Get your priorities straight

Channel your inner Leslie Knope or Amy Santiago and grab your favorite post it notes or flash cards.

booyah | Leslie knope, Amy poehler, Knope

1. On each card write out everything you have to do this week, seven days.

2. Now lay out all those cards so you’ve got a good view of them all and ask yourself the following questions: what has to get done? What would be nice to do? What has to be done today? As you ask the questions, you probably are rethinking some of those things, right? Do you really need a Target run or would it be great to sip a Starbucks and wander the aisles aimlessly listening to your favorite podcast?

Writing out the tasks helps to visualize and move things around in priority.

3. Next with those same cards, what if you only had 1 day to get anything done? Can some of those cards wait? Could you get more done in 1 day vs 7?

Congratulations! You’ve just gone through a prioritization exercise! We prioritize everything in our lives, what we do, where we go, which party to attend, which stores to run to for supplies, which chores to do. Why should work be any different?

There are dozens of prioritization methods and measurements out there that you can use. Some are more financial focused, some are business value focused. No matter what method you choose, choose the one that works for you and your team.

Seeing everything out can help you start to group similar items and recognize themes

Here are some prioritization methods: MoSCoW, Backlog Grooming, WSJF, story mapping, QFD, and so many more. My go to is the MoSCoW method, it’s an acronym broken down in the following way: Must have: these items are must haves for companies, customers must have it in order to sell, use, buy, you name it, it’s in. Should have- these are features or things the product should have to make it more useable, more buyable, etc. these are close follows to should have but in the event of money or budget constraints when something’s gotta give, these sit out. Could have- sure, the coffee maker could have two hot pots for two mugs of coffee, but it’s not absolutely necessary, lower priority or easy backlog candidates. Wont have (also ‘would be nice have’ for POs who like to say gentle nos): strong POs can say no easily, but back it up with metrics, stats, business objectives, levels of effort, etc…, nicer POs can say these items would be nice to have but offer no particular value, as in no one would notice of it wasn’t in there, and few people would use it/like it, even if Bob in sales wants it.

Prioritization is not done in a vacuum, but if you find yourself having to prioritize a series of stories or bugs or projects, consider a method above or try a bunch of different ones that work for you, your team, or your company. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how you get there, only that you do get prioritized.

If the Nine-Nine was a Life Coaching Center - The Happy Sensitive — Make it official with a binder (or the digital binder of confluence, both are good)

Tl;Dr: pick a method that works for you to prioritize your time, your team’s time, and try out MoSCoW, hey it even has it’s own theme song ;).

There aren’t enough dried pineapple slices: Agile Transformations and Corporate Fads

Featured

Way back in my early product days, the company I worked for rolled out perk after perk for employees: omelet day, all-you-can-encouraged-to-drink happy hours, catered lunch and learns, summer hours, the works. One of the lesser perks was a dried fruit and nut bar. When the young company polled it’s equally young employees, the number one feedback was there weren’t enough pineapple slices in the dry food bar and it was really affecting morale. DiD tHe ComPaNy EvEn CAre?

A Guide to Dried Fruits: Varieties, Tips, and Recipes | The Vegan Atlas — Not Enough!

Free food as a perk was all the rage at the time and companies were eager to deliver the latest fad to their employees. In retrospect, the dried fruit bar was short lived and was replaced with beer bitch Fridays and luau themed holiday parties. Corporate flavors of the week come and go but the general idea remains: how does a corporation motivate workers and improve processes? This agilest submits the latest corporate fad for review, one considerably more expensive than dried pineapple slices: Agile Transformations.

A Fad is an intense and widely shared enthusiasm for something, especially one that is short-lived and without basis in the object’s qualities. The “Agile Transformation” is anything but short-lived. Transformations take years to undergo and are extremely costly and time consuming. I’d argue that Agile Transformations are even more difficult as it’s not about making people go faster or produce more, it’s about being more deliberate and smart about what work is done, how, and when, and most importantly by whom. A great agile leader once told me that above all Agile is a mindset, one that everyone must adopt to be successful.

Many corporations have the capacity and desire to go Agile but where corporations have failed is in the implementation. It’s not a thing you can pluck off a shelf and install. It takes executive buy in, consistent trainings, incremental improvements to people and processes, and a lot of time and money. Results of any investment in Agile can take years to see, even though employee morale and team engagement might be up and bought into it (as a good quality of Agile is teaming and focused projects and objectives). Instead companies think Agile will be their magic wand and solve all their problems. It’ll be easy! They said. It was help us do more and go faster! They said. Narrator: They were wrong.

Agile comes in many different flavors and spices these days: Scrum, Kanban, SAFe, Agile OG (not a thing…yet). Another new big box Agile solution pops up claiming to have all the links worked out. But no matter what flavor you prefer there’s a similar ingredient to all: Agile was meant to mold to what works for a team, an org, a corporation. If you look at the Agile Manifesto‘s values and principles, it strives for simplicity and common sense, and serves as the gospel for this entire Agile genre. But like any Fad, the manifesto could be over as it approaches it’s 20th anniversary this year. The again, with the prevailing call of humanism emerging from workers of all generations in today’s corporate world, Agile is a compelling and alluring concept, even if it is still elusive. it could see a revitalization if corporations get their Transformations right, or at the very least make a concerted effort.

Time will tell whether this Fad is here to stay or not. But take a look at job postings and in your own org to see the signs or rumblings of “Agile Transformations.” Some companies will adopt the mindset and really be truly Agile. But those corporations that fail know that if and when they fail, they can always buy more dried pineapple slices to improve company morale.

Fun Phone GIF by Sylvia Boomer Yang - Find & Share on GIPHY — Pineapples…so hot right now.

Featured

Retro in the New Year

Happy New Sprint everyone! What? You don’t celebrate the start of a new sprint? How about the start of a project? Well I for one want to advocate for it! While there might not be confetti, or champagne, or hats emblazoned with a sprint number, the start of a sprint is a fantastic time. Beginnings also symbolize a fresh start, a reset, an opportunity to try something new or validation that everything is going great. In Agile, these fresh starts are thanks in large part to one of the key ceremonies in Agile: the retro.

Retros give a forum to reflect on a period of time collaboratively

As 2020 approached, you probably reflected on your 2019, the good and the bad. Maybe you didn’t take those guitar lessons and want to try again in 2020. Maybe you want to test those new Spanish skills you learned during spring break in Mexico this year. Or maybe you decided 2019 didn’t deserve any attention and best to move on and focus your attention on 2020. Well done! You just participated in a retro! Retrospectives are simply a way to look back on what occurred in a past set of time (for example a project or sprint of work) and determine what could be improved.

There is no wrong way to retro! Like most things agile, retrospectives can be molded and defined by the team that is holding them. Here are some more commonly used retro styles and my recommendations for getting started:

4 Ls: Loved, Liked, Learned, Lacked
- As team members bring up a topic they’d like to discuss, utilizing this method can help them to shape and categorize the reflection; a Product Owner loved the team’s demo, a Lead Dev liked how meetings were succinct and to the point, a Junior Dev learned how to troubleshoot a common merge conflict, and maybe the team as a whole lacked time or clarity on stories. Whatever the topics raised, this method can help shape the retro in a constructive and easy to bucket way.
The Good, the Bad, the Ugly
- For the movie buffs out there, this homage to Clint Eastwood. Like the wild west, it’s more to the point and doesn’t try to sugar coat the negatives, in fact it’s where this style tends to focus. Maybe it was good the team met regularly, maybe it was bad the project manager didn’t attend, and maybe it was ugly that UAT happened in production because the marketing team wasn’t available. You can categorize all the topics raised and then provide some quick outlaw justice to discussing them and moving forward.
Start, Stop, Continue:
- A basic format for retro, this style simply allows for a forward-thinking collaboration of what a team wants to start doing (that they weren’t doing before), stop doing, and continue doing. A Team Lead wants to stop doing early morning demos, a Business Analyst wants to continue to have product backlog refinement meetings, and the Dev Team wants to start doing hack-a-thons. This method tends to focus more on the outcomes the topic raised vs. the topic itself, and is a good entry into retros.

No matter the style, the purpose of the meeting is for a team to get together and reflect on the work that was done. The takeaway from this event should be a collective path forward and a desire to continuously improve, whatever the focus of the team is. Agile mirrors our lives which is why it’s a great methodology. Agile also presents more opportunities to start fresh as retros tend to be follow the end of a sprint which can range anywhere from 2-4 weeks; thus improvement doesn’t require a full revolution around the sun.

So the next time you find yourself post retro, at the start of a new sprint or a new project, celebrate it! (Preferably with champagne and confetti).

Happy retroing!!

The Candy Debate; Your Next Agile Team Building Exercise

Post-Halloween is a candy sale bonanza. Couple sweet deals with the start of shorter days, colder weather, and the long anticipation of holidays, this is an excellent time to take advantage of some team building activities to boost morale and some agile skills. I introduce for your agile consideration: The Candy Debate.

The goal is simple, team up with fellow candy lovers in your designated candy of choice, and work together to debate why your candy is the best. What do teams get out of it? The power of debate cannot be understated. Multiple soft skills are exercised during debates that are critical to agile; constructing thoughts and presenting ideas confidently and concisely, working within boundaries both categorically and time-wise, and working together with a team to synthesize multiple viewpoints and ideas.

And why candy? It’s fun! Candy is a universal entity. Everyone has a favorite (or a strong distaste for one), and in talking with your teams a good PO or coach can find out preferences and use that info to prep for The Candy Debate.

How it works (aka, coach’s notes):

Pick a well-sized room depending on the team size
Arrange candy options on different tables
Candy options (depending on team size): Chocolate (milk or dark), gummies, sour candies, classic candies, mint, no candy (some people don’t like it)
As your team enters the room, have them choose their candy of choice
Once everyone is settled, set up the debate

Round 1: ‘I want candy”

Teams will debate one another about why their candy of choice (eg: chocolate) is the best
Each team will have 5-10 minutes to discuss amongst themselves
Each team will nominate 1-2 people to present their argument to the group
Each team will have up to 3 minutes to present their argument
Coach will designate someone to be the judge, if no one is available, coach will be the judge
Rules: stay positive, focus only on their candy

Round 2: “Pour some sugar on me”

Teams will have a second round to debate, only this time, rules are out
Teams will have no more than 5 minutes to create a new argument about their candy
Teams can choose two options: double down on why their candy is the best, or attack other candies about why they are terrible, or both!
Team will nominate a new presenter
Each team has 1 minute to present their argument
Coach will designate someone to be the judge, if no one is available, coach will be the judge
Rules: none (maybe no profanities or derogatory terms, this is a work team building exercise after all)

Retro

After all the teams have presented their arguments, the coach will pick a winner and explain why they won (best argument, best teaming, most creative, etc). To mix it up, let the teams vote for a winner themselves, you might be surprised how people vote! Finally, let everyone enjoy their designated candies while the coach leads some retro time.

Questions for coach to lead the team:

How was it working with your team?
Purpose: Get the team to think about team dynamics, new people, different opinions, etc…
Were presenters nominated, volunteered, or voluntold?
Purpose: Do people naturally move into these roles or rise to the occasion, take note of the adopters/detractors in each group, and the introverts/extroverts, who did what.
What will people take away from the exercise?
Purpose: Perspective is critical to an agile team, and making sure people hear thoughts about exercises, good or bad, ensures that they can continue or discontinue as needed. Some teams build trust through team building, others see it as a distraction, it’s critical to get the pulse of the team to take it into the next exercise.
Coach’s note: Read the room and let the team drive the conversation

Sugar highs, and the inevitable crashes, are sure to happen during this fun team building exercise. I hope you and your teams find this a sweet escape from the norm and expands on their agile soft skills. Happy candy debating!

If you’re interested in an outside facilitator to work with your team, reach out to productoffensive@gmail.com.