In January I talked with the Agile Triad group. About getting more Business Value now. In the context of Scrum.

1. MORE BUSINESS VALUE NOW
“Transforming the World of Work”
© Joseph Little 2013
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2. Joe Little, CST & MBA
• Agile Coach & Trainer (CST)
• 20+ years in senior level consulting to well-known firms in New York, London and
Charlotte, and elsewhere.
• Focus on delivery of Business Value; interest in Lean
• CST (CSP, CSM); MBA
• Was Senior Manager in Big 6 consulting
• Head of Kitty Hawk Consulting, Inc. since 1991
• Head of LeanAgileTraining.com
• Started trying to do [Agile] before reading The Mythical Man-Month
– http://agileconsortium.blogspot.com
– jhlittle@kittyhawkconsulting.com
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3. Basics
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4. Key Issue
Having better lives (the good life)
Smaller version: Getting more from Scrum.
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5. Would it be good to have more
Business Value?
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6. What’s in it for you? (Scrum)
More business value for the firm
More for the customers
More, cheaper, faster, better
Faster delivery (TTM)
Better way to work (for the workers)
More fun
It just makes sense
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7. If you are a Team member...
If you deliver more real business value, your
life has a higher purpose....
You have done something for another
person(s). This is a wonderful thing.
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8. What is the problem?
We are not delivering enough Business Value.
Large success does happen often...why not
much more often??
And a larger success more often...
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9. Put another way
We need more...
Innovation
Inventiveness
Creativity
Beauty
WOW factor
Sex appeal
Neat, cool, wonderful solutions to hard technical
and business problems
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10. Per Tom DeMarco
Project A will eventually cost about $1 million
and will produce value of about $1.1 million
Project B will eventually cost about $1 million
and will produce value of about $50 million.
What do we learn from this?
See: “Software Engineering: An idea whose
time has come and gone”, by Tom DeMarco
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11. What we do now in Scrum
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12. What does Scrum do ‘out of the box’
to get more business value?
1. Business and Technology collaborate
2. We have a Product Owner for each Team
3. We have a ‘prioritized’ Product Backlog
4. Ordered mainly by Business Value
5. Each sprint we have working product (per the
DOD)
6. Each demo, we show the working product to
‘business stakeholders’ and get their feedback
As in: ‘Did we build the best possible stuff for you this
Sprint?’
7. We release earlier © Joe Little 2013
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13. But we can do more...
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14. What else can we do?
In small teams, with stickies. And large pens.
One items per sticky...
What are some concrete things we could start
doing tomorrow that could raise BV?
You have 2 minutes. The Team with the most
stickies wins....
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15. 3 More Ideas
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16. The 3 ideas
Business Value Engineering
Priority Poker
The Pareto Idea
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17. Business Value Engineering
A framework for continuously improving how
you deliver more and more business value.
Steals from Value Stream Mapping (Lean)
Steals from Deming (Plan-Do-Check-Act)
Uses ideas similar to the scientific method
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18. Priority Poker
Similar to Planning Poker, which you know and
love
Puts BV Points on each fricken user story
Done as a Team
‘It’s the conversations, stupid.’
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19. The Pareto Idea
We know this as the 80-20 rule...although not
well enough.
Wilfredo Pareto: The ‘vital few’
Sifting to separate...
The gold, platinum, diamonds
The silver and copper
The dirt (even the dirt gives a decent return)
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20. Ummm...
These 3 ideas could be done separately....
OR...
They could be done together...
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21. Business Value Engineering
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22. Business Value Engineering
A framework for continuously improving how
you deliver more and more business value.
Steals from Value Stream Mapping (Lean)
Steals from Deming (Plan-Do-Check-Act)
Uses ideas similar to the scientific method
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23. The two essential questions
How do we get the BV ideas and the
requirements into the Team?
How do we deliver the ‘product’ to the
customer?
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24. The BV process is visible and we
articulate the underlying
Do you understand yours, end-to-end?
Customers The Business
External Customer facing
people
&
The Team
Internal
Internal groups
(Firm oriented)
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25. Hallmarks of good BV Engineering
1. The process is visible and articulated & always
improving
2. Failures in BV communication are identified and
corrected frequently, quickly
3. There are many theories, and a concerted attempt
to prove out each theory
4. There is appropriate dynamism and change
5. Business & Technology are partners
6. Success is forecast (modeled) and also measured
after the fact
7. Human judgment is involved (the numbers are not
a dictator)
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26. Some good Theories (examples) - 1
The customer will change her mind 20% in 6
months.
The customer does not really know what he
wants.
The customer cannot explain clearly what she
wants.
The customer only knows it when he sees it.
The customer does not want software, just a
solution to her problem.
The Sales guys can explain some customer
wants.
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27. Good Theories (examples) - 2
We can learn something about BV using better
metrics (maybe even money).
While we need some documentation, it is also
very important to give the Team the Tacit
knowledge.
The telephone game effect should be
minimized.
Let’s have real customers come to some
demos.
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28. Good Theories (examples) - 3
Customers disagree. And customers and our
shareholders disagree on what is highest BV.
We are always separating the diamonds from
the dirt.
It helps for the Team to understand BV, even
the monetary return from the new product.
We expect to revise the NPV estimates over
time, for many reasons.
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29. Good Theories (examples) - 4
It is helpful to identify different ‘roles’ for the
product.
We should optimize delivery ‘end-to-end’.
“End-to-end” starts when the customer has an
idea, and ends when the customer is
successfully using the product (achieving their
business value).
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30. Good Theories (examples) - 5
There are important benefit-cost trade-offs in
our work. Only by having Business-
Technology as partners, can we make the
better trade-offs.
Knowledge about these trade-offs evolves over
time.
Understanding knowledge creation and
knowledge decay are key to achieving ever
higher business value.
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31. Good Theories (examples) - 6
Every customer has a high demand for
simplicity and speed of delivery. And high
quality.
...even if unstated.
Some projects will be cancelled if the benefit-
cost ratio declines enough.
Every representative of ‘the customers’ is
problematic to some degree. We are always
looking to reduce the bias.
Let’s let the coder talk to some of the end
users.
Testers must understand business value more.
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32. Good Theories (examples) - 7
The business value of the (next) release can
often change significantly in a month or two.
(While we are building it.)
Often customers need our help in prioritizing
the “requirements” that the diverse people
from that firm have given us
The best possible feedback comes after it goes
into production. (release sooner)
By using working software, we will learn faster
how much we are misunderstanding what they
really want.
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33. Good Theories (examples) - 8
Watching a person working if often the best
way to identify the real needs.
Use cases can be helpful in articulating the
requirements
Showing some real users working software
frequently can be very useful for learning
about requirements
The customer often does not understand his
problem, and is more often far from
articulating well the ‘better’ solution for it. (eg,
does not understand what is possible)
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34. Good Theories (examples) - 9
Exogenous variables (war, weather, economic)
add more reasons to deliver something smaller
faster.
No one person at the customer firm ‘knows’
what the customer (firm) wants.
We need to re-train some customers to trust
us enough to want more frequent releases.
And give them the necessary support (eg, for
testing).
We must have higher quality so that customer
testing costs and ‘pain’ reaches an acceptably
lower level.
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35. Some Outputs
A BV ‘process’ map (~30 objects/stickies)
A list of underlying theories (~20)
An ‘operational’ definition of BV for the next
release
A BV Model
A specific improvement to make (later:
approved & work done)
Something changes
A way(s) of measuring (higher) BV (eg, after
the release is in production)
A way of evaluating success (later: success
evaluated)
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36. Priority Poker
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37. What is it?
Priority Poker is very similar to Planning Poker,
except it is about Business Value.
Other differences:
The reference story is the highest BV one. (Not
the lowest effort one.)
We use the “5” best “experts” on Business Value.
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38. 3 roles
• Product owner
• Scrum master
• Team
Planning poker cards 3 artifacts
• Product backlog
• Sprint backlog
• Sprint burndown
4 activities
• Sprint planning
• Daily scrum
• Sprint review
• Retrospective
http://planningpoker.crisp.se
Source: Henrik Kniberg CSM v9.3 © Jeff Sutherland 1993-2008; © Joe Little 2013
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39. What happens?
They select the reference story. BVP=100
They choose a story (random) to evaluate
They discuss
They vote. Imagine: 2, 20, 20, 20, 40
The two extremes talk
The vote again: 13, 20, 20, 20, 40. The
average is 23. (Meaning: On average, they feel
it is about 23% of the BV of the reference
story)
They go to the next story
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40. What is the pupose?
The number of each story card?
OR....
That the 5 ‘experts’ discussed some important
issues, and ‘everyone’ now understands BV
much better?
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41. The purpose is...
...that now everyone has shared their (key)
tacit knowledge about business value.
...that now everyone has learned.
...that now mostly they see the same elephant
(of BV).
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42. Now...
R = BVP / SP
We can do more work on the Pareto Idea... (up
soon)
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43. Very simple...
...very powerful.
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44. A word of advice...
If the ‘wrong’ person explains it, they won’t do
it
If the ‘right’ person explains it, they do it
easily and see the value
Hard to explain why...but that seems to be the
truth
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45. The Pareto Idea
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46. The Pareto idea
80-20
The vital few
Less is more...
Example: The iPod, not the Zune
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47. Pareto’s Rule (you must prioritize!)
Pareto Curve
100
80
60
40
20
0
1st Quint. 2nd Quint. 3rd Quint. 4th Qunit. 5th Quint.
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48. Pareto said...
You can re-apply the Pareto idea at every level
of the population
THUS:
Every time you break down an Epic, part of it is
high value, part medium, part low
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49. Advice
Smaller stories!!!!!!
OK?...
Smaller stories!!!
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50. More importantly...
You have been brainwashed, for years, into the
100%-100% rule
And everyone around you has been
brainwashed
AND... we are still learning how to sift & see:
gold, platinum, diamonds
silver, copper
dirt
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51. Advice: Learn to say ‘NO’
...in a nice way
See: The Power of a Positive No, by William
Ury
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52. Advice: First do the 85%-50% rule
85% of $3 million is $2,550,000
50% of 12 months is 6 months....
THUS: a 70% improvement with just the 85-50
rule
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53. Advice: Work on it every day
Work on it HARD every day
Every day there is some additional work
(feature) you can identify NOT to do in the
Release.
Identifying that is hard.
Saying NO is hard.
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54. Killing Babies or Sizzling Steak
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55. You have finished Release Planning...
P.B.
By Apr 30th!
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56. You have finished Release Planning...
P.B.
NO !!!
By Apr 30th!
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57. “Killing Babies”
I don’t recommend it
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58. Show a Pareto Chart
80
60
R Factor
40
20
1
2
3 0
4
Bar Chart - Stories - Width is SPs 5
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59. You have finished Release Planning...
P.B.
By Apr 30th!
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60. Sizzling Steak!
Yes! We have to show the sizzling steak!
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61. Other basic ideas
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62. Some simple things - 1
Benefit-cost analysis
Let the coder talk to the real user
Agile Specs
Ask the Doers to think about business value
frequently
Create a BV Model
Modify the BV Model once per month
Learn to cancel projects when better projects
come along
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63. Some simple things - 2
Identify & fix more technical debt
Make the PO better
Get more PO time for the team
Teach the PO about the product
Give the PO time to talk to end users and
customers
Let the PO watch a master PO
Improve the quality of the Agile Specs
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64. Some more simple things - 3
Get more creative
Make the product more elegant or beautiful
Get better business stakeholders
More feedback from the business stakeholders
More time from the business stakeholders
A better relationship between the business
stakeholders and the PO
Bring real end users to the Demo
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65. More simple things - 4
Map the stories (in several possible ways)
The Doers should watch what the end users do
each day
Re-calculate the BV Model more frequently
Integrate more between Team planning and
firm planning
Study competitive products
Remove small features from the release
(Pareto)
Faster feedback within the Sprint (Doers - PO)
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66. More simple things - 5
Have more fun!?!***
Ask: “What will delight the customer?”
Measure BV delivered (measure after a
release)
Focus on TTM (time to market). Measure it.
Identify the BV drivers specific to your effort
Clarify the acceptance criteria (functional
tests) more
Automate the functional tests (more)
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67. Summary
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68. Do these!!!
Business value engineering
Priority Poker
Execute on the Pareto Idea
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69. If you do, you’ll have more fun!
Yes, even hard work can be fun, if
you do it the right way....
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70. Thank you.
Please contact me here:
Joseph Little
jhlittle@kittyhawkconsulting.com
LeanAgileTraining.com
LeanAgileTraining.com/blog
Twitter: jhlittle
Office: 704-376-8881
Cell: 917-887-1669
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