Continuous Improvement Is Broken - Scrum Gathering Atlanta

Why do we care?

for many agile is about breaking down a big product/project to smaller pieces

Try... Choosing Evolution or Revolution based on your situation/context

4. Percieved VALUE

of Improvement

5. The Right

TIMING

6. Leaders who

CARE

7. Willingness to Experiment + Guidance

nimble and disciplined - you can be both - but you can also choose where to apply which

Also try... explicit consideration/reuse based on experiments elsewhere in the organization as part of the improvement workflow

9. Learn along the way

The Improvement Journey

a.k.a Continuous Improvement is BROKEN - WHY? WHAT can we do about it?

# of Retrospectives Held

Engagement score on the Improvement Board

ROTI Score of Retrospectives

# of failed Process Experiments

Improvement Manifesto

# of Issues raised

% of capacity allocated to Improvement Work Types

We are uncovering better ways of improving by doing it and helping others do it.

Through this work we have come to prefer the approaches on the left over those on the right

# Noise level in Retrospectives

Sustainable Pace

# of improvement suggestions in the Backlog

OVER

Burnout/Shock Therapy

# of Process Experiments

Evolving through Experiments and Validated Learning

OVER

# of Improvement Ceremonies spontaneously starting to happen

Following a Plan

OVER

Framed as Achieving Performance Goals

Framed as holding Improvement Routines

This is a Falsifiable Hypothesis -

How will we know this approach helps?

OVER

Scattered improvements

Focused Improvements towards Goal

http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2009/05/19/vanity-metrics-vs-actionable-metrics/

Guided/Informed Experimentation mindset

OVER

Unwillingness to try/fail or deal with

heterogeneity

Work with the organizational network

OVER

Shortcuts that seem easier / more convinient

Integrate to the organizational Cadence

OVER

Inventing a new cadence/routine

OVER

Start improvements when the timing is right

Starting cool improvement programs regardless of current context

Wait for Change Leaders who CARE

OVER

Managers who happen to be FREE

WHY do many change programs take off with great energies only to stall mid-flight ?

More importantly both are designed to become Inspect and Adapt methods at some point...

Go get me some of that Agile magic...

Coach

Participants take turns filling the matrix with explanations how a practice addresses the Goal

Should we start with Scrum or Kanban?

TIP: Use ROTI (Return on Time Invested) to focus retrospectives about Daily Meetings or Training Events

Establish traceability between WHY, HOW, WHAT + how to validate progress

UP FRONT!

2. Usage of

Organizational

Network

Even if you start measuring later, this helps buy-in...

Try... a 20 mile march

1. Dot-voting to choose Agility Goals

2. Retrospect with ROTI as the Context

1. Participants vote what was their ROTI

So, we chose the right pace, focused on what's valuable, and are willing to adapt. We have a perfect Plan right?

Coach

2. Build Implementation Backlog

adopt fanatic discipline when it comes to your improvement pace. march on in good/bad conditions, in a sustainable pace.

3. Identify Actionable Metrics

4. Trace Backlog to Metrics to Goals

(Inspired by Lean Hoshin Kanri Strategy/Policy Deployment Matrix)

Pictures from a real @AgileSparks IT client management workshop - Major mobile provider in Israel

After deciding which lean/agile building blocks to use, trace back to issues to verify the approach

* helps avoid the adrenaline bias of sprinting too fast and then burning out

Managers driving agility via the regular management chain

What are the risky assumptions in your plan?

What will Stick?

What will be rejected?

What will actually be a step forward towards our goal?

Playing with the map available is easy enough...

What if it's a bit more cloudy/foggy?

How do we know people will care about this change?

Distributing Control for ongoing work doesn't mean no involvement in improvement

Coach

Will you perfect the Conference from a "Learning that will Stick" perspective?

Shallow

Deep

With an Improvement Goal in mind, find the

OVER

FOR YOUR CHANGE

Minimum Viable Change

"Laser" Focus Approach

that you can validate your direction and tactics with.

Use small experiments to eliminate the uncertainty around what works and provides value

SIDENOTE:

Dealing with extreme uncertainty

Talks to Business Leaders / Product managers

For your organization - Choose ONE

http://www.versionone.com/state_of_agile_development_survey/11/

http://innovationgames.com

dates on all cards

How do we ensure the experiments do not stray from the righteous path?

longer sprints...

micro-management

Different Board for each Team!

Different engineering practices

The Kanban Method can be used as ONE kind of MVC to validate the direction of Lean/Flow/Agile

How do we avoid Babel Tower?

Different kinds of meetings

Different Estimation approaches

Different questions in the daily

Aren't we wasting time? You are the coach - don't you know what is best? Why experiment?

Achieving Goals

Build Change

Ideas

Change-Measure-Learn Loop - Lean Startup applied to Change...

Use Practices/Policies

Pivot/

Persevere

Minimize Total time

thru the loop

8. Focus!

Learn

Change

Data

Measure

1. Choose the right Implementation pace for the context

http://theleanstartup.com/principles

Practices/

Policies

Try... Exposing people to Complexity Thinking

Improvement

The "Scatter"/"Shotgun" approach

What would people in your organization say is their return on time invested in Retrospectives?

Get the LeanKit Board Template at

http://bit.ly/ImprovementBoardTemplate

Also look at...

Improvement Burnout

3. Replace Adapt

Organizational Routine

Operations Review

Opportunity to learn and improve from data

Standard Operation Metrics

Measures aligned with Improvement Goals

Try... Establishing Values

that filter experiments

Its best to choose values you connect to...

http://agileconsulting.blogspot.com/2012/03/bootstrapping-enterprise-kanban.html

http://www.agilemanagement.net/Articles/Weblog/OperationsReview-2.html

http://www.agilemanagement.net/AMPDFArchive/AMSE_Chapter14.pdf

http://alistair.cockburn.us/Summarizing+the+DOI

Try... Establishing a small set of overarching Explicit Policies teams use as baseline

• Kanban Board
• Limited WIP

Try... Testing the waters

Task Board

Let's do a Retrospective for the Conference so far

ScrumBan

What are you Doing?

Scrum

What are you Doing?

Visualize

Small Batches

Manage WIP

Object Oriented Inheritance anyone?

There is a story set in medieval times that tells of a traveller who comes upon three stonemasons. He asks each in turn:

‘What are you doing?’

The first answers, without hesitation, ‘I am cutting this stone.’

The second, who appears to be doing the identical job makes a gesture with his hand and says; ‘I am completing the wall.’

The third, again seems to be doing the same job slowly raises his eyes to the sky and says; ‘I am building a cathedral.’

There is a story set in current times that tells of a coach who comes upon three teams holding a meeting.

He asks members of each team in turn: ‘What are you doing?’

The members of the first answer, without hesitation,

‘We are holding a retrospective.’

The members of the second, who appear to be having the same kind of meeting make a "taking off" gesture with their hands and say;

‘We are improving our performance.’

The members of the third team, again seem to be having the same kind of meeting, slowly raise their eyes to the sky and say; ‘we are building a better business.’

Experiments should be focused towards a goal... Which brings us to...

Exercise - Design an MVC around the hypothesis that smaller stories are better

Why is Improvement Broken?

And 9 things to focus on in order to fix it

How can we make Improvement Stick?

Improvement Landscapes

Hey - Didn't we just reach the perfect process? What happened?

Questions?

More and more people realize that agile is about

continuously evolving the product / service

in the face of complex dynamic markets/ecosystems with great uncertainty about the requirements

What many people forget is that agile is also about

continuously seeking the right process

for evolving the product

Challenging your comfort zone

since we are working in complex system and our understanding of what is the best fit for our needs is continuously evolving

Energizing technology delivery organizations in Israel and Worldwide...

http://www.agilesparks.com