Importance of System Thinking and Definition of Ready in Scrum

This week, your host, Justin Thatil, is joined by Mike Guiler to explore complementary practices in Scrum. The Scrum Guide intentionally left many open questions for users to adapt and practice flexibility.

In this episode, Justin and Mike outline several practices, such as identifying the product vision, adapting the Kanban Board, and providing visual information regarding the production process. They also discuss the benefits of using Kanban’s lead and cycle time metrics and close this conversation by diving deep into the importance of identifying a shared definition of ready.

Key Takeaways

• Product Vision:

• Scrum is always about outcomes.

• How do we find the right outcome to deliver to our customers?

• First, we need to be clear about the product vision and what the organization considers a priority.

• Second, the Team comes up with a plan to achieve that vision, which unlocks an organization's power.

• Adapt a Kanban board.

• The Kanban board helps to visualize the process at a particular sprint timebox.

• Many benefits result from visualizing the steps in the Kanban Board.

• Scrum with Kanban: 

• Stop starting and start finishing! Look at what you are doing and implement better Teamwork.

• Kanban’s lead time and cycle time metrics give an indication of the system's progress and whether it is getting better. The cycle time measures the time it takes an idea since it enters a print backlog until it is delivered to the customer, while the lead time gives more of a system view.

• Find your definition of “ready.”

• What has to happen to make a product backlog ready?

• Get to a shared understanding of what is considered ready within a Team.

• Reduce the ambiguity about what should and shouldn’t be in the product backlog, resulting in a better sprint plan.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Listen to Episodes 277 and 279 of The Agile Coaches Corner.

Scrum with Kanban

Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Set New Ideas in Just Five Days, by Jake Knapp

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