work to done?” 30 Resource E ffi ciency Flow E ffi ciency
31. © 2022 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Let’s Stay in Touch • Pragmatic Manager: • www.jrothman.com/ pragmaticmanager • Please link with me on LinkedIn • Create Your Successful Agile Project: https://www.jrothman.com/cysap • Coupon on the pragprog.com for 35% off all my books there: PMI_CMASS_2022 31