Agile Bites

Scrum masters often panic when teams consider switching to Kanban, lured by the allure of new frameworks. The discussion reveals essential truths about whether the issues stem from the framework itself or team dynamics. Key insights emphasize the importance of understanding team needs and evaluating the real challenges before making a transition. As project demands change, thoughtful conversations around the strengths and weaknesses of both Scrum and Kanban become vital to ensure the right fit for ongoing workflow.

Is size really everything in Agile? This conversation challenges the conventional wisdom around work item sizes, emphasizing that arrival and departure rates matter more. Discover why uniformity in task size isn’t necessary for accurate forecasting. Learn how breaking tasks into smaller units can improve processes without limiting their diversity. Letting go of size constraints might just be the key to better Agile practices!

The conversation dives into the complexities of velocity and story points in Agile methodologies. It challenges common misconceptions, revealing why relying on these metrics might be misguided. Instead of strict numerical estimations, the focus shifts to the importance of prioritizing sprint goals. Listeners are encouraged to consider more effective alternatives for predicting team output.

Discover the pivotal role of constraints in enhancing system efficiency. Learn practical strategies to optimize these constraints rather than eliminate them, ensuring smoother team flow. Explore preparation techniques and buffer management to maximize productivity within limitations. This discussion emphasizes the importance of actively managing constraints as they shift, offering insights that can transform how your team operates.

Just because the “Q” in “QA” stands for “Quality” doesn't mean that this role should be the only one who's responsible for making sure features are up to standards.    Unfortunately, too many QAs spend their limited time just making sure that features WORK, let alone finding edge cases and addressing actual bugs. And then they have to pull the developer back in to fix the feature after the developer has already moved on to the next one. Talk about a bottleneck!    Quality can't only be QA's job—it needs to be everyone's job. Spending the time building in quality up front will prevent overhead involved in re-work, keeping your system flowing and allowing QA to do what they're best at.    In this episode, you'll learn three actionable steps to start making quality a team sport for your software development team.

When Daniel was learning Karate in The Karate Kid, Mr. Miyagi had him start by doing tasks over and over without explanation so he could master the basics before actually using the martial art on his own. And this method of mastering a skill is something we see across many disciplines outside martial arts—sometimes it's even applied to learning agility.   But is following and mastering “the rules” before venturing off and making your own improvements the best way to start to increase your agility? We say no, because getting good at executing a framework is missing the point of being Agile.    In this episode, we hope to encourage you to look at your team's unique goals and desired outcomes and feel free to step outside of “the rules” so you can focus on what's working and leave behind what's not.

Hopefully, you know by now that limiting your work in progress is the solution to a lot of delivery problems. Both Scrum and Kanban have their own ways of limiting WIP, but there's another way you might not have heard of: Drum-Buffer-Rope scheduling.   In this episode, learn what Drum-Buffer-Rope scheduling is and how it can align the activities of your team and reduce bottlenecks in your flow.

Discover the essentials for effective forecasting in Agile environments. Learn why a solid data foundation is crucial when using cycle time and Monte Carlo simulations. Explore how managing work item sizes and minimizing frequent priority shifts can enhance team efficiency. Delve into maintaining stability in work-in-progress and tracking item age for reliable predictions. Plus, gain insights on strategies for optimizing workflow and ensuring actionable metrics.

Every system, no matter how optimized, has a constraint—the point in the system that has the lowest throughput. But do you know where yours is? And what are you doing about it?    Knowing your constraint means knowing where you can make meaningful improvements to your system. Because if you make improvements to the wrong part of the system, you could actually make your flow worse (*cough, cough* hiring more developers when they're not the actual source of the bottleneck).   In this episode, learn why you should know where your system's constraint is, how you can find it, and what options you have with what to do with it.

The discussion delves into the complexities of moving cards backward in Agile workflows, particularly when defects are discovered. It highlights the confusion this can create and advocates for maintaining the current stage of work items. The idea of using Kanban columns as stages of transformation rather than fixed roles is explored, challenging traditional notions of workflow and prompting listeners to reconsider their approach to process management.