Create Your Successful Agile Project: Principles Over Practices Johanna Rothman @johannarothman www.jrothman.com

© 2023 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

© 2023 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Principle 1: Create a Project Rhythm • Many teams start with Scrum in 2-week iterations 3

© 2023 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

© 2023 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?? 5

© 2023 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman 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

© 2023 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 7

© 2023 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Different Boards Solve Different Problems 8

© 2023 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Where Is Your Work? 9

© 2023 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. 10

© 2023 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Principle 3: “Virtuous” Metrics • Measures that reinforce: • More of what we want and • Less of what we don’t want 11

© 2023 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 12

© 2023 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. 13

© 2023 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) 14

© 2023 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Cycle Time Example 1: Team Works as Individuals 15

© 2023 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Cycle Time Example 2: Work as aCollaborative Team 16

© 2023 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Cycle Time Example 3: Insuf fi cient Hours of Overlap 17

© 2023 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 18

© 2023 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Cycle Time Offers Helpful Forecasting 19

© 2023 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman 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? 20

© 2023 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 21

© 2023 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Product Backlog Burnup • Real earned value • Partial answer to “Where are we?” • Shows value feature-by-feature • Shows when features grow 22

© 2023 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Done and Not Yet Released 23

© 2023 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman 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 • ? 24

© 2023 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 25

© 2023 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) 26 Ideas Responsible Person Ranked Backlog Cross-Functional Team The team produces shippable product on a regular basis Demo Retrospective General Agile Picture

© 2023 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman 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 27 Ideas Responsible Person Ranked Backlog Cross-Functional Team The team produces shippable product on a regular basis Demo Retrospective General Agile Picture

© 2023 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?” 28 Resource E ffi ciency Flow E ffi ciency

© 2023 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 29