STOP measuring knowledge based work in hours!
Last night I was having a quick browse through one of the most famous essays ever written on Software engineering, "The Mythical Man Month”... I don't think I've read the book in over ten years during which time its been sat quietly collecting dust on my bookshelf! To my surprise when flicking through I noticed that the original version was published in 1975 making this year the 40th anniversary - However despite being marginally older than myself it shows perhaps how little has changed in the last 40 years!
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What is Agile?
What is Agile? What's meant by being Agile? When you think about it... It's amazing this question isn't asked more often! It's almost certainly not asked enough especially by companies who suddenly decide to go Agile in an attempt to fix all of their problems!
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Are Story Points still relevant?
I've read several articles and blog posts recently which have been questioning the need for story points and estimating techniques such as planning poker - Indeed the last last few conferences I've attended I've partaken in several conversations on this subject - #noEstimates
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Life beyond Scrum
Great Agile teams are prepared to change the rules... because they understand the behavioural changes, safeguards and phycology of being Agile... 'Bad' agile teams change the rules because they don't understand and are not prepared to take the leap of faith required to achieve greatness!
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The agile tool box!
One of the things I can't over emphasise enough when coaching agile techniques or working with a team is the importance of keeping everything 'real' and 'physical'
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The dysfunctional daily stand-up
This is a brilliant little game I love playing with both new and experienced agile teams... Unfortunately I can't claim any credit as I never came up with it!
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Moving on from Sprints?
Being agile contrary to popular belief doesn't in fact insist you work in iterations at all - it's a concept used in Scrum but if your an agile team using Kanban you probably won't have any iterations at all - working instead on a flow based system - albeit you may have the concept of cycles.
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Work in Progress limits
Introducing WIP limits has an immediate psychological advantage - If a team can only work on a limited number of features it forces a prioritisation to take place... likewise at the department or organisational level - Such restrictions whilst unpopular encourages better decision making and ensures that only those tasks with a clear business case are undertaken.
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The Time Box
So what is a time box? Put simply it's an agreed fixed length of time that a team or individual will use to accomplish a goal. At the end of the period of time the team stops - regardless of if the task is complete or not.
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The Sprint review meeting
Ideally the review meeting should be kept informal and all members of the Scrum team should attend along with stake-owners, management, customers the Product owner and something I like to do is invite members of other scrum teams/development teams along to observe (This can also be a good thing to do in the retrospective from time to time and helps to share practices and promote good ideas within an organisation)
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The Retrospective - Too busy to improve?
No matter how well your doing Scrum there's always the opportunity to improve!
The process of improvement should be a continual daily task but it's also one on the 4 meetings or ceremonies that should occur within every sprint, for more information on each of the other ceremonies within Scrum take a look at my earlier blog post
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5 Core Values of Scrum
So what are the 5 core values? Focus - Courage - Openness - Commitment - Respect.
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The Information Refrigerator
So what is an Information Refrigerator? Simple, it's any type of chart, graph, project plan which involves digging around for.... before you find the ketchup your actually looking for!
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Scrum? Kanban? What about Scrumban anyone?
Scrum is probably the most famous and popular implementation of Agile going....
It's established, structured and well documented - with clearly defined roles, responsibilities and ceremonies.
I've written a few blog posts about Scrum but if you're new to Scrum it's probably worth reading my article
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We're doing Scrum.... How do we Increase Velocity?
One of the questions I probably hear more than any other is 'We want to increase velocity, how do we do it?' I'll leave you to guess who asks that question! but I'll give you a clue.... it's not the developers! or actually should I say it's not the Agile team! (but that's a whole other blog for another day)
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What's your DoD?
I've asked this question a few times of Agile teams... And usually look at me! look at each other for inspiration and perhaps, hopefully, eventually will find a written Definition of Done.... hopefully attached to the 'Information Radiator'! Usually however teams doing 'agile' have one... but nobody can remember what it is or where it is - let alone know for sure if it's being adhered too!
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Kanban essentials
Kanban is another agile term that gets thrown around a-lot.... usually by people who have no idea what it's really all about - but when did a lack of knowledge or understanding ever stop anybody throwing around buzz words?
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Scrum of Scrums
The daily standup is often carried out by agile teams.. It’s a short, typically 15 minute time-boxed planning session held at the start of the day for the team. One of the outputs from the daily stand-up may be a list of blockers which are preventing the team from completing work. Often these blockers can be resolved within the team or with conversations with other teams.
However with large programmes of work where many teams with different disciplines are working ‘together’ blockers and dependancies become more of an issue and resolution more complex and lengthy.
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