Reader Mary shared an inspiring story of introducing modern flow metrics in parallel to classic agile metrics, such as Velocity, to improve flow on her team. If you haven’t guessed so far, introducing Flow is one of my favorite patterns for moving from mindless mechanical agile (Agile Theater) towards intent-driven principle-aware agility. There’s something about …
As we wrap up 2024, I thought I’d drop by and share what I see in the agile/agility world and my thoughts about the future. Is Agile Dead? No, but mechanical Agile Theater is undoubtedly out of favor. While organizations still need to be more agile, more leaders understand that agility requires focusing on intent …
Here’s one major reason why your OKRs are enabling waterfall projects and not product orientation. And its related to the common advice to focus on Outcome OKRs … We constantly talk about moving from outputs to outcome OKRs. Providing alignment to the real goal and enabling flexibility and discovery. What we should talk about more …
Seeing the swamp is the first step in shaping it into a river. You’ve established a Portfolio Kanban – a flow-based view of the significant work taking place in your organization. (also known as your portfolio). More likely than not, there are a lot of cards on that board, like a traffic jam in rush …
A question you’re probably asking yourself as you’re trying to visualize and manage the flow of your most significant initiatives/projects (Aka Portfolio Flow) is – what should the cards represent? What information should they contain? Following SAFe Lean Portfolio Management? your cards will reflect Epics. And you’ll probably use Epic hypothesis statements and Lean Business …
“Don’t tell me to implement this new process.“ “I don’t have time to discuss process.“ Many change agents I work with struggle with engaging senior leaders who don’t have time for dialogues around systems and ways of working. They also don’t appreciate being prescribed a new process. They rarely have time to learn about principles. …
You can’t improve what you can’t see. Improving flow at the portfolio level requires seeing it first. How do you see? A Portfolio-level Kanban is a common way to start seeing. Let’s explore what that looks like Let’s discuss how work flows at this level (Definition of Workflow as described in the Kanban Guide) The …
End-to-end flow of value Continuous Improvement Autonomy and Empowerment Organizing Around Value Sustainable Pace Alignment around Outcome-oriented Goals Energized People Leaders who Serve Speed and Empiricism All worthy Agility Principles (at least I think so…) But why should anyone care? I mean, it’s much healthier to focus on principles than practices as a goal. But …
It seems like we are working on a lot of initiatives. Could it help to get a picture of all the initiatives and where they are in the pipeline? Would it help to make sure we involve the teams and leaders who will need to execute on initiatives in the decision when to actually start …
Let’s be honest. These are “interesting” times for being an agilist. Whether you’re in the “Agile is Dead” camp or not, it is clear that the movement is not well. Agile took over the software development world in a storm. As that happened, the demand for agile outstripped the supply. Agile became practice-focused. A commodity. …