There is too much focus on teams in most agile transformations. The best team still delivers poorly in an inefficient environment. My talk is about how to know when the problems you’re facing are outside of the team’s control and I’ll share a set of options for dealing with them, both for senior management and for the team. For senior management, I’ll recommend about half a dozen ideas for systemic improvements. For team members, I’ll share over a dozen ways I’ve found to hack a broken system in order to squeeze the most value out of it.
The talk opens with a very brief introduction to systems thinking, followed by three causes of systemic failure and how to recognize them. Finally, I go through a list of interventions (both for senior leadership and delivery teams) to address upstream, in process, and downstream delays and variability. I sum up with a hopeful message for team members who think they’ve hit the wall of “this is as good as it gets around here.”
6. WHEN DOINGTHE SAME
THING BETTER WON’T HELP
• Fat-tail lead time distributions
• Long average lead time relative to deadlines
• High volatility in staff liquidity
Because all of these things mean your system is exposed to extreme
random events which invalidate your attempts to forecast.
In these cases, the solution requires an act of leadership.
I learned this from Alexei Zheglov
16. Conduct Strategy Reviews
Align strategy and capability
Set replenishment points
Define acceptance criteria
Visualize failure demand
Demand shaping policies
UPSTREAM DELAYS
CONDUCT STRATEGY REVIEWS
Photo by rawpixel.com from Pexels
17. IN PROCESS DELAYS
Measure and predict blockers
Raise placeholder tickets
Cross-train
Make friends - a virtual team
Request SLAs
WIP limit on parking lot
Limit upstream work
Customer acceptance criteria
More frequent replenishment
Floating talent pool
Shared services enablement
Co-locate
Embed
More frequent replenishment
Customer-centric metrics
18. IN PROCESS DELAYS
MEASURE AND PREDICT BLOCKERS
Measure and predict blockers
Raise placeholder tickets
Cross-train
Make friends - a virtual team
Request SLAs
WIP limit on parking lot
Limit upstream work
Customer acceptance criteria
Floating talent pool
Shared services enablement
Co-locate
Embed
More frequent replenishment
Customer-centric metrics
19. IN PROCESS DELAYS
MEASURE AND PREDICT BLOCKERS
Measure and predict blockers
Raise placeholder tickets
Cross-train
Make friends - a virtual team
Request SLAs
WIP limit on parking lot
Limit upstream work
Customer acceptance criteria
Floating talent pool
Shared services enablement
Co-locate
Embed
More frequent replenishment
Customer-centric metrics
20. IN PROCESS DELAYS
RAISE PLACEHOLDER TICKETS
Measure and predict blockers
Raise placeholder tickets
Cross-train
Make friends - a virtual team
Request SLAs
WIP limit on parking lot
Limit upstream work
Customer acceptance criteria
Floating talent pool
Shared services enablement
Co-locate
Embed
More frequent replenishment
Customer-centric metrics
21. IN PROCESS DELAYS
CROSS-TRAIN
Measure and predict blockers
Raise placeholder tickets
Cross-train
Make friends - a virtual team
Request SLAs
WIP limit on parking lot
Limit upstream work
Customer acceptance criteria
Floating talent pool
Shared services enablement
Co-locate
Embed
More frequent replenishment
Customer-centric metrics
22. IN PROCESS DELAYS
MAKE FRIENDS AND BUILD A VIRTUAL TEAM
Measure and predict blockers
Raise placeholder tickets
Cross-train
Make friends - a virtual team
Request SLAs
WIP limit on parking lot
Limit upstream work
Customer acceptance criteria
Floating talent pool
Shared services enablement
Co-locate
Embed
More frequent replenishment
Customer-centric metrics
23. IN PROCESS DELAYS
REQUEST SLAS
Measure and predict blockers
Raise placeholder tickets
Cross-train
Make friends - a virtual team
Request SLAs
WIP limit on parking lot
Limit upstream work
Customer acceptance criteria
Floating talent pool
Shared services enablement
Co-locate
Embed
More frequent replenishment
Customer-centric metrics
24. IN PROCESS DELAYS
WIP LIMIT ON PARKING LOT
Measure and predict blockers
Raise placeholder tickets
Cross-train
Make friends - a virtual team
Request SLAs
WIP limit on parking lot
Limit upstream work
Customer acceptance criteria
Floating talent pool
Shared services enablement
Co-locate
Embed
More frequent replenishment
Customer-centric metrics
25. IN PROCESS DELAYS
LIMIT UPSTREAM WORK
Measure and predict blockers
Raise placeholder tickets
Cross-train
Make friends - a virtual team
Request SLAs
WIP limit on parking lot
Limit upstream work
Customer acceptance criteria
Floating talent pool
Shared services enablement
Co-locate
Embed
More frequent replenishment
Customer-centric metrics
26. IN PROCESS DELAYS
CUSTOMER ACCEPTANCE CRITERIA
Measure and predict blockers
Raise placeholder tickets
Cross-train
Make friends - a virtual team
Request SLAs
WIP limit on parking lot
Limit upstream work
Customer acceptance criteria
Floating talent pool
Shared services enablement
Co-locate
Embed
More frequent replenishment
Customer-centric metrics
27. IN PROCESS DELAYS
MORE FREQUENT REPLENISHMENT
Measure and predict blockers
Raise placeholder tickets
Cross-train
Make friends - a virtual team
Request SLAs
WIP limit on parking lot
Limit upstream work
Customer acceptance criteria
Floating talent pool
Shared services enablement
Co-locate
Embed
More frequent replenishment
Customer-centric metrics
Thanks to Michał Parkoła for the metaphor
28. IN PROCESS DELAYS
Measure and predict blockers
Raise placeholder tickets
Cross-train
Make friends - a virtual team
Request SLAs
WIP limit on parking lot
Limit upstream work
Customer acceptance criteria
Floating talent pool
Shared services enablement
Co-locate
Embed
Customer-centric metrics
29. IN PROCESS DELAYS
FLOATING TALENT POOL
Measure and predict blockers
Raise placeholder tickets
Cross-train
Make friends - a virtual team
Request SLAs
WIP limit on parking lot
Limit upstream work
Customer acceptance criteria
Floating talent pool
Shared services enablement
Co-locate
Embed
More frequent replenishment
Customer-centric metrics
30. IN PROCESS DELAYS
SHARED SERVICES ENABLEMENT
Measure and predict blockers
Raise placeholder tickets
Cross-train
Make friends - a virtual team
Request SLAs
WIP limit on parking lot
Limit upstream work
Customer acceptance criteria
Floating talent pool
Shared services enablement
Co-locate
Embed
More frequent replenishment
Customer-centric metrics
31. IN PROCESS DELAYS
CUSTOMER-CENTRIC METRICS
Measure and predict blockers
Raise placeholder tickets
Cross-train
Make friends - a virtual team
Request SLAs
WIP limit on parking lot
Limit upstream work
Customer acceptance criteria
Floating talent pool
Shared services enablement
Co-locate
Embed
More frequent replenishment
Customer-centric metrics