Tag: feedback

visualization board tools

first: you should visualize more.

then:

there’s several things to consider when selecting a board tool. what types of work do you have, what abstraction level is useful to visualize, etc. is any tool already in use and known? how does types of work behave, how much reality is useful to visualize?

there’s roughly 3 types of boards when I look at visual tools.

(first: a swimlane is a visual element separating a type of work vertically. in a grid-based board it’s end-to-end, from left to right, but the columns/ phases are the same for all swimlanes. in a more flexible board it can be a vertical split within a column/ phase, having it’s own customized sub-process.)

1. simple lists.  examples are:

  • trello,
  • o365 planner boards, where there seems to be a shortcut to attach documents from a teamsite related to the (context of the) planner board

2. grid-based boards.

i’ve seen two types of rows in grid-based boards, one where you can define your own end-to-end swimlanes, and one typically used in scrum where each user story is a separate row/ swimlane.

one example is jira boards, in which cards mostly are jira tickets.

3. more flexible boards, that can reflect a more complex reality regarding how different types of work items flows through different phases, subcolumns and sub-swimlanes reflecting custom sub-processes etc.

an example here is LeanKit.

if guided by any kanban (thinking tool) toolbox, remember:

  • start where you are – visualize current state, work behaviour first, then improve step by step (and update visualization in step with that)
  • YAGNI, you ain’t gonna need it, unless you experience that you need it… so start simple unless you see that you need something less simple (f.ex a custom sub-process, a new work type/ card type, etc)

reading tips: kanban learning center by LeanKit, incl Kanban Roadmap/ how to get started, and some howto-s.

regarding board tools, please feel free to share any tips on visualization tools you’ve experienced as useful in your own work.

TDC 2012

Yesterday I attended TDC.

It was fun to see so many from the software development community in Trondheim turn out all at once.

I also had a short talk about better ways to work, focusing on delays and feedback – especially how it’s more central to knowledge work than we think.

Here’s the slides if you’re curious (PDF):
201210 TDC Better ways to work

Update: I added a few slides for a talk at the office – see extended version (pdf) if you like, containing a few more links/ reading tips.

 

 

Operations Review – Health of Your Business

What is an operations review (ops review)?

To do an ops review is to take a look at your team or organization:

  • driven by data
  • involving management and business, up- and downstream in value chain
  • look at the whole, i.e., all kinds of work
  • look at both value/ benefit and cost

Why should you do ops reviews?

  • create a culture of openness and trust
  • create shared understanding across different stakeholders
  • it’s about learning
  • teaching senior exec’s about the business

Agile Basics: Visualize More

If you visualize more you get more agile.

Tom Wujec had an excellent TED talk on 3 ways the brain creates meaning.

  • Use images to clarify ideas
    Visual shapes, physical space, colors, motion help us create mental model, more understanding
  • The act of engaging, being interactive enriches mental model
  • Augment memory by creating persistent, evolving views

Let’s say you have a task board for a software development team, either a physical one or a digital one shown on a screen as a dashboard. Let’s say it’s visible in an office so that everyone on and outside the team sees it several times a day.

  • People in and around the team gain a shared mental model, a shared understanding.
  • People interact with the board as things change, including upstream and downstream stakeholders. A visible task board creates more engaged stakeholders.
  • A task board is persistent and evolving, and becomes a new visual, domain-specific language of sorts, where the domain is the reality of the development team.
    This language is a more abstract, high-level language, and enables much more effective thinking, communication, and collaboration.

A software development team communicate and collaborate better the more they visualize the work.

How can you visualize more to gain advantages like that?  Here’s a few examples:
  • Let workflow on task board be closer to reality
  • Show different types of work differently
  • Let a status screen display a virtual task board permanently
  • Are you working in a traditional waterfall project? Regularly print the latest version of the project plan (and progress) and put it on the wall.
  • Show more policies like DoDs, increase transparency
  • Are you doing CI or continuous builds? Create alerts or alarms for failures, include status on status screens.
  • Show problems and impediments clearly
  • Do you share status on sales, bugs, product upgrades, project progress, project backlog etc in monthly or weekly meetings? Make status visible for everyone at anytime via screen or paper.