Focus Your Distributed Component Teams to Deliver Better Products Faster--Virtual Agile

Many companies still organize by creating functional teams across the space-time continuum, not cross-functional teams in one place. That leads to slower-than-desired product development. In response, teams tend to increase their Work in Progress (WIP), which increases the chance that teams will take shortcuts and miss necessary steps, which increases the number of defects or production support issues. As a result, everyone becomes frustrated, but no one knows quite what to do.

You have choices.

While you might not be able to change where people work, you can influence the entire system. First, you can make the problems obvious to everyone with cycle time, a value stream map, and a feedback loop delay map. Then, your team can change its working agreements to focus on less WIP, more collaboration, and more frequent check-ins. Finally, revisit all the team working agreements to decide how to rank the work—not just the planned work, but also the unplanned work.

It all starts with recognizing when you have unplanned feedback loops and the costs of those loops.
Join Johanna Rothman as she explains how to use flow metrics to support your teams and how they can work better. And maybe, with a little luck, influence management to keep all the people, but change some of their decisions.

This talk arose from my newsletter: https://www.jrothman.com/newsletter/2024/02/three-tips-to-focus-to-deliver-better-products-faster/

Transcript

1. Focus Your Distributed Component Teams to Deliver Better Products Faster Johanna Rothman jr@jrothman.com www.jrothman.com https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman
2. © 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman You’ve got a program* and it’s not delivering 2 * A program is a collection of projects that all contribute to one deliverable
3. © 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman Many Problems • Each team has people from across the globe • No team has fi nished anything for a month • Senior leadership is angry • The teams are unhappy 3
4. © 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman Some Causes • The teams don’t have enough hours of overlap to collaborate • The teams are component teams, not cross-functional teams • Interdependencies up the wazoo • Cycle time is long, throughput is low 4
5. © 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman The Current Situation • Senior leadership thinks they can say, “Heads will roll!” and get the results they want • They need to release the product this quarter—or the Cost of Delay will get even higher 5 Cost of Delay
6. © 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman Things are a “mess” (the technical term) 6
7. © 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman Our Agenda 1. Visualize the teams’ hours of overlap 2. Consider how teams can work to reduce interdependencies and deliver value often 3. Consider the lifecycle(s) that make sense for which teams 4. Use the Flow Metrics to help everyone watch the work, not the people, and discuss the true costs and value 7
8. © 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman 1. Hours of Overlap • Can you call a collection of people a team? • Teams collaborate to deliver all their various work products • How much time do they have to collaborate with each other? 8 From WorldTimeBuddy
9. © 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman Chart 1, from Earliest to Latest • Testers start later in their day • UI/Frontend start earlier 9
10. © 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman Chart 2, the Middle of the “Day” • The entire team has organized themselves so they have two full hours of overlap every day • Notice that the Indian folks need to eat their dinner early to create this overlap 10
11. © 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman Chart 3, Latest • US-Based organization, so they think the world revolves around the US • 4 hours of US-only work 11
12. © 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman Fewer Collaboration Hours →Much Longer Cycle Time 12
13. © 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman Little’s Law and Insuf fi cient Hours of Overlap • Increased cycle time • Lower throughput • All the problems everyone sees • Little’s Law: • WIP = cycle time * throughput 13
14. © 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman Consider a “Feedback Map” 14
15. © 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman Let’s Discuss Your Options 15
16. © 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman 2. How Teams Can Work • Principles over practices • Collaborate wherever possible • Small stories • Work through the architecture • Integrate code review with development (pair, etc) • Requires policies • Forget iterations. Use a kanban system instead of iterations 16
17. © 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman Agile Principles to Consider • Limit WIP at several levels: • Program itself: limit # feature sets in progress) • For each “team”: limit # stories • Work through the architecture, not across with daily checkins • Focus on delivering value as often as possible 17
18. © 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman Possible Checkin Policies • Right-size the work so each person/ team can checkin daily (keep decisions and work small enough) • Keep code and tests clean • How often can you demo? • How often can you release internally? Then, externally? • Find agreement on an overarching goal so the program (and product) can succeed 18
19. © 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman Combination Lifecycle • A combination lifecycle that does a little upfront work • Then move into increments of value • The farther away the team members, the less useful iterations are • Choose a “start” date for any milestone and explain that 19
20. © 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman 3. A Little About Lifecycles • Each approach depends on project, product, and portfolio risks • Agile approaches represent a cultural change of collaboration to an overarching goal • The big question: How long can you wait to learn something? 20
21. © 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman Postpone Learning? Unplanned Feedback Loops 21 Requirements Hell Freezes are Slush Reality: Unplanned Feedback Loops
22. © 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman Incremental Lifecycles • Design to Schedule focuses on release candidates • Staged Delivery assumes the team will release 22
23. © 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman 4. Flow Metrics Help Support Change • Talk about value in ways your managers understand: • Time to customer (cycle time, aging) • Customer acquisition and retention • Little’s Law explains that 23
24. © 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman Change the Team’s Questions and Data • What's the one thing we should work on and fi nish? (Start with WIP.) • How old is our oldest item? Is that still valuable? (Start with aging.) • What should we change about our work so we can reduce our cycle time? (Focus on cycle time.) • How can we increase our throughput? (Focus on throughput.) 24
25. © 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman Find Your Way to Ful fi ll Your Customers’ Needs • “Agile” is not the point • Satisfy the customer • Manage risks to release • To obtain revenue • Use risks to choose your “best” approach • Incorporate agility to bring joy and ease to your work 25
26. © 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman Let’s Stay in Touch • Pragmatic Manager: • www.jrothman.com/ pragmaticmanager • Please link with me on LinkedIn • The newsletter: https:// www.jrothman.com/newsletter/ 2024/02/three-tips-to-focus-to-deliver- better-products-faster/ • Project Lifecycles book: https:// www.jrothman.com/lifecyclebook 26