Jason Gorman
"We tried Agile and it didn't work?" Did you try the part where empowered, self-organising teams rapidly iterate production-quality software based on direct feedback from end users and continuously reflect on and improve how they work?
Aug 11, 2023 at 12:41pmWeb
Show threadJason GormanAug 11, 2023

Someone (on LinkedIn, where else?) suggested that they should have engaged an Agile coach.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha etc.

Show threadJeff GriggAug 11, 2023

@jasongorman

"Competent management" is also an option!

(... or maybe it isn't. 🙄 😢 )

Show threadJeff Miller (orange hatband)Aug 11, 2023
@jasongorman "Have the teams tried changing their org?"
Show threadCoach Pāṇini ®Aug 11, 2023
@jasongorman have you followed https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarkarsoumen on LinkedIn?
Show threadJason GormanAug 11, 2023
@paninid It would appear we're connected 🙂
Show threadClueless by SamAug 11, 2023
@jasongorman "No, the other thing"
Show threadTony KennickAug 11, 2023
@pikesley @jasongorman we took a requirements document that was 5 inches thick that was started a year ago, and split it into 75 2 week "sprints" each of the same number of requirements from the document.
This was agile because each "ticket" in the tracking spreadsheet was written in the form "As someone who has already sold this to 3 customers, I want requirement number X written so that we can not get sued"
Show threadVaughn Vernon 🟦 🟨 🟧 🟪Aug 13, 2023
@thegreatgonzo @pikesley @jasongorman What, no Jira?
Show threadTony KennickAug 13, 2023
@VaughnVernon
The consultant that came in to set this all up said that all ticket tracking systems like Jira, Azure DevOps etc were a waste of money if you are already paying for excel. ANd they just take people time the should spend on other things to move tickets about.
They obviously like excel as they spend a large portion of their time in the "requirements manager" position (that they suggested and took as a contractor) using it to produce reports
@pikesley @jasongorman
Show threadTony KennickAug 13, 2023
@VaughnVernon
I have to admit the tables and charts that they print out and leave on everyone's desks are very pretty. The bosses are very happy that reading those print-outs and having meetings about make a good reason to force people into the office
@pikesley @jasongorman
Show threadParsingphaseAug 11, 2023
@jasongorman "We gave engineers lots of feedback, we kept telling them not to do anything until we'd made up our minds where every pixel needed to go".
Show threadParsingphaseAug 11, 2023
@jasongorman (this to the API engineers, specifically)
Show threadjoachimAug 11, 2023
@jasongorman I've been at workplaces where it's just 'two-week slices of waterfall'.
Show threadRalf SüssAug 11, 2023
@joachim @jasongorman wait, this isnt how it is supposed to be? ;)
Show threadjoachimAug 11, 2023
@ralfSuess @jasongorman Leader: 'The sprint needs a goal and a description!' Devs: 'A bunch of tickets we reckon we can get done in the next two weeks'.
Show threadJordan (Damn Good Tech)Aug 11, 2023
@jasongorman Be careful. I think there are a lot of enterprise teams on here with a fragile ego. It'd be a shame if you went and shattered it.
Show threadSebastian MichaelsenAug 11, 2023
@jasongorman “No, we wrote tickets for our requirements, called it a sprint and then extended the sprint for 2 weeks + a weekend until everything was done”
Show threadBill SeitzAug 11, 2023
@jasongorman but every team had a #CSPO!
And we got down to 4-week sprints...
Well, actually we rotated build-sprint, test/fix-sprint, and deploy/fix-sprint...
Show threadlizzzzardAug 13, 2023

@jasongorman end users? Why would we need those, we already know what they need.

Instead we have a proxy product owner because the customer is too busy to even state what it is they want built.

Show threadKai KlostermannAug 13, 2023
@jasongorman "Yes! We *had* dailies!"
Show threadFlorianAug 13, 2023
@jasongorman … where self-organized teams own a business metric and iterate on that.
Show threadJason GormanAug 13, 2023
@Rafa The problem with metrics is they usually need to be balanced against other metrics. Otherwise we can end up with teams effectively pulling against each other.
Show threadFlorianAug 13, 2023
@jasongorman fair point. However, without relevant metrics, teams have no guardrails for the things they do and lack accountability.
Show threadJason GormanAug 13, 2023
@Rafa Businesses have to be very careful what they wish for. Most orgs design measures so naively that teams can destroy the enterprise trying to meet their targets.
Show threadFlorianAug 13, 2023
@jasongorman Absolutely. Metrics is a very complex matter (gaming them, are they really measuring success, …). On the other hand, if you want top management to trust the engineering teams and grant autonomy, you need to find a way to give them direction and to hold them responsible for what they are doing.
Show threadDaniel BarlowAug 13, 2023
@jasongorman @Rafa anecdote time: I worked on a team which had responsibility for the second half of the customer purchase journey, another team looked after the first half. We both had metrics for user dropoff rate and we both tried to improve those metrics by moving journey steps (e.g. “ask the user for their correspondence address”) into the other half of the journey.
Show threadJason GormanAug 13, 2023
@dan @Rafa My party trick back in my contracting days was performance measures design. As with all design, it needs to take into account multiple stakeholder perspectives (balanced, basically), it needs to take into account gaming (give a man a target and he'll destroy the business to meet it), and it needs to iterate.
Show threadFlorianAug 13, 2023
@dan @jasongorman Yes, two teams with the same metric might cause so many conflicts (blame game, etc.).