Prioritisation

Story Mapping and/vs Process Maps

One of the key philosophies of Agile software development is to have information radiators visible on the wall so that the progress of the team as well as what team currently is working on gets clearly visible to anybody who visits to the team area. That includes stakeholders, project managers, team or anybody from the organisation.

However, haven’t you observed that many times, as you look at the card-wall (Scrum Board), things are not very clear to you. Card wall may look like the mesh of user-stories with statuses in To Do, In Progress or Done. However some of the bigger questions are not clearly answered by just looking at user-stories.

Agile Principle: Simplicity – The Art of Maximising the Work Not Done

by Avienaash Shiralige 19 Comments

Simplicity at work – I h’ve always wondered what does this mean to me, to my team and to my organization. In my quest to know more, I asked this to many Agile Coaches and enthusiasts on various groups.

In this post, I like to share what I understood and gathered from my interaction with these people: Steve Ash, Charles Bradley, Lynn Shrewsbury, Ruud Rietveld, Philip Ledgerwood, John Hebley, Jeff McKenna, George Dinwiddie, Adam Sroka, Michael James, Matt Anderson and Cass Dalton.

[pullquote]Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. ~ Leonardo da Vinci[/pullquote]

Decluttering is a consequence of Simplicity. Simplicity leads to:

Decluttering of products.
Decluttering of your mind. Not being manipulative – being honest, open and trustworthy.
Decluttering your workspace, working in open spaces.

[pullquote]Scrum philosophy of working in small teams, small sprints, small stories imbibe simplicity thinking – Thoughtful reduction.[/pullquote]

The desirability of simplicity is sometimes expressed as the KISS Principle.

Do today only what you absolutely need to do today. No ‘future-proofing’. No ‘gold-plating’.
Achieve Just Barely Good Enough (JBGE). JBGE is actually the most effective possible.

Thanks to Scott Ambler for sharing this term JBGE. You could read more about this in my earlier post Agility is About Identifying and Achieving “Good Enough”

There is a point in time when any additional effort put into work product will increase its cost without increasing its value. If not zero, the increase in value may be insignificant compared with the increase in cost. This is the point to stop! (Achieving JBGE).

User Stories: Lack of Big Picture Leads to Blind Man Product

by Avienaash Shiralige 5 Comments

One of the Scrum values is “Focus”. It can make or mar a product. It brings direction to the development of a product – from start to finish; and is the back-bone of an effective business strategy.

Having said that, overdo it and the tables are turned. Fret too much over ‘focus’ and what could have been a blessing may become your curse.

Here’s why:

Analyse this picture. Highly focused teams (teams seeing project from sprint to sprint) may well become blind to the big picture perspective.

Scrum Product Owner Has to Kiss Lot of Frogs to Find a Prince

by Avienaash Shiralige 3 Comments

I, am going to draw an interesting parallel – between a fairy tale princess and a Scrum Product Owner (PO). Just as the fairy tale princess may need to kiss many frogs before she finds her prince charming; a Scrum Product Owner has to do a lot of de-cluttering of backlog to identify features that will make his product successful.

Innovations go through several attempts before light bulb moments strike. Steve Jobs said, “Innovation is not about saying yes to everything, it’s about saying NO to all but the most crucial features.”

Backlog grooming and it’s prioritization directs the team and keeps it focused. Certainly, there are different aspects you need to consider for prioritization like uncertainty, risk, dependencies, effort, releasability and value etc.