Susan, a new-to-the-company program manager, could not understand why Product A was so late. The teams used a well-known agile approach. They weren’t working on anything else except for production support. Yet, even though the teams worked hard, not one team could meet any of their deadlines. The teams were unhappy with their progress. They […]
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
Continuing the series on dependencies… Maybe you don’t have the problem where the team creates internal dependencies with their process. And you don’t have to wait for someone outside the team to approve your work—an organizational process. But you do have a combination of platform/component teams and feature teams. I see this most often in
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
Imagine you are transitioning to agile. You are a program manager with a few agile projects and a traditional project. How do you manage the program? Possible Technical Program with Communities of Practice Above is my drawing of what a technical program team looks like. Sally’s project is actually a small program itself. Sally is