Create Your Successful Agile Project : Principles Over Practices Johanna Rothma n @johannarothma n www.jrothman.com

© 2021 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman 4 Principles 1. Create a project rhyth m 2. Visualize work and the bottleneck s 3. Develop and use measures that reinforce the team’s delivery and improvemen t 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

© 2021 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Principle 1: Create a Project Rhythm • Many teams start with Scrum in 2-week iterations 3

© 2021 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Iterations Work Well When… • Everyone understands when the iteration starts and fi nishes : • Enough hours of overla p • The entire team works together on one produc t • You can right-size features to fi t into an iteratio n • You don’t need to accommodate too much interrupting work 4

© 2021 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

© 2021 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 t o • A more formal retro on Fridays at noon Eastern 6

© 2021 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Principle 2: Visualize Work and Bottlenecks • If we can see the work, we can choose how to manage i t • If we can see where the bottlenecks are, we can choose to experiment or change 7

© 2021 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Different Boards Solve Different Problems 8

© 2021 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Where Is Your Work? 9

© 2021 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

© 2021 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Principle 3: “Virtuous” Metrics • Measures that reinforce : • More of what we want an d • Less of what we don’t want 11

© 2021 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Possible (Virtuous) Measures • Team-visible measure s • 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 : • Demo s • Features char t • Product backlog burnup char t • Done and not yet released 12

© 2021 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Never Report Velocity or Story Points • Velocity is a measure of capacity, not productivity or acceleration nor spee d • Story points are personal to a tea m • Assume you walk at a normal pace of 4 mph, normal velocity. • How to account for : • Weather • Talk to a neighbo r • Detou r • Same duration, different fi nishing. 13

© 2021 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 i t • But, the team took many days or weeks to deliver i t • Where did the time go? (Cycle time explains) 14

© 2021 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Cycle Time Example 1: Team Works as Individuals 15

© 2021 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Cycle Time Example 2: Work as aCollaborative Team 16

© 2021 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Cycle Time Example 3: Insuf fi cient Hours of Overlap 17

© 2021 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Notes About the Value Stream Images • Most of the teams I work with have much longer cycle time s • Work times of one day or so. Wait times of 4-7 days, for a total of 8 days of cycle tim e • Count weekends. Your customers don’t stop wanting work just because it’s a weekend 18

© 2021 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Cycle Time Offers Helpful Forecasting 19

© 2021 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Forecasting: See How Many of Your Items Complete at What Cycle Time 20

© 2021 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Measure Completed Features • Completed features (running, tested features ) • Your customers use the m • You can release the m • They are valuabl e • Include total and remaining features so we have a sense of where we ar e • Depends on deliverables, not epics or themes 21

© 2021 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Product Backlog Burnup • Real earned valu e • Partial answer to “Where are we? ” • Shows value feature-by-featur e • Shows when features grow 22

© 2021 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Done and Not Yet Released 23

© 2021 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman What Do You Want Less of? • Work In Progress (across entire program ) • How often releas e • Defects • Other “Less of” : • Multitaskin g • ? 24

© 2021 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Principle 4: Continuous Improvement with Experiments • Retrospective s • Kaize n • Choose one thing to experiment with every week or tw o • This is more important than any other meeting you have 25

© 2021 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Entire Team Re fl ects • All the people who create the product re fl ect togethe r • Kaizen: 20-60 minutes to discuss issue, select alternative, create action pla n • 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

© 2021 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman What Might You Change to Use These 4 Principles? 1. Create a project rhyth m 2. Visualize work and the bottleneck s 3. Develop and use measures that reinforce the team’s delivery and improvemen t 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

© 2021 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Flow Ef fi ciency Thinking: A Helpful Frame • Focus on the work item, not the person doing the wor k • 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

© 2021 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Dependencies-between-teams Reading • Component teams posts : • https://www.jrothman.com/mpd/portfolio-management/ 2017/01/rethinking-component-teams-for- fl ow / • https://www.jrothman.com/mpd/2019/12/component- teams-create-coupling-in-products-and-organizations / • https://www.jrothman.com/mpd/2019/04/product-roles- part-5-component-teams-to-create-slices/ • https://www.jrothman.com/mpd/agile/2014/09/one- experimental-possibility-self-organization-from- component-teams-to-feature-teams/ • https://www.jrothman.com/mpd/program-management/ 2013/01/managing-the-stream-of-features-in-a-program/ • https://www.jrothman.com/ALPM for the book 29

© 2021 Johanna Rothman @johannarothman Let’s Stay in Touch • Pragmatic Manager: • www.jrothman.com/ pragmaticmanage r • Please link with me on LinkedI n • Create Your Successful Agile Project: https://www.jrothman.com/cysap 30