Do you ever struggle with knowing if you should split stories? Or wondering if you have a valuable minimum? Jeffrey Frederick and Squirrel offered a signal for a too-small minimum in their podcast, MVP Cubed. That signal was when people became bored with the work. Let me add some additional tests: When the team can’t […]
The larger your product, the more likely you have components teams. I often see component teams because of the architecture of the product. In this first image, the Integrated System Program, the rest of the product uses the Platform of Common Services as components. Also, the teams find it tempting to think of the common
Does your organization have an enterprise architect or Chief Product Person? We create these positions to check that the teams don’t try to implement something “wrong.” However, a single person in this position creates bottlenecks and dependencies. (A committee might create even tighter bottlenecks.) Those dependencies slow the work. If a person delays the work,
Even when managers try to create cross-functional teams, the teams still have dependencies. Dependencies slow and make finishing the work more difficult. Too many teams have a built-in dependency creator—code review. When we take time to perform code review after we write the code (or the tests), we create dependencies between the people on the
Over the past couple of weeks, several potential clients have discussed problems they want to fix: What are the teams doing, at a detailed level? (The managers want to know when the teams will finish certain features in the short term.) How can they plan for six months at a time? (They want to understand
I said in the Modern Management books that managers lead and serve the team (at all levels). However, I’ve seen organizations try to separate the leading work from the serving work. That’s when the organization creates “people” managers. The people managers serve the team by creating a trusting relationship with each person on the team.
Many organizations ask teams to forecast when the team can deliver a feature. (Or finish a project.) That request often means the teams spend a ton of time forecasting, not delivering. Instead, what if managers told the team when the managers want to make a decision? The team could deliver enough to help the managers
Some managers wanted to prevent Bad Things from happening in the organization, so they added policies or procedures. Now, these same managers want business agility. However, the policies and procedures increase friction and make it harder to get the Right Things done. It’s time to start removing some of those policies and procedures. The more
Many of us focus on how efficient we can be. Many of our organizations want to maximize our output for every minute and hour of work. However, if we focus on effectiveness first, we create better outcomes for everyone. We don’t waste time working on things that don’t matter. An Example of Moving from Efficiency
Several of my clients struggle with their deadlines. One of them, Brad, quoted Douglas Adams to me and frowned: “I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.” He thought agile approaches would work to “meet” and “enforce” deadlines. I asked him these questions: Do you think people don’t want