1. ‘Tis Better to be Effective Than Efficient
Kent J. McDonald
@beyondreqs
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.

2. 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

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

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

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

6. Build Shared Understanding
Photo Credit:

7. 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

8. Provide Guardrails for Decision Making
Photo credit:

9. 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

10. Measure based on Outcome, not Output
Photo Credit: 10

11. 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

12. Parking Lot Diagram References:
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.

13. 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

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

15. Photo Credits Slide Photo Build Shared Understanding
Guardrails for Distributed Decision Making
Measure based on Outcome, not Output
If you remember nothing else
Photo Credits 15

16. Kent McDonald kent@kbp. media @beyondreqs Materials: www. kbp
Kent Materials:

17. Todd Chipman 17 17

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19. Synerzip Clients

20. Connect with Synerzip @Synerzip linkedin.com/company/synerzip
facebook.com/Synerzip

21. How to be an Unofficial Agile Transformation Catalyst
Next Webinar
How to be an Unofficial Agile Transformation Catalyst
Wednesday, October 18, 10am PT | Noon CT | 1pm CT
Presented by
Damon Poole
Founder, Nexxle