When Collaboration Becomes Clobber-ation

I was new on site and agreed to co-create a working session with the company Agile coach for developing the skills needed to split large stories into smaller stories. The plan was to develop the skills of the company’s scrum master pool so that they could then deliver this presentation to their teams. Given the diversity of the team projects involved, I proposed that it might be helpful to open the session with a short segment on how to size stories, just to be sure everyone had a baseline understanding. To this end and in the interests of time I offered to leverage a 10 minute presentation that I’d used successfully for several years.

“Great,” she said. “Let’s see it.”

Thirty minutes and an uncounted number of interruptions later to interject what I should do different here and where I was wrong there, I stopped trying to get through my short deck of slides. The interaction had all the feel of turf posturing and a clear need for the company coach to be the sage in the mix. I don’t mind getting thrashed by sharp or well placed feedback from a curious novice or a proven master. These insights are often the most valuable and important to learning and growth as an Agile coach. But if anyone deploys a tear-you-down-to-build-me-up strategy in the name of collaboration I’ve learned it’s best to cut my losses and walk away.

And that’s what happened here. The co-creation dissolved and the working session never occurred. Weeks later, the company coach emailed the approved deck of slides to the scrum masters with instructions to present the deck to their teams. How to do that was “in the notes.”

There were a lot of things wrong with this interaction and, indeed, with the company’s Agile implementation. But the lack of co-creation and collaboration was a core issue. Healthy and productive collaboration includes all of the following:

  • Asking many questions
  • Careful attention and listening to answers
  • Making few statements
  • Setting aside the limitations of “or” and embracing the power of “and”
  • Understanding the goals of the collaboration
  • Understanding the purpose of the collaboration
  • Respect for everyone as professionals
  • Communication that is open and uncontaminated by back channeling and triangulation
  • Patience

Photo by Ashley Jurius on Unsplash

Teams, Tribes, and Community – 0.1.0

Several months ago, I made bold decision: Take command of the helm for a brilliant tribe of diverse creative thinkers dedicated to helping each other succeed. This is the first of an on-going series of posts – maybe once or twice a month – describing this evolving effort.

For an extrovert, this might not have been a bold decision. But in my case, you should know I designed the card that card-carrying introverts carry. So this decision involved a more thorough application of my already robust decision-making process. On a professional level, this may be the most significant challenge I’ve taken on to date. Will my years of experience with forming and guiding teams help this tribe further their success? Will I be able to find the gravitational force that holds us together and the spark that keeps us inspired? These are open questions. They are also questions that occupy much of my thinking.

We are not dedicated to achieving a single goal or moving in a unified direction. We each have our areas of expertise and independent business goals. We are much more a tribe than a team. As such, I believe we will be guided more by tribal dynamics and models than team rules and policies. The path is not clear, but this much I know…

  • There is no leader of this tribe. Not in the sense of a single person who’s responsible for setting the direction and making all the decisions that impact the organization. There is no “Chief” or “Czar” of anything. I’ll fill the role of Launch Commander and Flight Commander in order to get us organized and moving forward. However, I have been clear from the start about my intention to structure our tribe on principles of self-organization.
  • The emphasis is on simple and accessible technology and easy ways to organize meetings based on Agile principles and practices – lean coffee, for example, has served us well for our initial meetings. What has emerged since then are more involved and interactive meeting formats, such as client role-plays and accountability exercises. Keeping things simple and remaining mindful of barriers to participation is vital. Too many tools with too many logins risks the creation of a Tower of Babel. For now, the weekly video call is the center-point around which we all meet. This in itself is enough of a challenge given the global participation. Other than this, email is the acknowledged primary channel for asynchronous communication.
  • We are not accepting new members. Whether or for how long this remains the case is undecided. We have discussed various ways of introducing new members, but have decided to decide on this issue later. The circumstances that brought each of us together created a unique bond of trust and familiarity with each other’s business interests that makes the introduction of new members a risk to maintaining these relationships. At the moment, we are tipped slightly toward being on the large size and everyone acknowledges if we grow much bigger the meetings may become unmanageable and the interactions less valuable. Since trust is foundational, none of the details related to who we are and what we discuss will be revealed in this space. My writing will be limited to the general case of what I discover from having participated in and helped guide our tribe. It is my hope this may help others with forming and guiding their own teams and tribes.

Whatever the outcome, it’s been more fun thus far than I’ve had in a loooooong time.

Image by Youssef Jheir from Pixabay

Agile and Changing Requirements or Design

I hear this (or some version) more frequently in recent years than in past:

Agile is all about changing requirements at anytime during a project, even at the very end.

I attribute the increased frequency to the increased popularity of Agile methods and practices.

That the “Responding to change over following a plan” Agile Manifesto value is cherry picked so frequently is probably due to a couple of factors:

  • It’s human nature for a person to resist being cornered into doing something they don’t want to do. So this value gets them out of performing a task.
  • The person doesn’t understand the problem or doesn’t have a solution. So this value buys them time to figure out how to solve the problem. Once they do have a solution, well, it’s time to change the design or the requirements to fit the solution. This reason isn’t necessary bad unless it’s the de facto solution strategy.

The intent behind the “Responding to change” value, and the way successful Agile is practiced, does not allow for constant and unending change. If this were otherwise nothing would ever be completed and certainly nothing would ever be released to the market.

I’m not going to rehash the importance of the preposition in the value statement. Any need to explain the relativity implied by it’s use has become a useful signal for me to spend my energies elsewhere. But for those who are not challenged by the grammar, I’d like to say a few thing about how to know when change is appropriate and when it’s important to follow a plan.

The key is recognizing and tracking decision points. With traditional project management, decisions are built-in to the project plan. Every possible bit of work is defined and laid out on a Gantt chart, like the steel rails of a train track. Deviation from this path would be actively discouraged, if it were considered at all.

Using an Agile process, decision points that consider possible changes in direction are built into the process – daily scrums, sprint planning, backlog refinement, reviews and demonstrations at the end of sprints and releases, retrospectives, acceptance criteria, definitions of done, continuous integration – these all reflect deliberate opportunities in the process to evaluate progress and determine whether any changes need to be made. These are all activities that represent decisions or agreements to lock in work definitions for short periods of time.

For example, at sprint planning, a decision is made to complete a block of work in a specified period of time – often two weeks. After that, the work is reviewed and decisions are made as to whether or not that work satisfies the sprint goal and, by extension, the product vision. At this point, the product definition is specifically opened up for feedback from the stakeholders and any proposed changes are discussed. Except under unique circumstances, changes are not introduced mid-sprint and the teams stick to the plan.

Undoing decisions or agreements only happens if there is supporting information, such as technical infeasibility or a significant market shift. Undoing decisions and agreements doesn’t happen just because “Agile is all about changing requirements.” Agile supports changing requirements when there is good reason to do so, irrespective of the original plan. With traditional project management, it’s all about following the plan and change at any point is resisted.

This is the difference. With traditional project management, decisions are built-in to the project plan. With Agile they are adapted in.

Photo by Chris Lawton on Unsplash

Fall Reflections – 2021

Over four years ago, I was in a position to retire early. After some thought, the idea didn’t suit me. I was, in the arc of my life, in an entirely novel position. I could be much more selective about where I chose to exchange my time for money. With nothing to lose and a lot to gain, I sought work with a company that would put Agile principles and my coaching skills to a rigorous test. Did I have what it takes to guide a global legacy corporation into an Agile learning organization? I ran this experiment within the software divisions of two different medical device manufacturers. The first was a 6 month engagement that ended when a better option opened up at a much larger manufacturer with more pay and less commute. I was there for three years until a layoff in the spring.

So it is I’ve come to wrapping up an extremely active spring and summer after having tripped a wire that launched me into a career shift about six months earlier than planned – a span of time I’m affectionately calling an unplanned sabbatical. I’m still not ready to retire, but I’m in an even stronger position then I was four years ago – the silent advantage of a Stoic minimalist lifestyle. Shedding the corporate baggage has opened up a universe of space and time for unfettered thought and exploration. Sabbaticals should be integrated into the work lives of every employee who demonstrates integrity and a strong work ethic.

In the coming months, I’ll be writing more about what this new direction involves. A change in direction doesn’t begin to capture the shift. There’s a multi-leveling up in play, too. This fall and winter – seasons ideally suited for deep reflection and planning – will see a continued pace of activity and preparation. Belying the quite stillness of winter, I will be extremely busy moving fieldstones into position and crafting a renewed foundation for success.

The purpose and mission I declared at the very beginning of 2020 is still in place. When I crafted that mission I was at the very beginning of a grand experiment, full of optimism and yet fully aware of the daunting task ahead. The company I was working for presented me with choice: I could accept a new management role or pursue a stated goal of mine to create an official Agile Coach position within the software group. The organization had just created an official scrum master role in the org chart, but the PMO was strongly resisting the idea of an official product owner role. I was an epic turf battle.

The management path offered greater security but had significant downsides. Not only would I have the decidedly unpleasant task of managing people in a highly regulated and bureaucratic organization, I would also be expected to fill in the scrum master gaps on various teams. This sounded like a good way to end my career as an Agile Coach.

The coach path offered the highly appealing challenge of implementing Agile and SAFe in a 60 year old medical device manufacturer. The known risks included a certain tsunami of resistance. I’d be out on a limb, working to navigate in uncharted and dangerous waters. But I had excellent support. The arrival of a new CEO broke up many of the old ways of organizing software development and opened a window of opportunity. After a rigorous decision process, I chose the Agile Coach path. My 2020 mission reflects the enthusiasm I had for having made this choice.

Then things went sideways. The new CEO brought a much bigger broom than anyone imagined and my key executive support left the organization. Two new senior execs were hired that had a rather stunted understanding of Agile, SAFe, and working with software professionals. Progress stalled as head nods and “Yeah, we’ll get to that.” can-kicking substituted for action. A lot of really good people started to leave the organization, including what was left of my support and allies. A deeply disturbing experience while serving as the Unofficial Official Agile Coach and the effects of the pandemic lock-down sunk the Agile Coach boat. The bubble I placed myself on became more so. I’m surprised I wasn’t laid-off sooner.

The period since separating from my previous employer in early 2021 has been a period of immensely positive growth. The gain in perspective on the prior three years has enlightened me to just how toxic the work environment was. Taking that job was an experiment and in the end the primary failure was not discovering sooner that the experiment was destine to fail. My optimism was misplaced. I trusted untrustworthy people. The greater sadness is that the organization has a wonderful mission and excellent products, each held back from what they could be by a select few and their caustic alliances within the organization. My health and well-being are much the better for having left on their dime.

 I finished my 2020 declaration with “Here’s to moving into 2020 with mind and eyes wide open.” And so I did. Where to next will be on my terms. Free from people who talk inclusion but practice exclusion, talk diversity but practice conformity, talk about change but fight for stagnation, and talk about collaboration while protecting their tiny fiefdoms with vindictive ruthlessness. My tuned purpose and mission for 2022 will reflect this. And a good start will be to conduct business operations in ways that are aligned with the Mission Protocol.

Photo Credit: Original, Copyright © 2021, Gregory Paul Engel

Improving the Signal to Noise Ratio – In Defense of Noise

[This post follows from Improving the Signal to Noise Ratio.]

All signal all the time may not be a good thing. So I’d like to offer a defense for noise: It’s needed.

Signal is signal because there is noise. Without the presence of noise we risk living in the proverbial echo chamber. When we know what’s bad, we are better equipped to recognize what’s good. I deliberately tune into the noise on occasion for no other reason than to subject my ideas to a bit of rough and tumble. Its why I blog. Its why I participate in several select forums. “Here’s what I think, world. What say you?”

Of course, noise is noise because there is signal. Once we’ve had an experience of “better” we are then more skilled at recognizing what’s bad. I remember the food I grew up on as being good, but today I view some of it as poison (Wonder Bread anyone?) And there are subjects for which I no longer check out the noise. The exposure is too harmful.

There are subjects for which I seem to be swimming in noise and casting around for any sort of signal that suggests “better.” I’m recalling a joke about the two young fish who swim past an older fish. The older fish says to the younger fish, “The water sure is nice today.” A little further on, one of the young fish asks the other, “What’s water?” I’m hoping to catch that older fish in my net. He knows something I don’t.

To understand what I mean by noise being necessary it is important to understand the metaphor I’m using, where it applies and where it doesn’t.

Taking the metaphor literally, in the domain of electrical engineering, for example, the signal to noise ratio is indeed an established measure with clear unit definitions as to what is reflected by the ratio – decibels, for example. In this domain the goal is to push always for maximum signal and minimum noise.

In the world of biological systems, however, noise is most definitely needed. One of many examples I can think of is related to an underlying driver to evolution: mutations. In an evolving organism, anything that would potentially upset the genetic status quo is a threat to survival. Indeed, most mutations are at best benign or at worst lethal such that the organism or it’s progeny never survive and the mutation is selected against as evolutionary “noise.”

However, some mutations are a net benefit to survival and add to the evolutionary “signal.” We, as 21st Century homo sapiens, are who we are because of an uncountable number of noisy mutations that we’ll never know about because they didn’t survive. Even so, surviving mutations are not automatically “pure” signal. There are “noisy” mutations, such as that related to sickle cell anemia. Biological systems can’t recognize a mutation as “noise” or “signal” before the mutation occurs, only after, when they’ve been tested by the rough and tumble of life. This is why I speak in terms of “net benefit.”

For humans trying to find our way in the messy, sloppy world of human interactions and thought, pure signal can be just as undesirable as pure noise. I’ll defer to John Cook, who I think expresses more succinctly the idea I was clumsily trying to convey:

If you have a crackly recording, you want to remove the crackling and leave the music. If you do it well, you can remove most of the crackling effect and reveal the music, but the music signal will be slightly diminished. If you filter too aggressively, you’ll get rid of more noise, but create a dull version of the music. In the extreme, you get a single hum that’s the average of the entire recording.

This is a metaphor for life. If you only value your own opinion, you’re an idiot in the oldest sense of the word, someone in his or her own world. Your work may have a strong signal, but it also has a lot of noise. Getting even one outside opinion greatly cuts down on the noise. But it also cuts down on the signal to some extent. If you get too many opinions, the noise may be gone and the signal with it. Trying to please too many people leads to work that is offensively bland.

The goal in human systems is NOT to push always for maximum signal and minimum noise. For example, this is reflected in Justice Brandeis’s comment: “If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the process of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.” So my amended thesis is: In the domain of human interactions and thought, noise is needed by anyone seeking to both evaluate and improve the quality of the signal they are following.

A final thought…

If we were to press for eliminating as much “noise” as possible from human systems much like the goal for electrical noise, I’m left with the question “Who decides what qualifies as noise?”

Photo by Jason Rosewell on Unsplash

Behind the Curtain: The Delivery Team Role

Even with the formalization of Agile practices into numerous frameworks and methodologies, I have to say not much has changed for the software developer or engineer with respect to how they get work done. I’m not referring to technology. The changes in what software developers and engineers use to get work done has been seismic. The biggest shift in the “how,” in my experience, is that what were once underground practices are now openly accepted and encouraged.

When I was coding full time, in the pre-Agile days and under the burden of CMM, we followed all the practices for documenting use cases, hammering out technical and functional specs, and laboriously talking through requirements. (I smile when I hear developers today complain about the burden of meetings under Scrum.) And when it came time to actually code, I and my fellow developers set the multiple binders of documentation aside and engaged in many then unnamed Agile practices. We mixed and matched use cases in a way that allowed for more efficient coding of larger functional components. We “huddled” each morning in the passage way to cube pods to discuss dependencies and brainstorm solutions to technical challenges. Each of these became more efficiently organized in Agile as backlog refinement and daily stand-ups. We had numerous other loose practices that were not described in tomes such as CMM.

But Agile delivery teams today are frequently composed of more than just technical functional domains. There may be non-technical expertise included as integral members of the team. Learning strategists, content editors, creative illustrators, and marketing experts may be part of the team, depending on the objectives of the project. Consequently, this represents a significant challenge to technical members of the team (i.e. software development and  tech QA) who are unused to working with non-technical team members. Twenty years ago a developer who might say “Leave me alone so I can code.” would have been viewed as a dedicated worker. Today, it’s a sign that the developer risks working in isolation and consequently delivering something that is mis-matched with the work being done by the rest of the team.

On an Agile delivery team, whether composed of a diverse set of functional domains or exclusively technical experts, individual team members need to be thinking of the larger picture and the impact of their work on that of their team mates and the overall work flow. They need to be much more attentive to market influences than in the past. The half-life of major versions, let along entire products, is such that most software products outside a special niche can’t survive without leveraging Agile principles and practices. Their knowledge must expand beyond just their functional domain. The extent to which they possess this knowledge is reflected in the day-to-day behaviors displayed by the team and it’s individuals.

  • Is everyone on the team sensitive and respectful of everyone else’s time? This means following through on commitments and promises, including agreed upon meeting start times. One person showing up five minutes late to a 15 minute stand-up has just missed out on a third of the meeting at least. If the team waits for everyone to show up before starting, the late individual has just squandered 5 minutes multiplied by the number of team mates. For a 6 member team, that’s a half hour. And if it happens every day, that’s 2.5 hours a week. It adds up quickly. Habitual late-comers are also signaling a lack of respect to other team members. They are implicitly saying “Me and my time is more important than anyone else on the team.” Unchecked, this quickly spills over into other areas of the team’s interactions. Enforcing an on-time rule like this is key to encouraging the personal discipline necessary to work effectively as a team. When a scrum master keeps the team in line with a few basic items like this, the larger discipline issues never seem to arise. As U.S. Army General Ann Dunwoody (ret.) succinctly points out in her book, never walk by a mistake. Doing so gives implicit acceptance for the transgression. Problems blossom from there, and it isn’t a pretty flower. (As a scrum master, I cannot “make” someone show up on time. But I can address the respect aspect of this issue by always starting on time. That way, late-comers stand out as late, not more important. Over time, this tends to correct the lateness issue as well.)
  • Everyone on the team must be capable of tracking a constantly evolving set of dependencies and knowing where their work fits within the flow. To whom will they be delivering work? From whom are they expecting completed work? The answer to these questions may not be a name on the immediate team. Scrum masters must periodically explicitly ask these questions if the connections aren’t coming out naturally during stand-ups. Developing this behavior is about coaching the team to look beyond the work on their desk and understand how they are connected to the larger effort. Software programmers seem to have a natural tendency to build walls around their work. Software engineers less so. And on teams with diverse functional groups it is important for both the scrum master and product owner to be watchful for when barriers appear for reasons that have more to due to lack of familiarity across functional domains than anything else.
  • Is the entire team actively and consistently engaged with identifying and writing stories?
  • Is the team capable and willing to cross domain boundaries and help? Are they interested in learning about other parts of the product and business?

Product owners and scrum masters need to be constantly scanning for these and other signs of disengagement as well as opportunities to connect cross functional needs.

Photo by Yu Hosoi on Unsplash

Behind the Curtain: The Scrum Master Role

It’s popular to characterize the scrum master role as following a “servant leader” style of engagement with scrum teams. Beyond that, not much else is offered to help unpack just what that means. The more you read about “servant leadership” the more confused you’re likely to get. A lot of what’s available on the Internet and offered in trainings ends up being contradictory and overburdening to someone just trying to help their team excel. Telling someone they’ll need to become a “servant leader” can be like telling them to go away closer.

So let’s unpack that moniker a little and state what it means in more practical terms for the average, yet effective, scrum master.

To begin, it’s most helpful to put a little space between the two skills. As a scrum master you’ll need to serve. As a scrum master you’ll need to lead. When you’re a good scrum master you’ll know when to do each of those and how. Someone who tries to do both at once usually ends up succeeding at neither.

As a servant, a scrum master has to keep a vigilant eye on making sure their servant behaviors are in the best interests of helping the delivery team succeed. If the scrum master lets the role devolve to little more than an admin to the product owner or the team then they’ve lost their way. It will certainly seem easier to write the story cards for the team, for example, rather than spend the time coaching them how to write story cards. This is a case where leadership is needed. On the other hand, if someone on the team is blocked by a dependency due to an overdue deliverable from another team, then the scrum master would indeed serve the best interests of the team by working with the other team to resolve the dependency. Requiring the delivery team member to shift focus away from completing work in the queue risks an adverse impact on the team’s velocity.

As a leader, a scrum master has to recognize any constraints the context places on the scope of their responsibilities. In meet-ups and conferences I’ve heard people say the scrum master “should be the team spiritual leader,” the team “therapist,” or “a shaman,” and capable of administering to the team’s every emotional need. I take a more pragmatic approach and believe a scrum master should be able to recognize when someone on their team is in need of a qualified professional and, if necessary, assist them in finding the help they need. (HR departments exists, in part, to handle these situations.) This is still good leadership. It’s important to recognize the limits of one’s own capabilities and qualifications. Scrum master as therapist is a quagmire, to be sure, and I’ve yet to meet one with the boots to handle it.

Servant leader aside, the “master” in “scrum master” is the source of no end of grief. It’s partly to blame for the tendency in people to ascribe super powers to the scrum master role, such as those described above. In addition, the “master” part of the title implies “boss” or “manager.” It is a common occurrence for team members to address their stand-up conversation to me – as scrum master – rather than the team. I have to interrupt and specifically direct the individual to speak to the team. I’ve had team members share that they assumed I was going to take what was communicated in the stand-up and report directly to the product owner or the department head or even higher in the organization. “How come you’re not taking notes?”, they ask.”The stand-up is for you, not for me. Take your own notes, if you wish,” I reply. (I do take notes, but only for the purpose of following-up on certain issues or capturing action items for myself – things I need to do to remove impediments that are outside the team’s ability to resolve, for example.)

All the downside of what I’ve describe so far can be amplified by the Dunning–Kruger afflicted scrum master. Amplified again if they are “certified.” To paraphrase from the hacker culture on how you know you’re a hacker (in the classical sense), you aren’t a scrum master until someone else calls you a scrum master. There is always more to learn and apply. A scrum master who remains attentive to that fact will naturally develop quality servant and strong leadership skills.

Finally, the scrum master role is often a thankless job. When new to a team and working to establish trust and credibility the scrum master will need to build respect but often won’t be liked during the process. Shifting individuals out of their comfort zone, changing bad habits, or negotiating 21st Century sensitivities is no easy task even when people like and respect you. So a quality scrum master will work to establish respect first and let the liking follow in due course.

Having succeed at this the scrum master’s business will likely shift to the background. So much so some may wonder why they’re taking up space on the team. Working to establish and maintain this level of performance with a team while remaining in the background is at the heart of the servant part of servant/leader.

Photo by Eden Constantino on Unsplash

Behind the Curtain: The Product Owner Role

When someone owns something they tend to keep a closer watch on where that something is and whether or not it’s in good working order. Owners are more sensitive to actions that may adversely affect the value of their investment. It’s the car you own vs the car you rent. This holds true for products, projects, and teams. For this reason the title of “product owner” is well suited to the responsibilities assigned to the role. The explicit call-out to ownership carries a lot of goodness related to responsibility, leadership, and action.

Having been a product owner and having coached product owners, I have a deep respect for anyone who takes on the challenges associated with this role. In my view, it’s the most difficult position to fill on an Agile team. For starters, there are all the things a product owner is responsible for as described in any decent book on scrum: setting the product vision and road map, ordering the product backlog, creating epics and story cards, defining acceptance criteria, etc. What’s often missing from the standard set of bullet items is the “how” for doing them well. Newly minted product owners are usually left to their own devices for figuring this out. And unfortunately, in this short post I won’t be offering any how-to guidance for developing any of the skills generally recognized to be part of the product owner role.

What I’d most like to achieve in this post is calling out several of the key skills associated with quality product ownership that are usually omitted from the books and trainings – the beyond-the-basics items that any product owner will want to include in their continuous learning journey with Agile. In no particular order…

  • Product owners must be superb negotiators when working with stakeholders and team members. The techniques used for each group are different so it’s important to understand the motivations that drive them. I’ve found Jim Camp’s “Start with No” and Chris Voss’ “Never Split the Difference” to be particularly helpful in this regard.
  • One of the four values stated in the Agile Manifesto is “Responding to change over following a plan.” Unfortunately, this is often construed to mean any change at any time is valuable. This Agile value isn’t a directive for maximum entropy and chaos. Product owners must remain vigilant to scope changes. And the boundaries for scope are defined by the decisions product owners make. So product owners must be decisive and committed to the decisions, agreements, and promises that have been made with stakeholders and the team.
  • Product owners need to have a good sense for when experimentation may be needed to sort out any complex or risky features in the project – creating spikes or proof-of-concept work early enough in the project so as to avoid any costly pivots later in the project.
  • Even with experimentation, making the call to pivot will require a product owner’s clear understanding of past events and any path forward that offers the greatest chance for success. As the sage says, predictions are difficult to make, particularly about the future. The expectation isn’t for clairvoyance, rather for the ability to pay close attention to what the (non-vanity) data are telling them.
  • Understanding how to work through failures and dealing with “The Dip,” as Seth Godin calls it, are also important skills for a product owner. The team and the stakeholders are going to look to the product owner’s leadership to demonstrate confidence that they are on the right track.

More than other roles on an Agile team, the product owner must be a truly well-rounded and experienced individual. Paradoxically, it is a role that is both constrained by the highly visible nature of the position and dynamic due to the skill set required to maximize the chances for project success.

Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

Center Point: The Product Backlog

 

If a rock wall is what is needed, but the only material available is a large boulder, how can you go about transforming the latter into the former?

Short answer: Work.

Longer answer: Lots of work.

Whether the task is to break apart a physical boulder into pieces suitable for building a wall or breaking up an idea into actionable tasks, there is a lot of work involved. Especially if a team is inexperienced or lacks the skilled needed to successfully complete such a process.

Large ideas are difficult to work with. They are difficult to translate into action until they are broken down into more manageable pieces. That is, descriptions of work that can be organized into manageable work streams.

We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too.President John Kennedy

That’s a pretty big boulder. In fact, it’s so big it served quite well as a “product vision” for the effort that eventually got men safely to and from the moon in 1969. Even so, Kennedy’s speech called out the effort that it would take to realize the vision. Hard work. Exceptional energy and skill. What followed in the years after Kennedy’s speech in 1962 was a whole lot of boulder-busting activity

 

A user story is a brief, simple statement from the perspective of the product’s end user. It’s an invitation for a conversation about the what’s needed so that the story can meet all the user’s expectations.

In it’s simplest form, this is all a product backlog is. A collection of doable user stories derived from a larger vision for the product and ordered in a way that allows for a realistic path to completion to be defined. While this is simple, creating and maintaining such a thing is difficult.

Experience has taught me that the single biggest impediment to improving a team’s performance is the lack of a well-defined and maintained product backlog. Sprint velocities remain volatile if design changes or priorities are continually clobbering sprint scope. Team morale suffers if they don’t know what they’re going to be working on sprint-to-sprint or, even worse, if the work they have completed will have to be reworked or thrown out. The list of negative ripple effects from a poor quality product backlog is a long one.

Photo by James Lee on Unsplash