‘Tis Better to be Effective Than Efficient Kent J. McDonald @beyondreqs www.kbp.media/go/effective/ Introduction: Thanks to Naresh, Todd, and the Program Team for letting me be a part of Agile India 2017. Introduction: I act as a Product Person for the Agile Alliance; background as a Business Analyst for primarily internal IT organizations; Agile Coach Introduction: Now I create resources to help people determine the right things to deliver Introduction: more information can be found at link on the slide Poll the audience: What roles do folks have: Product People (ProdM/PO/BA/UX) Developers Testers Project Managers Managers Coaches Others? Better. Faster. Cheaper. Many IT organizations are constantly seeking the "best" practices that will deliver those characteristics, and the fact that they continue to search indicates they haven’t found them yet. It could be they are looking in the wrong place. Most efforts around achieving better, faster, cheaper center around becoming ultra efficient. Effectiveness may just be the better target. Join Kent McDonald to explore the difference between efficiency and effectiveness and learn three simple, yet powerful, techniques that he has found can help teams be more effective. You’ll learn how to: Build a shared understanding of the problem you are trying to solve Establish clear guard rails for distributed decision making Measure progress based on outcome, not output Along the way he’ll share stories about how he has used these techniques and help you figure out when these techniques may work in your situation. You may be able to get faster and cheaper with efficiency, but in order to get better outcomes, you need to be effective. Come to this session to learn how.

Better. Faster. Many organizations adopt agile thinking this is what they’re going to get. Many teams are asked to make this happen. Problem is, it often translates to a focus on the Faster and Cheaper through a focus on efficiency. Better gets left behind. Cheaper. 2

IT has spent 30 years teaching our business partners how to be bad customers. We need to fix this. - Jeffrey Davidson 3

There is nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency something that should not be done at all. - Peter Drucker 4

How to be Effective Build Shared Understanding Provide Guardrails for Decision Making Measure based on Outcome, not Output 5

Build Shared Understanding Photo Credit: https://unsplash.com/@providence

A SUCCESSFUL SOLUTION WOULD Problem Statement THE PROBLEM OF AFFECTS THE IMPACT OF WHICH IS A SUCCESSFUL SOLUTION WOULD The problem of – Describe the problem Affects – Who are the stakeholders affected by the problem The impact of which is – What is the impact of the problem A successful solution would – Critical benefits or key capabilities that the solution however implemented must have to be successful

Provide Guardrails for Decision Making Photo credit: https://unsplash.com/@leliejens

WILL THIS ENCOURAGE PRACTITIONERS TO ENGAGE WITH ASSOCIATION? Decision Filters WILL THIS ENCOURAGE PRACTITIONERS TO ENGAGE WITH ASSOCIATION? What Simple questions used to guide decision making. Quick way to communicate goals to everyone involved When Ensure strategic alignment Align key product features Align key project objectives Align release goals Align Iteration goals Determine design approach

Measure based on Outcome, not Output Photo Credit: https://unsplash.com/@camadams 10

Goal: Encourage practitioners to engage with association Goals & Objectives Goal: Encourage practitioners to engage with association Attributes for Objectives Attribute Description Example Name Unique name for objective New and renewed memberships/month Units What to measure Individual Members Method How to measure Sum of new memberships and renewed memberships within the month Target Success level you’re aiming to achieve 300 members/month Constraints Failure level you’re aiming to avoid 200 members/month Baseline Current performance level 250 members/month Vision statement that these goals were pulled from: We want to create a compelling website that facilitates the growth of the global agile community by: Providing practical resources that are easy to find, understand & share Facilitating community members to meet virtually or face-to-face Encouraging practitioners to engage with the Agile Alliance & others. Context: Membership website Goal: Providing practical resources that are easy to find, understand & share Improvement in user’s ability to search Goal: Encouraging practitioners to engage with association & others New newsletter subscriptions/month New/renewed memberships/month

Parking Lot Diagram References: http://leadinganswers.typepad.com/leading_answers/2007/02/summarizing_pro.html http://leadinganswers.typepad.com/leading_answers/2009/12/parking-lot-diagrams-revisited-using-area-to-show-effort.html Can use the story map to also demonstrate how progress could be tracked using it. Typically want to use when you have several Epics in different parts of the solution that you want to track when they are ready. Provides context around which items are finished and puts things in perspective with a closer relationship to outcome (not entirely) If you color code epics based on subjective judgment of whether it is ready does get you closer to outcome.

Parking Lot Diagram Key Epic Status Epic Name Not Started Work In Process Done At Risk Coloring of Epic can also be done as a relation to when the Epic was to be done (ie Release Date) The progress bar can be based on # of stories, Story Points or % complete, although percent complete drives some bad behavior. If this is what you are using, I use 0% not Started 50% in progress 100% complete. User Stories Done/In Epic Planned Release Note: Epic can be done even if all stories aren’t done if outcome is satisfied

If you remember nothing else… Provide guardrails for decision making Build shared understanding Measure based on outcome, not output Photo Credit: https://unsplash.com/@dnmgns 14

Photo Credits Slide Photo Build Shared Understanding https://unsplash.com/@providence Guardrails for Distributed Decision Making https://unsplash.com/@leliejens Measure based on Outcome, not Output https://unsplash.com/@camadams If you remember nothing else https://unsplash.com/@dnmgns Photo Credits https://unsplash.com/@chancema 15

Kent McDonald kent@kbp. media @beyondreqs Materials: www. kbp Kent McDonald kent@kbp.media @beyondreqs Materials: www.kbp.media/go/effective/

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