Exploring better ways of delivering customer value
In an earlier post I showed how a team can get started with Kanban by visualising and organising their work using post-its, and concluded with a look at managing WIP (work-in-process). In this article I want to broaden the discussion to look at some of the other features of Kanban that can help the team…
Some friends and I were talking about how well-organised a company might be, things like a clear hierarchy, well-defined processes, job satisfaction and so on. One thing that struck me was that some companies succeed despite their poor organisation, for instance (de facto) monopolies, but also disruptive companies that use IT to rapidly transform an…
Bringing together the necessary disciplines to form high-performance cross-functional teams is a key management decision when creating good software products. All software products are one-offs, unique, so having the product owner, designer, developers and testers in the same team is the most effective way to make essential trade-offs when delivering “good enough” solutions. Add to…
Jira now provides a powerful way to build automated process flows using Automation rules. These rules can be triggered in different ways; one such way is when an issue is transitioned. However, automation rules are not the only thing that can be triggered on an issue transition, Jira Workflows have Post functions that trigger when…
In this post I want to talk about fidelity, meaning the resolution we give to our product prototypes. Marty Cagan talks a lot about the different types of prototypes that can and should be used during discovery. A prototype should only just be good enough (i.e. have high enough fidelity) to verify an idea. We…
The purpose of a reference architecture is to identify the architectural principles that apply when creating a sustainable and scalable solution. As new additions are made to the solution, the reference architecture becomes the yardstick that all solution proposals can be measured against and so enable a fair comparison of ideas. A key test of…
I recently read an article about how to help someone get back to work after a long absence, perhaps due to illness or burnout. There was lots of good advice, such as keeping colleagues informed about adjustments to working hours and limiting responsibilities among others things. But what struck me was how a lot of…
I use the INVEST criteria to help teams define good User Stories. This would normally be sufficient to get any one story into production, but in the case of a new feature (or MVP) this has frustratingly not been enough; the stories just pile up in a feature branch until the team feel there is…
“Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.” The Agile Manifesto When I am working with cross-functional development teams, I use the storyboarding technique to help the team break down their work. This usually involves identifying an MVP and creating a prioritised backlog. I also encourage the…
The Kanban board is used to visualise the team’s work. This is usually a mix of Bugs, Tasks and Stories. Good stories should follow the INVEST criteria. If the team are using Jira, then it also allows them to create sub-tasks for Tasks and Stories. Sub-tasks are a useful way for the developers to create…