Tag: Scrum

It’s my way or the highway…

The last few months have been pretty busy for me and so I have dropped out of the online community for a while. Over the Christmas break I had some free time and so I ventured back in, caught up on some reading and tried to get a feel for the common issues of the day.

What I found was post after post condemning just about all things ‘Agile’    

“Ban the use of Story points”

“Agile is dead”

“Scrum/KanBan should be sent to the scrap heap”

“We don’t need: Scrum Master/Product Owner/Agile Coach/QA” 

There were some even suggesting that Agile had run it’s course and we should go back to Waterfall.

I found all this very disheartening, on one hand most of these were from people presenting a new idea or new techniques, and it is sad to say but in our culture it seems the only way we seem to know how to sell something is by presenting everything else as bad or with Click Bait statements, we all want to get noticed.  But when did ‘Agile’ become so black and white?

For me Agile has always been first and foremost about inspecting and improving – finding better ways.  But that doesn’t automatically make anything that differs from your approach Bad.  And it certainly doesn’t make everything New to be Good.

There is not one Right Way.

In almost every case the examples/justifications were examples of poor implementations of Scrum/Kanban; incorrect use of Story Points; or a person being ineffective in a role, or in some cases there were teams that had matured to a point where they were no longer getting benefit from a tool or a role.

But not one of those examples makes the tool or the role Bad.   In each and every case the team should inspect and adapt, and identify improvements.  If one team decides that Story Points do not add value for them, that is great, that team has found a better way that they can deliver software.

But that doesn’t mean that other teams that find them effective are automatically doing it wrong. If you find you can use a tool effectively and it works for you, then use it. Just keep inspecting and improving.  If a tool doesn’t work for you or you find an alternative tool that works that is great too. But try to understand why you are using a tool, what is your desired outcome and is there a better way for you.

As an anecdote, I was using a drill to make holes to hang shelves, I carefully marked and measured and then drilled. A friend was with me and he picked up a cross-head screwdriver lined it up on the wall and hit it hard, punching a hole in the plasterboard wall, far quicker than I was doing with the drill.  The technique was great for him in that situation, but when faced with wood or brick it was not suitable, and in both cases I still needed to measure and mark.  

Tools are context AND user specific, what works for one user in one situation does not automatically work for all users in all situations.

The same goes for the roles argument, I agree that there are some teams that have the versatility, the right mix of people and the capability to work effectively without one or all of the roles, but that doesn’t mean they are an ideal we should all strive for. Many teams find they are far more effective with those roles, and I would consider that to be just as much an ideal state as the other. If your team is effective and improving then you are demonstrating an Agile mindset.  Our goal should be to improve how we deliver software, not strive for someone else’s idea of utopia. Concentrate on improving YOUR team rather than mimicking another team in a different situation.

Declaring your way the only way is not demonstrating an Agile Mindset.

Explain the benefits, do not attack the alternatives

If you find a way that you feel works well and you want to share it, then explain what problem it solved and why you felt it improved the way your team worked, share that example, but please don’t do so by declaring all other tools WRONG.  What is right for you may not be right for everyone. You will just sound like a Snake Oil salesman.

Don’t reinvent the wheel

Having said all that we don’t need to reinvent the wheel and discover everything ourselves. We can benefit from other people’s experience and advice.

Both Scrum and Kanban and any of the tools mentioned can be badly applied, but when implemented with the guidance of someone with a genuine Agile Mindset (rather than a blind by the book interpretation) they can be excellent foundations from which you can evolve, by inspecting and improving, they are not the end point but a safe and structured starting point.

The same applies to the named roles, having someone with an Agile Mindset that can help create a foundation of understanding of the roles and when and where they add value can provide a structure and consistency that allows you to grow from a starting point that has proven to be effective for many.

Do not stand still.

But most of all, whether it be Story Points or the need for a QA, inspect regularly, assess what problem you are trying to solve in terms of outcomes, if you feel a change will show improvement then experiment and review.  Small changes are generally preferred, it is easier to see the impact and easier to undo if the results are not what was expected. Understand what you are changing and why so that you can properly assess whether the change was beneficial.

I have seen teams conclude a Scrum Master/QA/Product Owner is not necessary after all they can cover the role themselves (usually as the result of cost saving measures or because they are presented with a false notion that good teams don’t need help). Sometimes this works, but more often the responsibilities are performed less effectively when distributed among the team and so the net result is a reduction in the effectiveness of the team.

There are certain expertise and mindsets that often come with a role that is not fully appreciated until it is gone. This generally and understandably gets neglected when it isn’t the core responsibility of the team members.

Let the team decide

If a team feels they need a change I’d have far more confidence than if the decision was made by someone with little or no exposure to the team, or on the back of reading a blog suggesting “good teams don’t use Scrum Masters/Story Points/Scrum/etc.”

Were Pirates Agile?

A good friend of mine has been watching Black Sails and he commented at how similar the structure was to a Scrum team and so I did a little research just to see what parallels can be drawn from a a band of pirates and an Agile team.

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They are self-organising and self-managing

A pirate crew was very much a self-organising structure, all crew members got an equal say in decisions. Officers were generally elected including the Captain and the Officers. Almost all decisions were made by way of voting or the crew voted to delegate decisions to an individual.  The crews were generally cross-functional, some specialist skills were in short supply so people with those skills were highly valued but generally crews were expected to pitch in and perform multiple roles.

They had a Product Owner

A captain was elected and his role was to set vision and direction, to be a single voice and he became ultimately responsible for the success or failure of the project, he would choose the next target or destinatation and would decide how to respond to navigation hazards that could be planned around. There were some perks associated with the job but generally loot was divided equally amongst the crew, a Captain may get 1.5 or 2 shares. Successful Captains would likely be re-elected unsuccessful ones may not be so fortunate.  There was a distinct lack of authority in this role outside of navigation and strategic decisions.

They had a Scrum Master or Team Coach

Crews would elect a QuarterMaster, their job was to ensure the ship ran well, he understood the process and would do his best to coach the crew into keeping a ship running well. But the quartermaster did not have authority over the crew beyond this.  Pirate crews were made up of runaway slaves, deserters from armies and ships or fortune seekers, many were not skilled sailors or fighters and most had a very strong aversion to authority and discipline.  Quartermasters were first and foremost coaches. They would encourage the crew to learn the necessary skills and to keep the workflow effective.  Quartermasters were likely seasoned sailors with lots of experience and the ability to understand how a ship works and how to coach the crew to do it. But unlike the Navy where discipline could be used to enforce order a pirate crew didn’t do this. If a quartermaster struck a sailor they risked being marooned as a consequence.

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The crew had individual responsibilities

All crew members had responsibilities and were held accountable by their peers, all understood that the crew stood or fell on it’s own so anyone not pulling their weight or letting the crew down was a liability. Whilst there were officers the officers were organisational necessities not authority figures, it was about communication not control. Discipline was most definitely not enforced by officers.

But the best parallel is that they had working agreements

The pirate code – perhaps the earliest documented team working agreement?  Each crew had and documented their code and held the other members of their crew accountable to it. The code contained how decisions were made, what decisions were delegated. How loot was divided. How the team interacted with each other. It was clear that in most cases it was a flat structure and that roles were temporary and were elected.

Pirates were generally forbidden from stealing, destruction, sexual assault, fighting, desertion, gambling or breaking up the pirate band. Some even mandated an early bed time!

Definition of done

This one in particular amused me, but the pirate code contained a definition of done for a Pirate.  If a pirate earned 1000 pound then he may retire. If the pirate lost a limb they could leave the crew and would be given 800 pounds. (400 pounds if it was just a hand).

 

So are pirate crews agile?   yes they Arrrgh !

Why Scrum so often fails

I should start out by saying that I am a big fan of Scrum, I think those that devised the framework possessed an agile mindset but also were mindful of human nature. They created a framework that had in built checks and balances and prescribed solutions to many of the most common problems. They also had an understanding of system level thinking – I’ll come back to that later.

The core of the system though are the core roles Scrum Master, Product Owner and Development Team. This triad is what makes Scrum so successful (when it works) and in my opinion it is the absence of this triad that is the root cause of the majority of the unsuccessful adoptions.

It is all about the mindset

However, I don’t think it is the role that defines this triad but the perceived mindset behind the role.  Having a team that possesses a strong member with an Agile mindset, and the knowledge and skills to support it and the opportunity to focus on it; having a strong team member with a Customer mindset, a desire to engage the customer and ensure they get what they really want, and finally a cross functional development team with a strong Production mindset – that of delivering a well designed, high quality and maintainable product.

Scrum assigns named roles because they believe this give the best chance of having those mindsets on the team. But sadly it doesn’t guarantee them.  There are far too many Scrum Masters that understand the rules, but do not have an agile mindset so create cargo cults and many product owners that build what they want not what the customer wants.  And many development teams that over-architect, over-engineer or pay lip service to quality maintenance and even design.

scrum-master

The flip side is that you can create Agile teams without team coaches and without customer representation, sometimes they are very successful. But my assertion would be that on those teams there is someone with an Agile Mindset and calls out the team when they deviate, there is someone or multiple people that make the customer voice heard and engage them often and there is a cross functional team dedicated to building the product right.

In essence I am saying that Scrum fails when those in the named roles fail to live up to the role. And that in cases where a role isn’t named someone or more than one steps-up into that role. But in either case if those mindsets are not present on the team it is a recipe for failure.

Agile is a Mindset not a Rule-set

Scrum fails in essence because we assume a Role is the same as a Mindset. In this case Correlation does not imply causation. There are many great Scrum Masters and Coaches out there who posses an Agile Mindset, but sadly there are also a great many that lack it and see the role as the application of a rule-set rather than the application of a mindset.

System Level Thinking

This failure of mindset extends to the tired old conversation of Scrum Masters (and coaches) making themselves redundant on a team.  There is a lot of talk about whether or not a Scrum Master(or Product Owner – or QA or designer etc etc) would be fully utilized on a team.  Utilization of resources is a point of frustration for me (Note my deliberate use of the word resources). If you are concerned about maximizing utilization of someone then you are failing to see them as a person or see the value they provide and they have been reduced to counting the number of hours they occupy a seat.

A coach does not become redundant on a team when the team performs their tasks for them, a coach becomes redundant on a team when the team develops an Agile mindset and has the skills and knowledge to apply it without the coach’s help (and even then I see value in a diverse perspective). Utilization should not even be a consideration, value to the system should be the consideration. The same applies to the other roles – PO, designer, QA etc.

It is all in the name

Naming roles on a team is a risk, as I have described above if you get the wrong person it can undermine the balance, there is also a risk of knowledge siloing, and perceived expectations and divisions of labour when you name a role by areas of responsibility.

But far, far more damaging in my opinion is giving names that imply authority. Any type of named leadership role embedded on a team (Manager, Tech Lead, Team Leader, Architecture Lead) immediately stifles opinion and inclusion and undermines self-organisation on a team. Where roles like Scrum Master and PO stifle horizontal knowledge sharing, hierarchy stifles everything – so in my opinion this is far worse.  If someone possesses a greater technical understanding there is no need to anoint leadership, it should be self-evident, and if it is not evident to the others on the team then likely the leadership title will subvert rather than support.  Equally A self-organising team should not need a team leader or manager.

Ultimately it comes down to balance.

If you believe a team will be able to balance the three essential mind-sets without named horizontal roles, then the roles are unnecessary.  If not (and I would err on the side of caution) then named roles give the highest probability of achieving this balance – especially if you have confidence in your hiring team that they are hiring for mindset rather than certifications. Those in the named roles should be sharing the mind-set as much as the knowledge.

But I if you feel there is a need for named leadership roles on a “self-organizing” team, ask yourself why you don’t trust the team to self-organize?

And finally if at any point decisions are getting made based on utilization of staff, in isolation and without consideration to the value they bring to the team. Then read the book “The Goal” by Eliyahu M. Goldratt.  It will help understand that a focus on perceived local efficiencies and a desire for maximum utilization can actually be damaging to the larger system. Or read my post on efficiency

churchill

 

 

 

 

Why do we use WiP limits?

I participated in a great discussion this week on the use of WiP limits.  For those that don’t know, WiP stands for Work in Progress, and is a measure of how many activities you have started but not completed.

It is important to note that this is not a measure of how many tasks you are currently actively working on.  If I started a task but have become blocked, so I start another then my Work in Progress is 2 – even though I am only actively working on one. WiP is a measure of how many started but incomplete tasks I have.

For example: call-waiting or being put on hold during a phone call:  You are talking away and get another call so you switch to the second call without hanging up, and when you get another call you take that too, how many people can you have on hold at once?  You are only working on one call at a time, although you must remember the content and context of all those other calls. For the people still on hold while you have all these conversations I expect they are wishing you had a WiP limit.  Your WiP-Work In Progress is the sum of all active(incomplete) phone calls.

Limiting WiP

There are many reasons for limiting Work in Progress not least because I hate being put on hold.  I will go in to some later and it is likely that if you follow any type of Agile framework you already limit WiP although you may not be consciously aware of it.

If you have a backlog, then you are limiting WiP. You are consciously choosing not to start new work immediately but are prioritising it and organising it to work on later. It is likely that you are informally limiting your WiP according to what you feel you or your team can manage at a given time. It is important to realise that this is a WiP limit even though it may not be conscious or scientific.

If you follow Scrum: WiP is consciously and explicitly limited at Sprint Planning, often by estimating effort, or counting stories or calculating story points. The limit is generally set based on Velocity – our average achieved over previous sprints. If on average we finish 10 stories a Sprint, or we average 35 points, then that average is generally taken as the starting point for our WiP limit, we may choose to push for a few more, or if we are expecting to be slower due to vacation time, or known issues we may choose to commit to less. But in Scrum we don’t usually refer to it as a WiP limit. But that is exactly what it is.

KanBan is actually very similar, if we on average are completing 10 stories a week, then it is likely that we will consciously or subconsciously limit ourselves to only take on 10 new stories within a week, although in the case of KanBan this is not done in a Big Bang explicit decision but gradually over the measured period and is more a consequence than a plan (A Pull rather than a Push). We pull stories when we are ready and we pull at the pace we are working at, that just happens to be 10.

Slightly off-topic, but one of the crucial differences between Scrum and KanBan is that Scrum is a ‘Push’ model and KanBan is a ‘Pull’ model.  In Scrum we Push an amount of work to the board and spend the Sprint working to Remove(complete) it.  With KanBan we are aiming for a more steady amount of Work in Progress and will pull new work as current work is completed, which creates a smoother flow, but conversely lacks a unified time based goal or target.  But it is important to understand that both frameworks limit WiP and both focus on ‘completed’ work being the primary objective.

Why do we limit WiP?

I’d like to think it was obvious by now and I think the basic principle is, but there are nuances that may complicate things which may be where the cause for debate comes from.

At it’s simplistic level if I can only complete an average of 10 stories a week/sprint then starting an average of 20 a week without changing anything else is nuts, all that will happen is that on average 10 or more of those stories each week will remain incomplete and stay ‘in progress’ by the start of week 4 we will still have completed 30, but will have 50 now in progress.  Chances are by now we will actually go slower because we will be distracted and falling over ourselves trying to juggle more than we can possibly achieve.

Think of all those people on hold, growing frustrated at being ignored, and you trying to remember all those conversations, the phone rings again, can you cope with another caller on hold?

We limit WiP because we understand that by working only on what we can achieve, we can focus and be more effective.

Limiting WiP and WiP limits

“Ah but you have talked about Limiting WiP but you haven’t mentioned WiP limits” I hear you say…

And this is where I think the conversation really stems from and where we get into nuances.  KanBan began in manufacturing where work was passed from one workstation to another and there was a measurable flow through the system.   Limiting the production on one workstation so that it maintained pace with the entire system limits waste. Having one hyper-performing efficient widget maker that can produce widgets 4 times faster than they can possibly be used is wasted effort. And the same applies to a software process, we use WiP limits to regulate one part of the flow to maintain pace with the flow as a whole, the goal is to visualise bottlenecks and by visualising bottlenecks we can take steps to increase the flow of the whole system.

Other forms of WiP limit

But WiP limits can take many forms and are applicable to almost all aspects of life. The most common example used is a highway, when a road gets busy it slows down, when it gets very busy it grinds to a halt.  Limiting access actually speeds things up for everyone on the road, and ultimately more cars can get through far quicker.

But there are other less obvious WiP limits. A long-distance runner wants to increase her times, she starts fast but she runs out of energy and is slowing down near the end of the distance. By setting herself a slower time per mile early on (Pace is a form of WiP limit) she has a consistent speed and reserves energy so is able to run the full distance faster by slowing down during the early part of the race.

Are you dedicated to a single product/project?  That is a very low WiP limit of 1 project.

Do you use a calendar and try not to book two meetings at the same time, that is a very tight 1 item at a time WiP limit.

What about a budget?  Do you manage your finances as an individual or company. A budget is a WiP limit for your money, by limiting money spent on beer you have more available for clothes. By regulating your spending you can save for a holiday.  By remaining in credit at the bank you do not have to pay interest and so on.

Example of how to choose a WiP limit in a workflow

In the case of the widget maker, if the system can only use 10 widgets a day then we may set his WiP limit to 10, when he gets to 10 he is free to go and help someone else.  Suddenly rather than unused widgets we have an extra pair of hands to do other work.   But hold on! these widgets are easy to make and only take a short while to do, we could probably limit WiP to a lower limit and jump on the workstation as an when needed to produce more.  So how do we set the WiP limit?  My advice is not very scientific at this point.  Start by continue doing what you currently do and just watch, if your workstation/activity columns are sub divided in to doing and done, take a look on a regular basis and see where the biggest stacks are. If one column regularly has more cards on the done column than doing, it ‘may’ be a sign that you should reduce your WiP limit for that activity. Try it and see if it improves your flow.

The largest queues of done work are usually the area that needs limiting, but be aware of ‘bursts’ of activity, for example there may be a workstation that is only available for one day a week, in which case the queue for that workstation may need to be longer – or maybe you should be asking for more regular access to the workstation. But when imposing limits do it gradually and monitor to see if it improves the flow.

Anything in a done column is normally waste, if it is done and not in production that effort cost you money and is just sat there.  Sometimes that makes sense but the car industry learned that complete cars sat in storage amounted to $millions of wasted investment, that components stockpiled in advance was essentially big piles of cash that could be used more effectively, we can learn the same.

What I am saying is that a WiP limit being reached is a conversation trigger, a long queue is a conversation trigger, and so on. With so many things in Agile we create early warning systems to create conversations and make decisions when it is necessary.  We make small changes to the process and watch, we see what changes and if it is better we carry on, but look for another new small improvement.

Summary

WiP limits are not unique to KanBan, and like it or not you are already limiting your work and activities in all aspects of your daily life, you just perhaps didn’t realize it.  In the context of a KanBan board we do not arbitrarily impose a WiP limit because we can or because it is fun. We impose a limit when we feel it adds value, normally where we see a queue of completed work growing faster than it is being consumed. We limit various stages of the work because our goal is the output of the system (the whole team) and not the perceived utilization of individuals.  One team member being 100% occupied all day producing something that will sit untouched for a week is not efficient.

We are not trying to manage a system where our goal is to keep busy a group of individuals, our goal is to create a cooperative and coordinated team working towards a common purpose in the most effective way possible. A WiP limit is just one of many tools that can be used to enhance the prioritisation of work and focus the team on the true goal.

 

 

 

Agile for the real world.

I have once again this weekend been drawn in to reading articles and discussions on LinkedIn, mainly discussing how Scrum=Bad, KanBan=Good, or KanBan=Bad and ScrumBan=Good, and a variety of similar content that frankly is just noise to 99% of the people involved in Agile Software delivery. The reality is that most software professionals really don’t care.

Did I really say that?

It might be a little ironic and I might just be adding more to the noise but I’d just like to bring us down to earth a little.

My experience of Software delivery has been mostly large corporations and the Civil Service, and what I can say with a good deal of confidence is that the staff involved in software delivery want Agile, no question, they are overwhelmingly in favour. I suspect that a step back to Waterfall would see hands go up in horror and a great deal of frustration and maybe even many people leaving in protest.

But I see it as the difference between learning to drive and understanding how an engine works. Most, and that is a sweeping generalisation, but most of the teams I have worked with want me to teach them how to drive, they want to use the skills they learn and to be taught how to teach themselves. What they are not interested in, initially at least, is the mechanics of the car. When they become proficient that may change they may believe that for particular types of driving a different vehicle may be appropriate, but initially simply learning to drive and practicing the basics is as much as is needed and they are happy to have a car suggested to them.

Recently I have been working very closely with three development teams and indirectly with others, and of those teams I’d estimate that maybe 10% have an active interest in the mechanics of Agile Software delivery as a topic and probably less than half of those would give two hoots which flavour of Agile we follow, so long as we follow the principles – most see the framework as a tool like any other it is about getting the job done right. But 100% want to be shown how to use Agile techniques to improve their way of working, but they rely on an expert to guide them. They wouldn’t hesitate to tell me if they thought it wasn’t working.

Most have had no prior Agile experience other than minimal training. Many have been in Agile workplaces in the past but if I am brutally honest they seem to have been poor implementations, a few had good experiences and a very few have been exposed to more than one variation of Agile frameworks.

In the real world a development team wants to build software, perhaps a little over simplistic but a coder wants to code and a tester wants to test. Now I can encourage them to co-locate, cross-skill and try to mix things up, they can use Agile to improve and most have an inherent desire to be Agile and improve. I can show them how to use TDD or BDD, I can encourage them to Pair Program, and they will be enthusiastic and supportive. Most will join in Retrospectives with relish and find true value in Stand-ups, most see the value in Sprint Reviews and the closer engagement with Customers – Why?

Why? Because they are embedded in a framework that works for them, they see positive results and they like what they see. But that doesn’t translate to wanting to have a discussion on the finer points of Agile frameworks. Most don’t see value in a debate on the differences between Scrum and Kanban.

As an example: I have read a lot about #NoEstimates recently and I find it interesting, there are others in my organisation that I could discuss it with and share ideas. But honestly I suspect the teams I work with really don’t care, they use Story Points and T-Shirt sizing because I showed them how and because it works, they see the value. Would they change to NoEstimates – maybe, probably! if I encouraged them to, but the likelihood of the suggestion coming from the teams is low, and it is unlikely to have support or interest of the majority. Certainly not enough of them would have sufficient interest and understanding to make it an inclusive discussion.

However, The same was true of Pair Programming, initially I met quite a bit of resistance from the teams, one guy in particular was very much opposed and resisted, but I encouraged the teams to try it out for a Sprint and then another, and now it is a regular part of their routine and the biggest opponent is now the strongest advocate.

You may be thinking that these teams were not very Agile, or they are not sufficiently mature, but that simply isn’t the case. It just isn’t their primary area of interest. While I am reading about Agile techniques they are reading Tech journals or exploring new tools. As an agile practitioner these details and nuances matter to me, but to a software developer they are just another framework, another tool in their toolkit. The teams may be self-organising but sometimes it needs an outside catalyst to encourage them to push their boundaries.

My point is that software delivery is the goal, the Agile Methodology of choice is just a tool selected to do the job, don’t expect a horde of zealots raising pitchforks and screaming “Scrum”, or “KanBan” any more than they would demand TFS or Jira or any other tool. At least not until they have used it enough to be proficient. That debate is reserved for the agile practitioners.

I have seen Scrum adopted well and adopted poorly, the same with Kanban, neither is a silver bullet, and one is not better than the other (In my opinion). Again in my opinion, when I hear complaints about scrum it is generally because it is not Scrum, but an unchanged organisation that has applied scrum titles, or a cargo cult that follows the schedule without understanding the purpose. And sadly the current trend of handing out certificates to anyone that has done a half-day training course demeans the framework. Too many people see Scrum as a means of control rather than a framework of support, and sadly that is the weak underbelly of Scrum, the framework can be used to create self-organisation but can just as easily be used to stifle it if you have the wrong mindset.

Agile is a mindset much more than a process, the framework is simply scaffolding, but if your mindset is wrong the implementation will be wrong.

I love Scrum, I think it has so much promise and when used well I think it can be hugely effective, in most situations it would still be my starting point with organisations new to Agile, especially when management is not fully engaged. One of the likely intended side-effects of Scrum is that it becomes a tool to regulate the rest of the organisation and create stability for the teams to grow, it creates a protective bubble to enable agility to develop.  

So It saddens me when I see Scrum being seen as a barrier to agility. When ScrumMasters are wolves in sheep’ clothing and simply managers or PMs assuming a title and then undermining the framework, because they don’t understand the essence of the role. Where cargo cults masquerade as agile teams, and when they fail they blame Scrum.

My dad used to say that a “bad workman blames his tools” this was never more true than with Scrum. As a tool in the right hands it can be fantastic, in the wrong hands it becomes a fine quality chisel being used as a crowbar.  

The debate will continue and sadly because of its early success in widespread adoption Scrum has had many poor implementations and so is in danger of bad press which could ultimately spell it’s doom. Far too many experienced agile practitioners are advocating against Scrum based on bad experiences, but I for one believe that as a framework Scrum is good, but sadly there are too many cargo cults giving it a bad name. 

Hiring and firing in Scrum

I am exposing my ignorance here but I can’t find anything in Scrum that covers this, even Internet searches reveal very little so I don’t know if I am doing the right thing.

Scrum is about product delivery and so I am aware this is not in the scope of Scrum, but for it to work in practice we need to understand how it interfaces with business decisions. On many issues there is little or no conflict but on people management there seems to be a gulf and people for me are where product delivery starts and ends.

Most discussion seems to make the assumption that the team already exists and is highly motivated. But what if it isn’t, what if someone leaves? what if we need a new team?  What if a member of the team is not motivated or is downright destructive? How is that handled?

Hire a new team member

There are some situations that are easier than others. For example, the team is lacking an expertise or has insufficient people with a particular skill, or we simply need a replacement for someone that has left the team. We discuss it at a retrospective and the team conclusion is that a new team member would be a potential solution. I as Scrum Master can take that proposal to the programme manager (the business) and he will take the decision to hire (or not). The conversation likely includes the PO as it has budgetary implications.

But this is where it gets tricky, if they agree and a vacancy is posted, who sifts the applications? I’d want the team to have a say. There are a number of practical reasons it can’t be the whole team, typically there may be over 25 applicants for each role, that is a time consuming exercise, there is also an element of privacy to consider, so as Scrum Master I take it on myself, or the team chooses a delegation perhaps asking a few of the team for input, but hopefully as Scrum Master I am best placed to understand the requirements of the team as a whole.

Assuming I also filter with telephone screening, that is another time consuming task, is it okay to class it as an impediment that I resolve myself? And if so when I have a shortlist of just a few and want face to face interviews, again it can’t be the whole team so I ask the team to select a representative and typically the interview panel will be a Scrum Master the Product Owner and a team member. But if I am objective the Scrum Master has had significant influence in this decision, so does that undermine the sense of servant leader if I am effectively shaping the hiring decisions?

Also if that is considered an acceptable model, it is actually no different to when I was a department manager which immediately makes me stop and question whether the SM has too much authority in this scenario. That aside it feels right to me, it is pragmatic,the team gets influence but the time consuming aspects are shielded from the team. The only real danger is that the SM has a disproportionate influence on the process.

Build a new team

The second scenario is similar, the programme manager has more work or a new product and needs a new team. Best people to hire a Scrum team are likely a Scrum Master and Product Owner, possibly with input from a team member on an existing Scrum team. But this time there is no team to say what skills are needed, it becomes the judgement of the PO and SM. We are back to implied authority again.

I said at the start that I am on shaky ground, is this the right way? I haven’t seen recruiting, talent acquisition and interviewing as key skills for a Scrum Master or Product Owner, but in the last 18 months I have hired at least 15 people. I have bolstered one team and built up another team from nothing. Which as anyone used to recruitment will tell you is a significant time commitment. But whilst I don’t think of it as a Scrum Master responsibility, I can’t think of anyone else better placed and better suited.

Fire someone

But now I move on to a negative issue, let us consider a scenario where the team has a dysfunctional member, they are disruptive and by their behaviour they are holding the team back and coaching cannot solve it. It can be very difficult to get a team to deal with this in a self-organised way. So much time is spent team building, that pointing fingers at a member can be hard, especially if they are popular despite their behaviour. 

As a Scrum Master this is possibly one of the hardest issues to face, helping a team to see that improvement means hurting one of themselves is challenging to say the least, getting them to do so publicly in front of the party in question is almost impossible.  It can potentially be risky from an employment law point of view if the person feels this is done in a hostile manner. Managers are trained to focus on behaviour, and will normally be in possession of facts to support behaviour based criticism or discipline. Other team member may not be.

I see two ways to handle this the first is that the SM goes outside the team and reports his opinions and observations and has the person removed by a trained manager, chances are this is what the team wants but is unwilling to say so. But this in my opinion is wrong, it places the SM in a position of authority and the team have backed away from autonomy and independence. The right but harder way is to force the team to make the difficult decision and for the team to discuss openly and request changes. To essentially bench the disruptive influence. This may be raised as a retrospective discussion and a good SM should be able to focus the discussion where it needs to go, keeping it behaviour based and factual to avoid making it personal, sometimes retrospectives can be tough and even unpleasant but retrospection must be honest.

I didn’t say it would be easy!

Is this now management?

But in all this what I have proposed is moving the Scrum Master well in to the realm of management. Recruitment, discipline action, are yet another skill set to add to an already diverse role.

What I have described has worked, I’ve been there and done it, but just because it works, it doesn’t make it right and doesn’t mean it will work again.

Where in your opinion is the line drawn between Scrum and the hiring and firing decisions and how can we safeguard the SM from losing credibility by gaining authority?

Useful Scrum Metrics

Which do you use and Why?

I have already blogged about some common metrics but here are ten that I use or have used most frequently.  It is my aim to summarise them here and expand each in greater detail over the next few weeks. (I will come back and add links as I do)

Warning!

Before we begin, the first piece of advice that can be said about metrics is that before you record data or use metrics you should really ask why you are recording the information and how it will be used.

If you cannot be sure that the metrics will be used for the benefit of the team then you shouldn’t record the metrics and certainly shouldn’t use them.  If ever metrics are misused they become worthless as they are very easily gamed, especially if the team feel they will be abused.

Metrics are almost always reliant on honesty and there are not many metrics that couldn’t be ‘gamed’ if someone was motivated to do so.  Never attribute reward or penalty for a metric or even multiple metrics. As soon as you do they are broken.

Have you ever heard tales of teams that were paid for number of lines of code written or for number of bugs fixed.  I have worked at companies where the annual bonus was dependant on a high management approval rating in an annual employee survey.

Any environment where you are effectively penalised for honesty loses all hope of trust, transparency and integrity and your metrics become worthless.

If there is even the hint or suggestion that any of the metrics will be used for anything other than self-improvement and introspection again they immediately become worthless.

 

But that being said as a Coach measurements can be very useful. Measurements, metrics and reflection and retrospection are hugely valuable for coaching an individual or team on how to improve.  An Agile Coach or Scrum Master has a variety of metrics available – and these 10 are by no means a comprehensive list, actually it is a very limited list, Each project or development environment is different and so tailoring appropriate metrics to your particular environment is important, not all metrics apply to all projects.

One last note is that there are myriad tools for tracking projects, some will measure these metrics but many won’t and it will be necessary to manually record the data. It will often be difficult to backdate if you haven’t been recording it.

In projects I work on I try to keep a lot of metrics just for myself, much more than the team uses.  If at any point I feel there might be value in a metric I will bring it to the team and allow them to decide if it has value and if they are interested. But too much becomes confusing.  As a rule of thumb they team only really have interest in a few of these, although which ones may vary over time. Keeping metrics without using them is also a good way of avoiding them responding to inspection.

Beware of context

I am also aware that metrics can be misleading if taken out of context. Information can be dangerous if misunderstood, if I choose to publish metrics in reports or in the office on a wall I will work hard to make sure the context is clear and if appropriate there is an explanation. But even then you can be sure that someone will misuse the information, so be prepared!

 

1 – The Burndown:

This is probably the most often used Scrum metric. In essence it measures work outstanding at the start of the sprint and a line is drawn converging on zero at the end of the sprint and each day the progress or burn-down is measured. The goal being to complete all planned(and emerging) work by the end of the sprint.

2 – The Velocity Chart:

The velocity chart can take many forms and can be used to track a number of key factors. In the most simplistic form it is a bar chart showing the number of points or sometimes the number of stories completed in the recent sprints.

3 – The Velocity Committed/Actual Chart:

Sometimes the velocity chart can be further enhanced to show committed points compared with actual points, this is useful when the team is not consistently delivering on commitments.

4 – Release Burndown

The principle is that for a given product we measure the Burndown of the entire product in a similar way to a Sprint Burndown, it may take the form of a cumulative flow diagram or be similar to a velocity chart.

5 – Cumulative Flow Diagram

A cumulative flow diagram tells all sorts of stories about a project, essentially it measures the number of stories in various states as the project progresses.

6 – The Burn-up

The Burn-up measures the actual effort expended in the sprint. In a perfect world it would be an exact inverse of the Burndown.  But rarely do we predict all tasks in advance nor estimate the ones we know accurately. It can help see where time went and improve our estimates.

7 –  Flow time, Lead Time, Cycle Time

There are some varieties in how these terms are used but I use a simplified version as follows:

Flow-time is the time from when a story is started to when it is completed by the team.
Lead-time is the time from when a story is added to the backlog to when it is completed into production – from conception to getting the value.
Cycle-time is the average time from when a story is started to the point where it is completed – we could be working on multiple stories at once, or overlap them. e.g. each story could have a flow time of 3 weeks but we could stagger them to deliver 1 per week.

Using averages for these allows us to measure whether we are improving over time.

8 – Health check survey

A health check survey is more touch-feely than the other more raw metrics but can be useful for gauging the team’s own opinion of their progress and behaviour. You can measure opinions on anything, from software practices to interactions with other teams, to quality of stories, anything the team has an opinion of can be measured.

9 – Predicted capacity : Actual Capacity

Each sprint during planning – stories can be broken into tasks, each of those tasks can be given a time estimate.  When totaled up and the team has committed to the Sprint content, this total effort estimate is the ‘predicted capacity’ at the start of the sprint. This is the important number.  Tasks will almost always be added as the sprint progresses and many of the task estimates will be off, but the initial predicted capacity is a measure of what the team is anticipating the workload will be for the sprint.

In theory the actual capacity of the sprint is simply the number of team members multiplied by the number of hours available in the sprint, excluding, planned holidays, planned meetings, predicted time on non-sprint activities.

Tracking these figures allows the team to gauge whether the capacity is realistic in relation to the previous sprint, the end result will be a (hopefully consistent) ratio.

10 – Scope creep

This can be covered by the cumulative flow diagram, and by the release burndown, but sometimes it is useful to explicitly report on what has been added or removed from the Scope each sprint.

The Mythical Mature Team

On a regular basis I see comments in forums about how in a mature agile team a Scrum Master is not needed, or how the goal of a Scrum Master is to make themselves redundant.

On some level I agree with both comments, but the thing I am curious about is just what proportion of teams are actually mature?

My experience is anecdotal and is obviously reflective of where I have worked and who I have interacted with, but I have worked on Agile projects at 5 major companies, 3 of whom are top 100 companies and 2 major government departments, these are not obscure backstreet companies these are mainstream and in some cases pioneering tech companies. But if you measure Agile maturity on a scale of 1-5 the best would rate a 2/5. They are certainly improving, they are maturing and I am proud to have been part of that process, but they are all a long way from this fabled maturity.

So you might think that the rest of the industry is better and I have just been unlucky – or maybe I am hired because they need a coach to mature.  But again my experience disagrees with this, I do a lot of recruitment: in the last 12 months I have hired 14 developers/testers, and significant numbers at previous clients. I always ask about Scrum to get a feel for their experience and their attitude towards Agile delivery. I must have interviewed hundreds of candidates, and a significant number put that they are certified ScrumMasters on their CV.  But overwhelmingly those that claim to come from companies where they are ‘Agile’ or use ‘Scrum’ – demonstrate what I would describe as immature Agile adoption, sometimes just paying lip service to the concept.

So many, and I mean many! Seem to think that a daily Stand-up means they are Agile, I have had some describe how they are very Agile and follow Scrum closely but go on to describe how the plan is made in advance, a lead engineer estimates and the dev manager individually tasks on a daily basis and that testing occurs in the following Sprint to development and bugfixes are dealt with the sprint after.  I ask about retrospectives and I’d say that maybe 1 in 20 come from teams that hold any retrospectives and those that do describe quite varied experiences.

So for me that mature team remains a myth, something to aspire to.  However, I do notice that over time my role as a an Agile Coach changes drastically, early on a lot of time is spent embedding Scrum Processes, getting the team used to a different way of working, encouraging XP practices, building confidence in the team and showing the value of retrospectives and Agile delivery.  As the team evolves less time is spent on these, as a project progresses there are less impediments, but retrospectives become harder: the low hanging fruit has been dealt with and further improvements require greater insight and more skill to draw them out.  This is not a bad thing and gives time to start pushing out to the rest of the organisation, or taking on a second or third team.

So do you become redundant?  I don’t see it, there will always be some impediments and yes a mature team may learn to solve them by themselves but that is hardly the point, the goal is to allow the dev teams to concentrate on what brings value, and a Scrum Master can deal with many of these problems more efficiently and without distracting the frankly more valuable dev resource.

Also simply by their presence a Scrum Master acts as a counter balance to the Product Owner and the pressure to circumvent the framework.  There seems to be a notion that a mature team is a team of highly skilled software developers and testers that are also interested and eager to enforce Agile principles, and again this is something I don’t see, even the mature teams and experienced agile development teams are not enthusiastic about it in the same way a Scrum Master would be. They understand the value and the importance of Agile, they are wholeheartedly behind it, but that is quite different from the enthusiasm and drive a Scrum Master usually has.

If given the option of completing a task or attending a meeting, many developers would drop the scrum framework in a flash (“just this once”)  or extend a sprint to complete a story (“just this once”). It is also hard to see fault in yourself, and sometimes it takes an observer to reflect your behaviours back at you in a way to enable you to improve.

Metrics can be useful but they can take time and effort to produce effectively, and yes a developer or product owner could do it, but again this is something that a Scrum Master is likely better at and again the developers’ time is more valuable writing code.

Finally, new projects/product increments start and this creates a flurry of impediments, there will be turnover in the team and new staff will need to be hired and integrated into the team, a team may expand or another team needed and all of this runs far smoother with a Scrum Master. When you scale to having multiple teams working together the need for a Scrum Master becomes even greater.

In my opinion, for a new team on a new project a Scrum Master will be very, very busy, but over time as the teams settle and mature I see no reason why a Scrum Master couldn’t support 2 or 3 or in some cases even 4 development teams – assuming they are all located in the same room.

But the prospect of a team or teams without a Scrum Master at all causes me concern as it exposes them to internal and external pressure to compromise Agile principles. And unless there is an enthusiastic team member you are in danger of regressing and whilst you can certainly manage without a Scrum Master, our goal is not to ‘manage’ or ‘get by’ it is to be high performing and efficient.  If the team(s) gets more value from having a Scrum Master than they cost it should not be a difficult choice.

And if you truly want to be Agile, having an expert around to help and to coach would be high on my list of factors that can determine success or failure of a project.

I personally see huge value in having Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches, maybe not 1:1 with teams, but I question your commitment to Agile if you feel you don’t need them at all.

We all still have more to learn, and there are countless opportunities to improve.

Project Management Mistakes

I found an interesting link discussing common Project Management problems and suggested solutions, and I found myself questioning the advice given…

http://www.cio.com/article/2391872/project-management/12-common-project-management-mistakes–and-how-to-avoid-them.html

So many projects, so much mismanagement. That’s the refrain of many IT executives. Indeed, even with project management software, IT projects often wind up taking longer (much longer) than planned and costing more than budgeted.

I have previously covered the issue of how many failed projects there actually are, the proportions are really quite frightening: Most projects will fail by conventional measures, they will go over budget, be late or the scope will change, even with ‘good’ planning and contingency. So an assessment of “why?” is a great idea, but many companies are still stuck in a rut of doing the same thing and expecting different results.

The Survey in the link above and the proposed solutions is nice to see, but to me it felt as if the respondents were trying to solve problems by doing the same things that have failed previously – only suggesting that if they had done it ‘better’ it would be different, rather than considering that maybe the process that was at fault?  I wondered how applying an Agile perspective might offer different solutions to try.

I do not intend to be (too) critical of the original responses, they were clearly made by experts in their field and may very well be the right answer, but I have taken each issue – all of which are common project management issues, and I have applied an Agile head when offering a solution.

I don’t claim my solutions are right or better, but they may offer a slightly different perspective on persistent problems. And reflect how I would advise the problems should be resolved.

 

Project Management Mistake No. 1: Not Assigning the Right Person to Manage the Project.

Typically during resource allocation, most of the effort is focused on finding the right resources rather than finding the right project manager. Indeed, too often project managers get picked based on availability, not necessarily on skill set. However, an inadequately trained and/or inexperienced project manager can doom a project.

Traditional PM Solution:

Choose a project manager whose skill set(s) match the project requirements.

Agile solution:

1) Ask whether the project even needs a Project Manager, it may be that the content and scope could be ‘owned’ by a single ‘Product Owner’  When it comes to a project that involves integrating many independent components from different sources and there isn’t a clear hierarchy or dependency then a Project Manager may make sense, but where the project is delivery of a product increment, or there is a clear hierarchy and dependencies it is not clear to me what value if any that a PM adds, it becomes an extra layer of bureaucracy but no added value.

2) However the traditional answer applies in an Agile environment. Finding a Product Owner that has the right knowledge and skill set is vital, as is empower them appropriately. Finally have them focused entirely on this one and only product. Multi-tasking will generally lead to problems with one or both projects.

Project Management Mistake No. 2: Failing to Get Everyone on the Team Behind the Project.

Too often, projects are doomed to fail because they didn’t get enough support from the departments and people affected by and involved in the project. Either managers: 1) Didn’t make clear what everyone’s role was. 2) Didn’t describe the personal payoff everyone would get when the project was completed successfully. 3) Didn’t tell how each person’s contributions to the project would be evaluated. And/or 4) Failed to generate a sense of urgency about the project, leading the team to think business as usual will be fine.

Traditional PM Solution:

The project manager should start by calling the team together (being certain to include off-site staff via the best technology available) and delivering a presentation about the project and its significance in a way that gets everybody fired up.

Agile solution:

1) The Product owner should share the vision with the team, show how their part fits in with the big picture. The vision is crucial and should be clear to everyone. (just as above)

2) Where possible have team members dedicated to the project, this immediately builds ownership and commitment, have them co-located with colleagues and build a team. Motivation to team mates is more effective, more consistent and has greater longevity than that which can be created to a project.

3) Have the team involved in setting goals and expectations; the more involved they are the more they will buy-in to the project. Give them ownership of the design and the level of quality, a self-set target is more meaningful than an imposed one.

4) Discussing Personal payoff is not helpful, we are trying to build a team, in software projects like any cognitive task both carrot and stick are counter product and can be demonstrated to reduce productivity. It is far better to build a good team and share a vision, a well-motivated team does not need a sense of payoff, successful delivery of a product is motivation enough. A shared purpose and shared success.

5) Again a sense of urgency is not a helpful tool for motivating software teams, ‘Urgency’ should be reflected in prioritization not pressure or deadlines. An appropriately motivated team should work at a sustainable pace.  Let’s talk in terms of priority: Urgency is a reflection of poor management and poor planning, projecting that failure on to the team is in my opinion a sign of failure of management.

One final note – “Failed to generate a sense of urgency about the project, leading the team to think business as usual will be fine”   I find this to be a very bizarre comment, in my opinion “Business as Usual” is fine, in fact business as usual is great. If I have a team that works at a sustainable and predictable pace that is the holy grail for a project manager, or it should be. A known quantity, and one that can run and run and run like the Duracell bunny is what any project manager should desire.

Why would anyone thing that driving a team into the ground to meet an urgent deadline, followed by a crash of exhaustion, staff potentially off with stress, or quitting, or any of the other consequences of deliberately overworking and pressuring staff is actually a good thing?

Whilst meeting an unrealistic deadline set by someone outside of the team may well be the priority of a PM, it is naïve to assume you can move teams from one project to the next without a break always expecting them to work with a sense of urgency.  It would be far better to think of the team as a machine that takes a while to get up to speed, whilst you may be able to stress the engine and push it to the limit, to do so regularly or for prolonged periods will cause damage. Whereas a good engine run at a sustainable pace can run for far longer.

Ultimately, It comes down to a question of respect. If you treat your team right, they will work well for far longer and be far more productive in the long-term.

 

Project Management Mistake No. 3: Not Getting Executive Buy-in.

Traditional PM Solution:

Somebody at the higher levels of the organization needs to own the project from start to finish and be personally vested in its success, When a project has no clear head, things tend to fall apart.

Agile solution:

1) A single Product owner should be empowered, and personally vested in the success and assigned exclusively for the duration. If the Product Owner cannot be sufficiently empowered to achieve success, then your organization has more serious issues.

2) Not all projects need a senior sponsor, but they do need support appropriate to the project.

3) Senior sponsorship for the way you work is vital – By which I mean Framework – in this case Agile. The organisation needs to be behind the delivery method. If the project is necessary then the project leader needs to have the backing of the company to get it done. Any block to agile delivery needs to be aggressively unblocked and sometimes this required uncomfortable change in attitudes, and that will require senior sponsorship.

 

Project Management Mistake No. 4: Putting Too Many Projects into Production at Once.

Most managers think that they can get more done by starting all projects at once, but in reality, it’s counterproductive. Multitasking slows people down, hurts quality and, worst of all, the delays caused by multitasking cascade and multiply through the organization as people further down the line wait for others to finish prerequisite tasks.

Traditional PM Solution:

To stop these productivity losses, a good first step is to reduce work in progress (WIP) by 25-50 percent. This reduces the back and forth and makes managers and experts more responsive in dealing with issues and questions. Though counter-intuitive, reducing the number of open projects by 25-50 percent can double task completion rates.

Agile solution:

The same as above: reduce WIP, far too often we resort to claiming credit for starting work, or for claiming it is in progress.  The only metric that matters is completed work.  If limiting the number of projects on the go, results in more projects being completed then what are you waiting for?

I’d like to write more on this topic, I feel this is so crucial to success, the number of times teams are held up because of competing demands on networks teams, DBAs or deployment pipelines or any number of other critical resources. The impact of these are often unmeasured, but simply reducing the number of concurrent projects relieves the context switching and demand on these resources. Which is an immediate easy win.

But more that if you can deliver 4 projects in 12 months, why not deliver 2 of them in 6 months, and then 2 in the following 6 months.  That is two projects delivered 6 months early without any additional work and without delaying anything, you may even find they get done quicker.

Project Management Mistake No. 5: Lack of (Regular) Communication/Meetings.

Communication is the most important factor of successful project management. Without regularly and clearly communicating, the project will fall apart.

Traditional PM Solution:

Pick a day and time to meet each week (either virtually or in person) that works for the team (not just the project manager) — and stick with it. Having specific days and times scheduled, in advance, helps to keep everyone on the same page and keeps the project flowing.

Agile solution:

Meet daily, co-locate the team to reduce further any delay in communication.  Use information radiators (Whiteboards to the rest of us) to prominently display  useful and pertinent information.  If the information is useful you need it now, if you can wait a week for it, it probably isn’t that important.

Communication in Agile is crucial, anything that can be done to reduce the barriers to communication should be considered a priority, getting team members and those peripheral to the team communicating effectively is vital. Co-locate where possible, a daily stand-up is a scheduled opportunity to get together and share, but for anything critical even a daily meet up is not quick enough. But communication should be useful, timely and concise.

Project Management Mistake No. 6: Not Being Specific Enough with the Scope/Allowing the Scope to Frequently Change.

Any project that doesn’t have an ultra-clear goal is doomed, scope change is one of the most dangerous things that can happen to your project. If not handled properly it can lead to cost and time overrun. Even something small, like changing the color of a logo or adding a page to a website might cause unexpected delays.

Traditional PM Solution:

Define the scope of your project from the outset and monitor the project regularly to make sure you and your team are keeping within the scope. And to avoid delays and deviation from the original scope, track change requests separately from the original project scope, and provide estimates on how it will affect the schedule and get explicit customer/stakeholder approval for each change.

Agile solution:

“Even something small like changing the color of a logo might cause unexpected delays”   Wow!  And the solution is to “Avoid delays and deviation from original scope”  Wow!

I am utterly stunned by this problem and the response.  First everyone involved in a project does or should understand that Change causes delays, any client that expects to be able to change a Logo or add a page without a consequential delay, is extraordinarily naïve or is being misled.  Very simply work takes time, sometimes even removing work takes time.  A product Owner or PM should be able to candidly discuss this with the client, if the client is asking for change they should be made aware of the impact and that information should help shape their decision.  If you cannot have this conversation then there is insufficient trust between you and the client, and rigorously enforcing terms of the original contract is not going to promote trust.

In my opinion the response is shocking, just who is the Client here?  If the client has changed their Logo, then who would consider it sensible to plough on with a solution that is wrong? Refusing to accept change is not working for your customer, it is self-serving and ultimately futile.  This stubborn refusal to accept change is the primary reason Agile has been the huge success it has, because the customer is respected.  In Waterfall the goal is to conform to a contract, in Agile the goal is to give the customer what they want. The difference between the two is a happy customer and an irritated customer seeking a new supplier.

Example: If we consider an extension to a house, upfront I may have architectural drawings, and building plans, and I may get a builders quote based on those plans.  But as the build progresses I decide that I’d like to change the position of a window or I change my mind about the type of tiles, or kitchen units. As the customer that is my prerogative.

Situation A:  Builder says, “No! that is not what we agreed, you must stick with the plan and keep the materials you specified.  If you want to change this, you must wait until we are done, then rip out the work and redo it later.”

Situation B: Builder says, “Yes! But it is not what our estimate was based on, changing the plan and materials may increase the cost, and may take a little longer. So long as you are comfortable with the impact we are able to accommodate your requests.”

And Just for fun – and this generally doesn’t work so well for building work where planning permission is needed upfront but still…

Situation C: Builder says, “Let’s build the initial framework and you can defer making the decisions about the layout and internal fixtures until later, when you are better able to envision the situation.

Project Management Mistake No. 7: Providing Aggressive/Overly Optimistic Timelines.

The intentions are noble, as project managers are often trying to keep their clients happy. But missing deadline after deadline will only lead to distrust and aggravation on the part of your client.

Traditional PM Solution:

Good project management software will allow you to manage many work items and the bandwidth of available resources. However, it’s still important to add a buffer providing some extra time and money to your project, especially in the world of technology.

Agile Solution:

The proposal of Better software, and more micromanagement and adding contingency to counter optimistic timelines, is the opposite of good agile practices.    Once again I completely disagree with the proposed solution.

Solution 1) If the timelines are unrealistic this should be addressed, the team (dev or management team, or customers) should assess why they are coming up with unrealistic estimates, and modify behaviour accordingly.  Discuss why a timeline is needed, and plan accordingly.  If we must meet a specific date then we plan the solution accordingly, if we must keep to a certain budget, we can plan the solution accordingly, but an estimate is not the same as a deadline. See blog post…

Solution 2) Rather than adding buffers and contingency, how about prioritizing content and being flexible with the scope to meet a timeline if the timeline is critical, or being flexible with the time.  It is a controversial comment but I find the routine practice of PMs padding estimates or surreptitiously adding contingency is counterproductive, it causes mistrust, and is ultimately futile as management will react by demanding earlier delivery believing that estimates are padded.  I’d much prefer to be open an honest, and build trust, I keep management informed of progress and allow them to make decisions on true and upto date information.

Solution 3) Fancy software doesn’t help. The more you micromanage the less productive the team becomes.  For a former software developer and general technophile, when it comes to project management I’d actually prefer to have no software tool at all.  A Kanban board and a backlog of stories on Index cards is actually very powerful, software has value in some circumstances but most of the time the simple approach is sufficient and clear to everyone involved.

Project Management Mistake No. 8:

Not Being Flexible. While you may think of your project plan as your bible, telling you what needs to be done, by whom, and when to do it to get to your goal. Don’t hesitate to listen to new information and suggestions that come up along the way.

Traditional PM Solution:

It’s good at various intervals to step back and take a fresh look at the overall project, review how things have gone so far, and how you can improve your future work based on what’s already changed along the way. That doesn’t mean you should or need to constantly make changes,  just be open to suggestions if they help the project.

Agile response:

Schedule regular retrospectives, make the act of trying to improve a regular part of your job. Actively look for ways to improve, a passive ‘being open to change’ is not enough. We need to seek to improve and have a willingness to continually find even small ways to grow. Many small improvements can lead to significant benefits.

Project Management Mistake No. 9: Not Having a System in Place for Approving and Tracking Changes.

Often, success or failure of a project hinges on the changes that occur after it begins. However, all too often, there is no system in place for approving and tracking changes.

Traditional PM Solution:

Having a clear process that must be followed is the best way to ensure the pertinent details: how much it will cost, why it is necessary, the impact on the overall project etc., are known before the change is approved. It’s also extremely effective for auditing performance during and after project completion.”

Agile solution:

Change is a part of software development, no amount of planning can ever reveal everything, there will be change, so plan for it from the outset.  Prioritise work rather than plan in detail, allow for priorities to change and expect them to change. Allow for new work to emerge, and consider and plan for the possibility of failure.   As with the traditional PM approach, why; cost and impact need to be considered, but these are a factor of priority. Any heavy weight review process is unnecessary.

Failure is deemed bad in all circumstances, but that is not the case, to fail early may actually save significant costs compared to failing later. This should he heralded a success, but too often all failure is considered bad. Failure can lead to successes later. Not learning from failure or continuing along a failing path is the real waste. But too often any failure is not tolerated and this can be very damaging.

Project Management Mistake No. 10: Micromanaging Projects.

Don’t babysit, It’s very common for budding project managers to treat their job like an enforcer, policing the project team for progress and updates.

Traditional PM Solution:

Instead of babysitting the project team, let it be known from the start [i.e., the kick-off meeting] that there will be regularly scheduled updates for the duration of the project. This lets your team know that status updates and progress are expected from them weekly and will encourage them to vocalize any issues or delays in advance.

Agile Solution:

Don’t allow the Project Manager or Product Owner to micro-manage, it is the job of the Scrum Master to coach the team to manage themselves and then the SM is to run protection – keeping the wolves at bay. PMs micromanaging is rarely beneficial and is generally damaging. The saying goes that you should hire the right people to do the job, and once you have hired them, trust them to do the job right.  If you have hired the wrong person no amount of micromanaging will help, and if you have the hired the right person micromanaging will only hurt.

Project Management Mistake No. 11: Expecting Software to Solve All Your Project Management Issues.

I’ve seen people throw software at problems all too often, and though projects become enumerated and more visible, the underlying process is still broken,” “What you end up with in that case is a potentially costly piece of software only serving as a checklist of projects in motion without any thought given to advancing each project/milestone effectively.

Traditional PM Solution:

Choose project management software wisely — something all members of the team will be comfortable using. Then make sure to train users properly and set up a system for tracking projects. Above all, don’t let human capital be “overshadowed by the allure of software solutions’!”

Agile Solution:

Fancy software doesn’t help. The more you micromanage the less productive the team becomes.  When it comes to software project management I’d actually prefer to have no software tool at all.  A Kanban board and a backlog of stories on Index cards is actually very powerful, software has value in some circumstances but most of the time the simple approach is sufficient and clear to everyone involved.  Naturally many projects involve more than a single stream of software and in that case a software tool may be useful, so long as it doesn’t interfere with the software development streams.

If we limit scope to be a software development stream, then simple metrics on backlog, cumulative flow and perhaps velocity should be more than enough to check progress towards milestones. But in this case the Product Owner is the best source for the health of a software project.

 

Project Management Mistake No. 12: Not Having a Metric for Defining Success.

Traditional PM Solution:

The very first thing a project manager should do is ensure he understands what the end users will consider a successful completion to the project,” Understanding what will make a project successful…ensures that when the project is completed [all] parties walk away satisfied.

Agile Solution:

Very similar, a clear Vision for the project is key, but a vision is not a set of requirements it is a concept.  Ensure that the Product Owner and the team understand the vision and any intermediate milestones.  But the goal is satisfaction of the customer,  that is the only metric that matters. Ongoing conversation to ensure they are satisfied with the progress is essential, regular reviews and conversations to ensure your solution is meeting their needs.  This is not an exercise in checking off items on a contract, it is about delivering the right solution to the customer.

 

Summary

It surprised me how different an agile approach is, I had expected far more overlap, after all Project Management is as old as the hills. Some solutions are common to both approaches but even then the approach whilst similar seemed to have a different goal.

But what struck me most was how Traditional solutions fell back to a desire for more control: control the scope, control the team, and control the customer. Whereas Agile was about building a team, responding to the customer and guiding not controlling the delivery. The perception of control is such a fallacy when dealing with a customers evolving needs and the unknowns of software development.

 

A quick Star Wars quote to finish:

“The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.”

Could it be as simple as that? As a Project Manager it seems that the more control you try to exert, the less real control you have on the delivery, but by accepting a little Agility:- whilst it may seem to be relinquishing control you are actually far better able to steer the project.

Estimates

I seem to have had a great many conversations of late to do with estimating, not story estimating which is now pretty well understood and accepted, but now the discussion is about project level estimation.

Project level estimation is like a hydra, every time you think you have dealt with it, it comes back with two more heads.

I think part of the problem is that we don’t have a common language, we use the word ‘estimate’ to mean so many things. I get the impression that there is a great deal of confusion between “Accuracy and Precision” or between “A Plan and an Estimate”, or “An estimate and a foretelling of the future” and worst of all, the difference between an “Estimate and a Commitment” I also wonder if the question being asked is the right question, are you asking “if the project is viable” or “will it give a good return on investment”.  And finally there is a notion that if you do not deliver in line with your estimate then you got it wrong and that is bad.

What is an estimate?

Roughly (and generally quickly) calculate or judge the value, number, quantity, or extent of something.

Was my estimate wrong?

Let’s start with an easier one.  I estimated a project would cost  £1m and it ended up costing £2m, did I get it wrong?
Superficially this may seem obvious, for a commercial organisation to consistently underestimate projects would result in bankruptcy, clearly it must be wrong?  But an estimate in most practical situations isn’t wrong simply because the outcome doesn’t match the estimate, an estimate is made quickly and roughly based on incomplete information and the true answer is not known until it is done. You can overestimate or underestimate, even wildly, but you can’t be wrong.  Sounds confusing but let’s take a practical example.

I estimate the time it takes to drive into town,  past experience says that it would take between 10 and 20 minutes.  So I estimate 15 mins.    If the journey actually takes 30 minutes, that doesn’t make my estimate wrong.  I most certainly did not correctly predict the future, but I wasn’t wrong.  If I was asked the next day to estimate the same journey and I felt that the previous day was abnormal I may estimate 15 mins again.   I still believe the basis for my original estimate holds true and one abnormal example doesn’t change that.  But let’s say I discovered there were road works on that route, I may alter my estimate to reflect the new route or to reflect the anticipated delays.

I’ll give a second mathematical example to hopefully simplify things.

If I roll two fair six-sided dice, can you estimate the total of the face values?

Mathematically speaking the most likely outcome is ‘7’ the probable average of doing this many times is also 7.   So mathematically speaking it would be sensible to estimate ‘7’  but 5 times out of 6 the result would not match your estimate.  Our estimate was ‘correct’, we can mathematically prove it is ‘right’ and yet we can get the ‘wrong’ outcome 5 out of 6 times.

Conversely if I estimate ‘4’ and roll the dice and get it ‘right’ that doesn’t make my estimate right, it makes me lucky.

That doesn’t help the poor businessman that has just gone £1m over on his current project, but hopefully over time he will get better at estimates and he will on average get it ‘right’.

My point is that an estimate is a useful tool to help guide our decisions; it is not a method for foretelling the future.

Are you asking for an Estimate or a Plan?

Back to the car journey example, I have made the journey 10 times and the shortest time was 10 mins the longest was 30 mins and the average time was 15 mins.   If our goal is long term consistency then the best ‘estimate’ is probably 15 mins, because the likelihood is that If I did the journey 10 more times then the average would again be 15mins.

Easy!  But I have an appointment at 4pm that I mustn’t be late for, what time should I leave? My estimate is 15 mins so I leave at 3:45pm. But at that rate I’m likely to miss my appointment a high proportion of the time.  What went wrong, my estimate was perfect?

My mistake was that I confused an estimate with a plan.  My estimate is useful information, but whilst my journey is likely to average 15 mins I need to build contingency into my plan if I have a fixed deadline.  This all sounds obvious but in your own experience how many times has someone taken an estimate and put it directly in a project plan with other dependencies relying on it?

My point once again is that an estimate is a useful tool to help guide our decisions, it is not a foreteller of the future, and used in isolation without understanding it can be confusing or damaging.

Flexible or fixed

But let’s go further, if my estimate becomes a plan then my 15 minute estimate needs to become a 25 minute ‘plan’ so I can offer reasonable confidence in completing by a fixed deadline.   Anyone notice that to have a confident plan then in this example on average it contains 10 mins of contingency, and on average 10 mins of potential waste when a fixed deadline is imposed?   If I planned on doing this journey 10 times and had to be confident of meeting an agreed time each time, I would need to plan for 250 minutes, whereas if I simply allowed my plan to flex and take as long as it took I would likely do the same 10 journeys in 150 minutes, clearly that is a huge difference – by removing a fixed commitment I allow contingencies to be shared and am far more likely to achieve more. It is a contrived example but illustrates the amount of waste that is necessary in a fixed plan.

One last point is that even with significant contingency there is still no guarantee, I could still break down or there could be something unexpected that causes me to be late.

Are you turning an Estimate into a commitment?

Let’s take the journey and appointment a little further.   I use the estimate of 15mins and I add a sensible and realistic 5 mins contingency and then you say… “Can you guarantee you will be on time?”

No!  You didn’t ask for a guarantee or a commitment, you asked for an estimate, my estimate was 15mins and I feel pretty confident in that estimate.  If you want a guarantee, then I can’t give one, I couldn’t guarantee 45mins or even 60 mins, I cannot offer a 100% guarantee because I cannot foretell the future I can only offer an estimate based on my experience of the past.

Had you asked me whether I could be ‘confident’ I’d be on time or if it was ‘probable’ I’d be on time the majority of journeys then I’d be much more comfortable with the assessment.

My point is that an estimate is a useful tool to help guide our decisions, it is not a way to foretell of the future, and certainly the future does not come with a guarantee.

“Accuracy and Precision”

Another oddity with estimation is that I am often asked for a more accurate estimate. Let’s say I’ve estimated approximately 6 months, or given a range 4-8 months.   The response is quite often “can you be more accurate?”

What do they mean?   An estimate is by nature a rough approximation, hopefully accurate. But clearly they are expecting something else. They will only know if it is inaccurate after the work is done.

Take two estimates:  A) 2325.4 seconds.  B)  1 hour.

Which is more accurate?

I don’t have a clue, accurate is in reflection to the outcome which is as yet unknown. One estimate is more precise than the other but that doesn’t make it any more accurate.

My guess is that when they ask you to be more accurate what they mean is either, “What is your confidence level for this estimate?, what could you do to increase your confidence level?”. Or as is more often the case what they actually mean is “That is higher than I was expecting/hoping”

Can you estimate that again…

This is a fun one, whilst it is true that the more information you have the more confident you can be of your estimate. However, there is a law of diminishing returns, and in software the domain is generally so complex and there are so many variables that the effort in investigating is disproportionate to the gain in understanding and confidence in your estimate.  For example I’d suggest that spending a couple of days investigating for a 6 months project could lead to a reasonable level of confidence in an estimate, spending a further 2 weeks investigating often as not will not alter the estimate by a significant degree and will only lead to a marginal increase in confidence in the original estimate (I am not saying that you will not gain a lot of understanding, but the issue is whether it materially impacts on the estimate). Usually it results in more clarity of what you had assumed, and highlights how much you still don’t know.

Summary

That may sound defeatist, but the reality is that in most software projects, over the course of the project requirements will change, new requirements will emerge and priorities will change. The team may not remain the same; external resources may not be available when needed. No amount of investigation can predict the future with any degree of certainty; the best we can do is identify potential risks and be prepared to adjust. If you must have a fixed deadline then you really should have a significantly flexible scope. Have confidence in rough estimates and be agile.

So if we can learn to create plans based on rough estimates; prioritise work sensibly and be prepared to adjust, we are far better able to deliver, and are likely to deliver more than if we insist on fixed plans based on what will always be incomplete information.  A fixed plan by nature will include contingency and contingency generally gets used, there is huge potential waste and the cost of change is high.  A flexible plan, should flex to the amount of time needed or the scope should flex to the amount of time allocated.  If you cannot do this, however good your intentions, then directly or indirectly you will need to introduce wasteful contingency, to enable you to fool yourself you are delivering to a fixed plan.