Visualize Your Agile Approach: Practical Ways to Increase Your Agility Johanna Rothman [email protected] www.jrothman.com https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman

© 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman Everyone’s gone “Agile,” right? 2

© 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman So Many Problems • Long and extensive backlogs and roadmaps • Teams become feature factories with little product strategy • Little to no experimentation • Lots of late changes • No joy. No ease. The grind of work. 3

© 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman Culture is the Root Cause 4 • Resource ef fi ciency thinking: Individual actions or deliverables • Flow ef fi ciency thinking: Create environment for everyone to succeed in teams • Rewards can drive your organizational structure

© 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman When managers reward resource ef fi ciency, true agility cannot survive However, you have many options 5

© 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman Waterfall or agile is not a useful question (leads to fake agility) Instead, how can we manage our risks and incorporate agility? 6

© 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman Part 1: Clarify Risks 7

© 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman Risks Drive Choices for Feedback Loop Duration • Three major kinds of risks • Project risks • Product risks • Portfolio/organization risks • When we manage risks, we can reduce the duration of feedback loops and decide faster 8

© 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman Project Risks Affect Lifecycle Choice • The project pyramid explains: • Drives your project (one aspect) • Constraints (not more than two) • Floats (the other three) 9

© 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman Product Risks Affect Lifecycle Choice • Product risks clarify how much innovation you need and when • Very few product ideas survive customer contact 10

© 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman Portfolio Risks Affect Lifecycle Choice • How often does your organization need to re-decide on the project portfolio? • Market in fl ux • Startup • Insuf fi cient stability for long decision durations • The more portfolio risks, the shorter the feedback loops need to be 11

© 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman Agile Approach Is Not a Lifecycle • A culture change • Not a mindset or speci fi c practices • Agile approaches require: • A collaborative cross-functional team • Limits its ranked WIP • Releases often for feedback • Learns from what they did • Consider “Agility” instead of “Agile” 12

© 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman How to Choose a Lifecycle (Not “Agile”) • Higher organizational or product risks: incremental, combination, or agile approach • Project risks: • Date → incremental or agile approach • Low defects → incremental or agile approach • More features → iterative or agile approach • General guidelines • Know what to do and short timeframe? → serial or incremental • Longer timeframe? Anything other than serial 13

© 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman Agile Teams Work Through the Architecture to Deliver 14

© 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman More risks? Reduce feedback loop duration 15

© 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman Poll for Your Collaboration to Enable Agility • In the chat, please use a number for your answer: 16

© 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman Part 2: Clarify Lifecycles 17

© 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman Serial Lifecycles • Waterfall • Stage-Gate • Phases • Characteristics: • Plan a lot up front • SMOE (Simple Matter of Execution) 18

© 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman Reality for Too Many “Agile” Teams 19 Requirements Hell Freezes are Slush Reality: Unplanned Feedback Loops

© 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman Iterative Lifecycles • Re fi ne prototypes: • Boehm’s Spiral Model • Evolutionary Prototyping • Even SAFe, unless the teams release from the fi rst timebox 20

© 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman Internal vs External Feedback • Iterative approaches can work under these conditions: • Obtain feedback from outside the team • Obtain feedback from a customer • The longer it takes for customer- based feedback, the more likely the project “Kiss of Death” 21

© 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

© 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman Late Feedback in Incremental Lifecycles • Design to schedule has risks because everything is a release candidate • In Staged Delivery, release what you have 23

© 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman Consider Combining Approaches 24 Date-driven: Iterative fi rst, then Incremental Feature-driven: Iterative fi rst, then choose when to release

© 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman Component Teams Challenge Agility 25

© 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman Agile Approaches 26 Iterations are timeboxes. That’s how the team limits its WIP. The shorter the iteration, the faster everyone learns. A Kanban system does not need timeboxes. The team limits its WIP by design. I like to right-size the work so the team delivers on a cadence.

© 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman Poll for Your WIP Limits to Enable Agility • In the chat, please use a number for your answer: 27

© 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman Part 3: How to Increase Agility 28

© 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman Team Tips to Increase Agility • Focus on the fl ow of work, not what individual people do ( fl ow ef fi ciency thinking) • Reduce or timebox up-front work to reduce later unplanned feedback loops • Start with and maintain a cross- functional team that collaborates for the entire project 29

© 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman Flow Metrics Support More Agility • Cycle time to see how long things take • Aging to see where work gets stuck and for how long • WIP: How much work is in progress • Throughput: How often does the team release something? • Why your collaboration and ability to limit WIP matter 30 Little’s Law:

© 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman Culture/Project Tips to Increase Agility • Use your project and product risks to understand how often you need feedback, internally and externally • Plan for shorter projects to reduce unplanned feedback loops • Deliver & Demo something at least once a month 31

© 2024 Johanna Rothman https://mastodon.sdf.org/@johannarothman Less Planning + More Delivering = Real Agility 32

© 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 33

© 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 • Project Lifecycles: https:// www.jrothman.com/lifecyclebook 34