In a previous excerpt from the book, “Escape Velocity”, we looked at Velocity as a lagging indicator of a complex system. Here, we are going to think about velocity by way of analogy.
What is Velocity?
The Experiment Canvas
In the past few years, we at OnBelay have had the honor of working with companies who are looking to improve their engineering culture.
One key tool we use today is the Experiment Canvas. My partner, Diane Zajac, and I co-developed the canvas. It is based heavily on our experience with A3s. It is still a work in progress, but I want to share with you where we are to date. Please feel free to use it and give us feedback.
Collapsing Conditionals
Thoughts on Refactoring
I recently worked with a team on a fairly significant refactoring. I paired with different team members each day over a three day period as we moved code around, pushing responsibility into other classes, reducing complexity, and make the code more expressive. On the fourth day, I put together some notes on the things we saw and general guidelines for the team to keep in mind. Nothing herein is new to the community, but it might be new to you.
Delivering Value
A while back, Jason Yip, tweeted about delivery of value and started an interesting thread.
Much of the discussion was about the definition of “value”. Is it specifically about revenue generation or direct customer benefit? Is it more generally about any form of value such as revenue, progress, or learning?
Troubleshooting Velocity
Recently, on a private forum, a member posted a query about their team’s recent drop in Velocity. Concerned about how their boss would respond, this individual wanted to know how to troubleshoot velocity issues.
After spending over an hour crafting a response, I decided I would also add it to my public blogs in case there are others who have similar questions about velocity.
Velocity Anti-Patterns - Attempts to show increased velocity
When leadership asks for an increase in velocity, there are a few common behaviors that occur. Each of them are an attempt to satisfy the potentially unrealistic ask.
It is intriguing to me how often a manager will make a change such as this to a system of work and then later proclaim that the team is gaming the system. This is simply not the case. In fact, the gaming of the system is the improper application of targets or goals for lagging indicators. The rest is just natural consequence.
You can find more on the topic of velocity and metrics for agile teams in my book, "Escape Velocity".
Velocity Anti-Patterns - Enticing More Velocity
Leaders (and teams) attempt to achieve velocity increases in numerous ways. Most, as you can imagine, have unintended side effects on the teams and none significantly improve the actual flow/delivery of value to their customers. Here we explore a few ways teams might be encouraged to increase their velocity. Unfortunately, no matter how well intentioned, using such techniques still has a negative impact.
This content and more on agile metrics is available in the book, "Escape Velocity"
Velocity Anti-Patterns - Demand for higher velocity
Demanding more velocity is far and away, the most common Velocity Anti-Pattern, and quite possibly the most harmful. It manifests itself in a number of differing fashions, but the basics are the same: Somebody determines that the team needs to get more done in less time. So they send out the message - “We are going to need more velocities.” This person is usually an authority figure and typically doesn’t do the actual work being asked of the team. And they clearly don’t know what velocity is. More velocities? Aw C’mon, really?
This content and more on agile metrics is available in the book, "Escape Velocity"
Velocity Anti-Patterns - Introduction
If you’ve been on an agile team that uses velocity as a key metric, you’ve probably experienced or at least witnessed some pretty strange behavior.
I asked a group of agile coaches and practitioners via Twitter and LinkedIn about dysfunctions they’ve seen on teams related to the use of velocity. I received plenty of responses that inspired head shaking and hand wringing. I pulled out the most commonly identified issues related to velocity and metrics and share them here.
You can find more on the topic of velocity and metrics for agile teams in my book, "Escape Velocity".
Announcing the Agile2017 Technical Program Team
I am absolutely honored to have been selected to serve as the Technical Program Chair for Agile2017. I have the further honor of managing the return of the Audacious Salon after its successful inaugural year.My first significant duty as Program Chair was to assemble a Program Team. For each track in my assign, I needed to identify a chair and co-chair to help define the track, recruit a review team, and ultimately select the track content.