CreateYourSuccessfulAgileProjectPrinciplesOverPractices-Drexel-May2026.pdf

All successful agile approaches incorporate these four principles, not specific practices.

Transcript

1. Create Your Successful Agile Project: Principles Over Practices Johanna Rothman @johannarothman www.jrothman.com
2. © 2026 Johanna Rothman 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. © 2026 Johanna Rothman Principle 1: Create a Project Rhythm • Many teams start with Scrum in 2- week iterations 3
4. © 2026 Johanna Rothman 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. © 2026 Johanna Rothman 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?? 5
6. © 2026 Johanna Rothman Flow With a Cadence Also Works • 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 when they want to • A more formal retro on Fridays at noon Eastern 6
7. © 2026 Johanna Rothman 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 7
8. © 2026 Johanna Rothman Different Boards Solve Different Problems 8
9. © 2026 Johanna Rothman Where Is Your Work? 9
10. © 2026 Johanna Rothman 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 plus the wait time is the cycle time. 10
11. © 2026 Johanna Rothman Principle 3: “Virtuous” Metrics • Measures that reinforce: • More of what we want and • Less of what we don’t want 11
12. © 2026 Johanna Rothman 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 12
13. © 2026 Johanna Rothman Flow metrics are reality and reinforce each other 13
14. © 2026 Johanna Rothman Little’s Law • WIP (Work in Progress) • Throughput (work items per unit time) • Cycle or lead time (time to release value as a trend) • Aging (how long a piece of work has been in progress) • (Notice: you can count all of these, except for the cycle time series) 14 Work in Progress = (WIP) Cycle Time * Throughput
15. © 2026 Johanna Rothman Little’s Law as a Reinforcing Loop 15
16. © 2026 Johanna Rothman 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. © 2026 Johanna Rothman Cycle Time Example 1: Team Works as Experts 17
18. © 2026 Johanna Rothman Cycle Time Example 2: Work as a Cooperative Team 18
19. © 2026 Johanna Rothman Cycle Time Example 3: Work as a Collaborative Team • Value stream map series: https:// www.jrothman.com/vsmseries 19
20. © 2026 Johanna Rothman Notes About the Value Stream Images • Most of the teams I work with have much longer cycle times • Too few people believe these cycle times until they graph and measure • Count weekends. Your customers don’t stop wanting work just because it’s a weekend 20
21. © 2026 Johanna Rothman Cycle Time Offers Helpful Forecasting 21
22. © 2026 Johanna Rothman Use Cycle Time to Forecast/Estimate/Predict • How long do items “normally” take to fi nish? • When do we have out-of-bounds unexpected cycle times? 22
23. © 2026 Johanna Rothman Add 50%, 80%, 90% Con fi dence Lines 23 See https:// www.jrothman.com/mpd/ 2024/04/how-to-move- from-story-points-and- magical-thinking-to- cycle-time-for-decisions/ for more information
24. © 2026 Johanna Rothman 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 24
25. © 2026 Johanna Rothman Product Backlog Burnup • Real earned value • Partial answer to “Where are we?” • Shows value feature-by-feature • Shows when features grow 25
26. © 2026 Johanna Rothman Done and Not Yet Released 26
27. © 2026 Johanna Rothman What Do You Want Less of? • Work In Progress (across entire project or program) • How often can you release internally and externally? • Defects: when they occur and when you detect them? • Other “Less of”: • Multitasking • ? 27
28. © 2026 Johanna Rothman 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 28
29. © 2026 Johanna Rothman 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) 29 Ideas Responsible Person Ranked Backlog Cross-Functional Team The team produces shippable product on a regular basis Demo Retrospective General Agile Picture
30. © 2026 Johanna Rothman How Can You Use These 4 Principles Now? 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 30 Ideas Responsible Person Ranked Backlog Cross-Functional Team The team produces shippable product on a regular basis Demo Retrospective General Agile Picture
31. © 2026 Johanna Rothman 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?” 31 Resource E ffi ciency Flow E ffi ciency
32. © 2026 Johanna Rothman All My Books (Organized) 32 Product Development Management Personal Development
33. © 2026 Johanna Rothman Let’s Stay in Touch • Pragmatic Manager: www.jrothman.com/ pragmaticmanager • Please link with me on LinkedIn: https:// www.linkedin.com/in/johannarothman/ • All my books are at jrothman.com/books • Hudson Bay Start: https://www.jrothman.com/mpd/ 2025/01/how-to-conduct-an-agile-hudson-bay-start- to-test-how-your-team-works/ • Flow metrics newsletter: https:// www.jrothman.com/newsletter/2024/01/ fl ow- metrics-and-why-they-matter-to-teams-and- managers/ • https://linktr.ee/johannarothman 33