Why a Spillover Habit Is So Harmful - Mike Cohn

Welcome to the second email in the spillover series. We’re talking today about why habitual spillover—the phenomenon of unfinished work piling up and carrying forward sprint after sprint—is so harmful to teams.

As a reminder,

Last week, I explained why spillover happens
This week, I’ll describe why habitual spillover is a problem
Next week, I’ll give you some ideas for how to break your team’s rollover habit
Finally, I’ll talk about what to do with unfinished work when spillover happens

Why is Habitual Spillover a Problem?

As we talked about last week, teams will sometimes miss their sprint goal, especially when that team is ambitious and aiming high. And that’s OK.

But teams that develop a consistent pattern of overcommitting and then carrying work forward cause problems for themselves and for the organization as a whole.

Teams That Deliver Routinely Are Predictably Dependable

The main problem with habitual spillover is Lack of Predictability / Dependability.

Every organization benefits from some level of predictability. I worked with a company once that was preparing for its IPO.

Despite the tremendous pressure to meet revenue goals prior to going public, the CEO told me he’d happily trade some revenue for greater predictability. Being predictable is that important.

Predictability shouldn’t be the primary goal for an agile team, but it should be a goal.

It’s the same in sports. Basketball players strive to make every free throw. But a player who sinks the ball in the basket about 80% of the time is considered a high performer. That player can be reliably counted on to make most of their free throws.

Baseball players also strive to get a hit every time they’re at bat. And believe it or not, they are considered great, highly predictable hitters, if they manage a hit about 35% of the time—reflected in their .350 batting average.

Like those sports players, agile teams are expected to try to deliver everything they think they can, every time. But realistically, if an agile team achieves its goal 60–80% of the time, they are providing a high level of predictability.

Teams That Demonstrate Frequent Progress Are Happier & More Creative

A second, related reason your teams want to finish what they’ve started most of the time is a phenomenon called the power of small wins. In a 2011 study, Amabile and Kramer found that tangible, visible progress is a key factor in people’s enjoyment of work, and by extension their level of creativity.
It’s almost impossible to get a true sense of progress on “mostly done” work because until it’s fully done, you can’t really gauge the amount of work remaining.

This is known as the 90% syndrome. Software projects are 90% done for 90% of their schedule, and that’s hard on everyone.
When progress stalls and work rolls over, teams lose their sense of accomplishment from making measurable, demonstrable progress. (Want to know more? Read this blog and discover several reasons why it’s so important for teams to get to done.)

Teams that routinely fail to deliver on their goals lose trust with the organization and miss the sense of accomplishment that comes from finishing. That’s why next week’s tip will be things you can do to help break your team of the spillover habit so they can succeed with agile,

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