Top 7 problems experienced agile teams still face
You have been practicing agile for years now. Here are simple questions to ask to see if you are really agile or practicing agile for name-sake.
- Every quarter, our software is able to create real-impact for our customers: It is not just busy work. If you are not able to articulate who your customer are or what impact means to your customers or you do not have a way of measuring impact -that is a problem!
- Every quarter, the overall confidence in our team’s capability to deliver high-quality software faster increases: Purpose of agile is to respond to market faster. If after years of practicing agile you are not able to release faster but just plan faster -that is a problem!
- Every quarter, the quality and integrity of the code has improved and technical debt has gone down: I know you may have inherited a legacy platform or you may have other valid reasons. However, if you are not able to pay back technical debt your ability to be really agile is going diminish fast and that is a problem!
- Usually the Product, UX and QA teams are not in reactive mode and are able to stay ahead of engineering teams: I see this as a more frequent problem. For QA, it is the lack of automation and for Product & UX it is the lack of time to prepare. However, if Product, UX and QA are not able to stay ahead of the engineering teams by at least two sprints — that is a problem!
- Except for planning days, programmer’s are able to spend minimum 4-5 hours coding on what really matters: It many not seem like a lot to ask but if you are able to create this kind of focus time for your programmers then you do not have a problem! On an average I see programmers spending 2–3 hours max coding everyday. Collaboration can turn into annoyance if programmers are not able to focus.
- Sprints are not just about completing a backlog of tasks but about attacking a theme that has clear impact: This is another common one. Most of the teams we see get into the daily routine of just finishing the tasks and stories but if you are not able to keep the impact in mind — then you have a problem of just busy work.
- Usually, the sprint-demos are well attended and feel like celebrations. I cannot stress this more. You are in a for a long haul and small celebrations are key for continuous improvement of morale and energy. If leadership teams and stake-holders cannot take time to attend demos often then the teams do not get the feedback they need, they loose seriousness of the demos and feel under-appreciated and that is a problem!
Measuring success of Enterprise Agile Adoption
How do you know your Agile Adoption is successful? Few things to look for before and after:
- Product Quality: Improvement of Code quality over a period of time. This can be measured as simply as open defects.
- Customer Satisfaction: Because of the customer-driven prioritization, frequent releases and increased responsiveness, there is increased alignment between customer needs and product. Hence, customers are more satisfied. This can be measured using a simple product satisfaction survey before and after and seeing product usage.
- Time to market: Most of Agile processes reduce lead time by promoting smaller batch-sizes, limited work in progress and continuous improvement. This can be measured using before and after lead-times to get a complete feature out to production.
- Employee Satisfaction: Nothing motivates the practitioners of software development more than seeing their code working in the hands of customers. Once the process is adopted - we find a spike in the employee satisfaction and ownership. This can be measured using simple metrics like employee referrals, employee satisfaction etc.
What are the best strategies for dealing with email overload?
Most of the communication that comes over email is a waste of time. At InRhythm - we try hard to minimize communication over email. Here are some of the patterns that works for us:
- For instant communication we use HipChat.
- For anything that requires multiple people and/or multiple tasks we use Jira. We have also used Trello in the past.
- Google’s Configure inbox and tab options are helpful. It is easy to select all emails and delete them.
- I have used Google tasks to remind me of emails on which I will take actions later and archive those emails so it does not remain in the inbox.
- I have tried to create fixed windows of time to check emails but it has not worked as we are in a service business and customer response is important.
- Finally - we practice Inbox Zero.
Personally, I feel email is a problem when it comes to productivity as it disrupts your focus and creative thinking.
This was my reply on Quora
Avoid Feature Frenzy
I am fortunate to sit in many product strategy meetings. The majority of these meetings usually focus around adding functional features. However, there are those rare occasions when the following issues are discussed:
- “I saw Billy using our app. I could not believe it took him 5 steps to get to it. We should fix that.”
- “I saw Jena struggling with the reporting. What can we do to improve”
- “I used our competitors’ product, and I loved how focused their feature set looked. We should look at it.”
Discussions like the above are driven by customers pain points. The team’s priorities shift to solving for what the customer actually needs instead of just adding a shiny new feature on the product roadmap. Unfortunately, most product roadmap meetings are driven by assumptions or by gut decision making rather than from true product discovery. To avoid that common pitfall, the first activity before any product strategy or roadmap meeting is to have teams actually go ahead and spend time with customers and use competitor’s products.
As an added benefit, pain point driven teams also have much better relationship with technology teams. There is a stronger partnership in driving customer focused product development where typically the following questions are asked:
- What features can we sunset?
- How can we minimize the complexity of the feature?
- What would it take to improve the offline experience?
- Are there ways we can eliminate our technical debt?
- Will this improve performance?
While adding features is cool, high performing teams understand that solving real pain points are the recipe to accelerate product market fit fastest.
Our Monthly Growth Meet-up.
Our monthly team gathering where team shares their learning and growth.
Case-study on Focused Strategy: Letting go of 2 Billion Dollars in Revenue
Here is a case study on enterprise strategy to walk the walk on focus. CVS wanted to become a focused health-care provider and be known for that. Hence they boldly decided to eliminate offerings that do not align with that focus. This decision is costly in short-term with an immediate impact on revenue (almost $2 Billion dollars). However, in long run it is decisions like this that position companies for greatness.
Sometimes the only way to reduce the lead-time is by adding people. It should be the least-preferred way as it adds to the costs and is not-scalable.
As we discuss with our clients - there are several levers like Process, People, Structure, Culture, Strategy etc that determine how the company prospers.
At InRhythm, we are big fans of culture. I think Culture trumps lots of other levers that makes a company better than others. While Culture comes from top - this article covers other components that define a company culture. Good Read.
A quick update on WhatsApp by its co-founder and CEO Jan Koum. Moderated by David Rowan, WIRED UK.
What no one tells you about the role
Good read on what a Product Manager does
How Walmart.ca’s Responsive Redesign Boost Conversion by 20% - responsive design Conversion Optimization, Mobile
Quick read on how Agile, Responsive Design and Table First all came together for Walmart.ca to boost conversion by 20%. Please note that even though this was a major re-design effort - they still stuck to 2 week sprints.
Innovative Products: frozen yogurt pops. Why wait to just have a business around frozen yogurt. How about frozen yogurt pops?
Quiet Friday View. Happy Friday!