Nov 14

šŸ’” Rotational Refinement in LeSS šŸ’”



Scaling Agile with LeSS (Large-Scale Scrum) requires team collaboration, especially during backlog refinement. One effective technique I love is
Rotational Refinement.

How It Works:
1ļøāƒ£ Kickoff Together: All teams meet to understand high-priority backlog items, aligning on goals and requirements.
2ļøāƒ£ Group Refinement: Teams split into smaller groups to refine items by adding details, identifying risks, and breaking them into smaller tasks.
3ļøāƒ£ Rotate & Review: Groups rotate, reviewing and improving refinements made by others.
4ļøāƒ£ Consolidate: All inputs are merged into ready backlog items for sprint planning.

Why Use It?
Shared Understanding: Aligns teams on priorities.
Collaborative Ownership: Leverages diverse perspectives.
Higher Quality: Results in well-refined, actionable backlog items.

Itā€™s dynamic, inclusive, and perfect for scaling collaboration in LeSS. Have you tried something similar? šŸš€

#Agile#LeSS#BacklogRefinement#Collaboration#ContinuousImprovement

Nov 08

šŸ›©ļø The Paper Airplane Factory Game: How Limiting WIP Transforms Team Efficiency!

One of the games I like to facilitate is the Paper Airplane Factory game with my team, and it is a great way to explore how managing Work In Progress (WIP) affects our productivity, quality, and flow. Hereā€™s how the game works and the lessons we learned about WIP limits:

The Setup
The idea of the game is to create a paper airplane factory. Each ā€œfactoryā€ has four stations (5 team members per factory) :

Station 1ļøāƒ£Ā : Fold the paper in half.
Station 2ļøāƒ£: Creates the airplane nose by folding triangles on each side.
Station 3ļøāƒ£: Sharpens the nose, partially folds the wings, and adds a star design.
Station 4ļøāƒ£Ā : Completes wing folds and tests flight across the table.
Member number 5 controls the cycle time and tracks the WIP.

The Goal? Complete 15 airplanes in two rounds, tracking WIP, cycle time, and total time at each stage. You have 2 rounds:

Round 1: work as fast as possible
Round 2: the same but there will be a limit of 1 for each station.

Key Takeaways
In the first round without WIP limits, planes piled up, quality dropped, and chaos reigned. But with WIP limits, the transformation was clear:

Better Quality: Fewer planes at each station meant more attention to detail.
Smoother Flow: Balanced work across stations reduced bottlenecks.
Faster Delivery: Lower cycle time led to faster completion with fewer errors.

Limiting WIP shows how focus and balance drive quality and efficiencyā€”less chaos, more progress!

#Agile#Lean#PaperAirplaneFactoryGame#WIPLimits#TeamProductivity#CycleTime

Nov 04

Kickstart Your Project with an Inception Deck!

Ā 

Before kicking off a new project, one of the tools I like to use is the Inception Deck. Originally introduced by Jonathan Rasmusson in his book The Agile Samurai, I fully recommend this book, the Inception Deck is designed to ensure everyoneā€”from team members to stakeholdersā€”is on the same page from the very start.

What is the Inception Deck?
Itā€™s a series of essential questions and exercises that help teams clarify the projectā€™s purpose, identify potential risks, and build a shared vision. The goal? To minimize misalignment and maximize focus as you move forward.
Here are the 10 Core Elements of the Inception Deck to guide your project kickoff:

Why Are We Here? ā€” Define the purpose and reason for starting this project.

Elevator Pitch ā€” Craft a concise statement that summarizes the project.

Design a Product Box ā€” Imagine your project as a product on a store shelf. What would make it appealing?

Create a NOT List ā€” Identify whatā€™s out of scope to avoid scope creep.

Meet Your Neighbors ā€” Recognize the key stakeholders, team members, and partners involved.

Show the Solution ā€” Visualize the result. What will the final solution look like?

What Keeps Us Up at Night? ā€” Acknowledge potential risks and challenges.

Size It Up ā€” Estimate the scope and effort required.

Be Clear on Whatā€™s Going to Give ā€” Prioritize whatā€™s essential and where compromises might be needed.

Show What Itā€™s Going to Take ā€” Outline the initial plan and key milestones.

The Inception Deck provides a solid foundation for a project, helping teams establish clarity, trust, and alignment early on. Itā€™s especially valuable in Agile environments, where continuous feedback and adaptability are key.

When I used this tool, we gained valuable insights, and the exercise took between one and two days to complete.

Have you used an Inception Deck or something similar in your projects? How did it help your team get started?
#Agile#ProjectManagement hashtag#InceptionDeck#TheAgileSamurai#AgileWarrior#TeamAlignment

Ā 

Ā 

Oct 30

Unleashing Creativity with the Marshmallow Challenge: The Power of Prototyping

The Marshmallow Challenge is a simple exercise with profound lessons: teams get spaghetti, tape, string, and a marshmallow and are challenged to build the tallest possible structure with the marshmallow on top.

Surprisingly, kindergartners often outperform business students! Why? They prototype. Rather than planning endlessly, they test and iterate quickly, learning from each attempt.

This exercise illustrates the power of prototyping. It encourages teams to embrace experimentation, uncover hidden issues early, and refine ideas iteratively. In complex projects, prototyping accelerates learning, reduces risk, and fuels innovation.

#MarshmallowChallenge #Prototyping#Innovation#DesignThinking#Agile#TeamBuilding#ContinuousImprovement hashtag#Leadership#Creativity#ProblemSolving

Oct 24

Situational Leadership Part 4: Empowering Your Team Through Delegation

As we continue our exploration of the Situational Leadership Theory by Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard, we’ve looked at the Telling (S1), Selling (S2), and Participating (S3) styles. Now, let’s discuss the Delegating (S4) style:

šŸ”¹ Delegating (S4): In this style, the leader delegates most of the responsibility to the team, allowing them to take ownership of their tasks. While the leader still monitors progress, their involvement in decision-making is minimal. This approach best suits highly skilled and confident teams requiring little direction and support.

Leaders foster independence and accountability by empowering team members to make decisions, creating an environment where the team can truly thrive.


#Leadership hashtag#SituationalLeadership#TeamEmpowerment #ProjectManagement#LeadershipStyles

Oct 22

Situational Leadership Part 2: Engaging and Motivating Your Team



Continuing from my previous post on the Situational Leadership Theory by Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard, we covered the Telling (S1) styleā€”ideal for providing strong direction when your team needs clear guidance.
Next up is the Selling (S2) style:

šŸ”¹ Selling (S2): Leaders still provide direction but focus on engaging and motivating the team. Communication is key, as leaders “sell” their ideas to get team members on board. This style works well when the team is willing but needs a bit more confidence or skill-building.

By adapting your leadership approach, you can meet your team where they are and support their growth!



Stay tuned for the next leadership style in this series.

#Leadership #SituationalLeadership#TeamDevelopment#ProjectManagement#LeadershipStyles

Oct 21

Situational Leadership Part 1: Adapting to Your Team’s Needs

Leadership isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. The Situational Leadership Theory, developed by Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard, highlights the importance of flexibility. The best leaders adapt their style based on their teamā€™s maturity and the specifics of the task. This ensures that leadership is aligned with the teamā€™s needs, fostering better collaboration and outcomes.

Hersey and Blanchard identified four leadership styles:

šŸ”¹ Telling (S1): Leaders provide clear instructions on what, how, when, and where tasks should be completed. This style involves high direction and minimal relationship-buildingā€”ideal for teams needing strong guidance.

Stay tuned for insights into the other leadership styles!

#Leadership#SituationalLeadership#TeamDevelopment#ProjectManagement#LeadershipStyles

Oct 17

šŸ’” Introducing Agile with the Agile Ball Game!

When introducing Agile or Scrum to teams with no prior experience, I like to kick things off with a fun and interactive game that explains key concepts like iteration, teamwork, and continuous improvement: The Agile Ball Game. šŸŽ‰

Hereā€™s how it works:

Grab 20-30 small balls.
Everyone is part of one big team.
Each ball must have air-time šŸŒ¬ļø.
Every ball must be touched by all team members, at least once šŸ¤².
Balls cannot be passed to your immediate left or right.
Each ball must return to the person who introduced it into the system.

šŸš€ After a 2-minute preparation, the team has 2 minutes to complete the first Sprint. šŸ’¬ Following the Sprint, thereā€™s a 1-minute Retrospective to discuss how the process can improve.

This cycle repeats for five iterationsā€”by the end, the team can reflect on how they improved and adapted after each iteration. ( In each iteration the team improve the time to move all the balls)

This game is a great way to demonstrate the value of small iterations, retrospectives, and continuous improvementā€”all core elements of Agile! šŸŽÆ

Does anyone have any other games or activities that are used to introduce Agile?
#Agile hashtag#Scrum#Teamwork#ContinuousImprovement

Oct 15

Measuring to Improve in Project Management

“You canā€™t improve what you donā€™t measure.” ā€“ Lord Kelvin

āœ… Why Measurement Matters
Measuring key metrics like cycle time, lead time, and bug counts helps you spot bottlenecks and areas for improvement. Without solid data, you might rely on guesses, but accurate measurements lead to informed decisions and real results.

šŸš€ What Should You Measure?
According to Accelerate, focus on these four important DORA metrics:
-Deployment Frequency: How often your team releases changes to production.
-Change Lead Time: The time it takes for code to go live after being committed.
-Change Failure Rate: The percentage of deployments that result in issues, rollbacks, or failures.
-Time to Restore Service: How long it takes to fix an issue in production.

From my experience, I also recommend tracking:

-Cycle Time: The total time to complete a task from start to finish.
-Development Time: The time spent on coding and programming a feature.
-Bug Count: The number of defects or issues found in the software.

šŸ“Š Recommendations
Donā€™t overwhelm yourself by trying to measure everything. Instead, focus on 3 or 4 key metrics, establish a baseline, and make gradual improvements. Concentrate on enhancing one metric at a time for the best results.

šŸ”§ Pro Tip
Use tools like JIRA, Trello, or Asana to collect your data, and Looker Studio (formerly Google Data Studio) to visualize it. Real-time insights help you focus on solving problems and improving processes.

Remember, measuring performance isnā€™t about micromanaging; itā€™s about empowering your team to continuous improvement by identifying growth opportunities.

hashtag#ProjectManagement hashtag#ContinuousImprovement hashtag#Agile hashtag#Leadership hashtag#KPIs hashtag#DataDriven hashtag#MetricsMatter hashtag#TeamWork

Oct 10

Prepararing a marathon project.

Ā 

I love running marathons, and while Iā€™ve completed several, I always wish I could run more. I treat my marathon training like managing a projectā€”using a flexible, data-driven approach. With a 16-week training plan, I see each week as a new step, much like a Scrum sprint, where I check my progress and make adjustments as needed.

I track important details like my interval times, endurance, and recovery using tools like Strava and Garmin Connect, comparing them to previous training cycles and races like half marathons.

I’ve noticed that many runners stick to their training plans without adjustments, which can lead to burnout by race day. If youā€™re thinking about running a marathon, donā€™t make that mistake! Instead, listen to your body and adjust your plan based on how you feel.

Every week, I assess my performance and well-being. If Iā€™m feeling tired or not meeting my goals, I adapt by adding more recovery runs or changing my long runs. When Iā€™m feeling good, I push myself a bit more.

This focus on improvementā€”regularly checking in and adapting helps to get better and finish strong. As in project management, being flexible and responsive to change is key to success! So listen to your body and adapt your training plan šŸƒā€ā™‚ļøšŸ’Ŗ

#ProjectManagement #MarathonTraining #ContinuousImprovement