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Semelhante a "Multitasking is Evil" & Other Games to Convince You (or your manager!) to Limit WIP
Semelhante a "Multitasking is Evil" & Other Games to Convince You (or your manager!) to Limit WIP (20)
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"Multitasking is Evil" & Other Games to Convince You (or your manager!) to Limit WIP
- 1. excella.com @excellaco ”Multitasking is Evil” & Other Games to Convince You (or your manager!) to Limit WIP Julie Wyman and Mark Grove
- 3. excella.com | @excellaco • 20+ years IT profession • Scrum and Kanban enthusiast • Amateur photographer and astronomer • 7+ years as an Agile Coach • Simulations for learning • Love to travel Mark Grove Julie Wyman
- 4. excella.com | @excellaco Upcoming User Story Workshop: Creating Agile Requirements - Developing requirements - Managing the product backlog - Fun and engaging! Agile Training at Excella Thursday, August 31st 9:00AM – 5:00PM Arlington Tech Exchange (ATX) Visit www.excella.com/training to register or send us an email at training@excella.com
- 5. excella.com | @excellaco 1. Multitasking is Evil 2. Name Game 3. Featureban Agenda
- 6. excella.com | @excellaco Multitasking is Evil Game #1
- 7. excella.com | @excellaco Multitasking is Evil Multitasking is often seen as a desirable skill—you can buy books or pay to attend courses that will teach you how to do it—but it is a surprisingly debilitating idea. Slightly modified from: https://www.agileconnection.com/article/multitasking-evil Clarke Ching
- 8. Round 1 You are assigned three projects, which you work all at once. • Project 1: Write the letters A to M in the first column. • Project 2: Write the numbers 1 to 13 in the middle column. • Project 3: Write the Roman Numerals I to XIII in the third column. Complete the three columns, working row-by-row, across the page until you hit 13 for each column. Write down your time when you’re all done. A 1 I B 2 II
- 9. Round 2 You are assigned three projects, which you will work one at a time. • Project 1: Write the letters A to M in the first column. • Project 2: Write the numbers 1 to 13 in the middle column. • Project 3: Write the Roman Numerals I to XIII in the third column. Complete the three columns, working one column at a time, until you hit 13 for each column. Write down your time when you’re all done. A 1 I B 2 II
- 10. excella.com | @excellaco Debrief • Was your overall completion time faster in Round 1 or Round 2? • Did you make any mistakes when you multitasked? • Did you feel more stressed trying to complete the tasks? • Isn't real-life multitasking worse than this? • How does Agile help us “prevent” multitasking? • Do your teams multitask? • Facilitation tweaks?
- 11. excella.com | @excellaco Name Game Game #2
- 12. excella.com | @excellaco Name Game Quick but effective exercise to illustrate the perils and pitfalls of multitasking. Slightly modified from: https://lithespeed.com/the-name-game-a-multitasking-game-for- agile-teams/ Arlen Bankston (shared by Peter Stevens)
- 13. Game Objective • Worker creates a name card for each Customer. • The exercise ends when all names have been recorded. • Need volunteers to capture the best and worst times.
- 14. Round 1 Goal: The Customer whose name is completed first “wins”. Instructions: When the time starts, all Customers begin shouting their name at the Worker (one letter at a time) and the Worker starts writing them down. Volunteers capture the time when the first and last name are completed.
- 15. excella.com | @excellaco Round 1 Debrief How did this round feel – for the Worker? For the Customers? Was this at all similar to the way prioritization works at your company (e.g. the squeakiest wheel gets the grease)? What were the best and worst completion times?
- 16. Round 2 Goal: Worker creates a name card for each Customer. Instructions: The Worker will write each person’s name one letter at a time in a round robin fashion. Volunteers will again time how long it takes the Worker to write the names.
- 17. excella.com | @excellaco Round 2 Debrief How did this round feel – for the Worker? For the Customers? Was this an efficient approach? Are there any forms of waste? What were the best and worst completion times?
- 18. Round 3 Goal: Worker creates a name card for each Customer. Instructions: The Worker chooses the order of Customers to service. The Worker writes each Customer’s name in its entirety before moving on to the next. Volunteers will again time how long it takes the Worker to write the names.
- 19. excella.com | @excellaco Round 3 Debrief How did this round feel – for the Worker? For the Customers? Was the capacity clearer? Could this work even better? What were the best and worst completion times?
- 21. excella.com | @excellaco Featureban Simple, fun, and highly customizable Kanban simulation game. Slightly modified from: https://www.agendashift.com/featureban - Mike Burrows Supplementary facilitation instructions – David Kane
- 22. Set up the Kanban Board
- 23. Complete Setup Each team member puts one feature card in the ‘Ready’ column of the board. Make sure to initial it first, and put a 0 next to Begin Day. Deal 10 cards to each team member. Keep these cards in a stack face down in front of you as we begin.
- 24. At the end of each day (i.e. turn) update the metrics sheet with how many items are in each column When an item is finished, put the day (i.e. turn) it completed in the End Day box, and update the metrics sheet On a Black Card… • If available, block one of your own currently unblocked work items in progress (i.e., mark it with a ‘B’). You can’t block items that are already done. • AND, if able, start a new work item by selecting one from the backlog pile. • Put your initials on it • Log the current day (i.e. turn) in the Begin Day box • Place it in the Ready column. • If you can’t block one of your own items, but you can start a new work item, go ahead and start a new work item. • If unable to start a new work item, you can advance someone else’s unblocked work item, one column to the right. On a Red Card … • Advance work item one column to the right. • If it reaches Done, put the current day (turn) in the End Day box on the card • OR, unblock a work item that is blocked (i.e., scratch through the ‘B’) • OR, start a new work item by selecting one from the backlog pile. • Put your initials on it • Log the current day (i.e. turn) in the Begin Day box on the card • Place it in the Ready column. • OR, when you have no other option for your own work items, you can apply one of the options above to another team member’s work item
- 25. excella.com | @excellaco Round 1 Debrief What was your team’s throughput? What was your median lead time? Did you observe any parallels between the game and your actual work? How did you work as a team? What could improve flow?
- 26. Round 2 • Work as a team to set work in progress (WIP) limits • Set limits for each state on the Kanban Board • Ready, Stage 1, Stage 2 • WIP limits can be whatever you agree upon
- 27. excella.com | @excellaco Round 2 Debrief What was your team’s throughput? What was your median lead time? What was the impact of your WIP limits? How did you work as a team? What could improve flow?
- 28. excella.com | @excellaco Example Cumulative Flow Diagram 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Ready Stage 1 Stage 2 Complete :-) No WIP Limits Completed: 2 First Completed: 7 Average Time to Complete: 6.5 Source: David Kane, Hobsons
- 29. excella.com | @excellaco Example Cumulative Flow Diagram WIP Limits: 1/1/1 Completed: 4 First Completed: 1 Average Time to Complete: 4 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Ready Stage 1 Stage 2 Complete :-) Source: David Kane, Hobsons
- 30. excella.com | @excellaco Example Cumulative Flow Diagram WIP Limits: 1/2/2 Completed: 4 First Completed: 1 Average Time to Complete: 5.5 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Ready Stage 1 Stage 2 Complete :-) Source: David Kane, Hobsons
- 31. excella.com | @excellaco Overall Debrief
- 32. excella.com | @excellaco Overall Debrief What other games are you aware to highlight the impact of high WIP and multitasking? How could you use these three games at work? Who could benefit from them? What tweaks would you make? What’s important to keep in mind as a facilitator?
Notas do Editor
- Round One (“The Shout”) Instructions Choose a Worker at each table; everyone else will be a Customer. Note the Goal: the Customer whose name is written first “wins” (prize optional). Customers will each time how long it takes the Worker to write down their names. Begin the exercise: All Customers begin shouting their names at the Worker, who starts writing them down, one per card. The exercise ends when all names have been recorded. Note the best and worst times.
- Note the chaos that likely ensued. This closely parallels the way prioritization works at many companies (e.g. the squeakiest wheel gets the grease). Ask a Worker how they felt. They probably were stressed, distracted and frustrated. Write the best and worst completion times somewhere visible. We’ll compare these results to those in succeeding rounds.
- Round Two (“Everyone’s Happy?”) Instructions The Worker, Customers and Goal remain the same. The Worker will write each person’s name one letter at a time in a round robin fashion. Example: If Anna, Bill and Joey are on the team, the Worker would write “A” on one sheet of paper, then “B” on another, and “J” on the last. Then they would revisit those sheets to write “n,” “I” and “o” (the second letters in each name), continuing until all names are complete. Customers will again time how long it takes the Worker to write their names.
- Note how things were now orderly, but very inefficient, and ask why. Several forms of waste are occurring here, but most notably context and task switching. There is also motion waste (moving from one card to the next), transportation waste (moving the cards themselves), and waiting (the time between actual writing), all of which impact throughput of completed work. Ask Customers how they felt. By servicing all customers at once, we serve none of them well. Compare this round’s times to the last. Ask Workers how they felt. This round was likely frustrating in a different way; while the process was orderly, a sense of true closure and productivity was likely missing. A great deal of working was happening, but little work was getting done.
- Round Three (“Focus”) Instructions The Worker, Customers and Goal remain the same. The Worker chooses the order of Customers to service The Worker writes each Customer’s name in its entirety before moving on to the next.
- Ask Customers how they felt. How was this time different from the previous rounds? Was the capacity clearer? Did you feel a need to fight for the top spot? Compare the results; they should be at least twice as quick as the previous rounds, and possibly several times. Ask Workers how they felt. This approach is by far the best controlled, least stressful and easiest to manage. Could this work even better? One thing we could do to make this more “agile” is prioritization by value, which could start a conversation about Product Owners, if desired. In summary, the human brain does not multitask. Focusing on a single job at a time yields better quality, faster delivery, happier customers and less wasted time. This factor becomes vastly more critical when dealing with teams of people and the attendant destructive interference from so many simultaneous possible interactions. This lesson has substantial implications at all levels from individual task management to project portfolio management and resource allocation systems, and is fundamental to lean-inspired methods such as Kanban. This concludes our third entry on Agile games. Once again, let us know if there’s a particular lesson you’d like your teams to learn, and we’ll see if we know an exercise to demonstrate it.