Sprint review is the Scrum element for which I evolved my understanding the most during the past 10+ years. There still exists two prevalent but mistaken views. * Sprint review is about showcase. The demo could be an effective vehicle for product learning, but showing "good" case, and hiding
User role describes the relationship to the system. I read this from somewhere, but could not find its origin any more. In Mike Cohn's classic book "User Story Applied", there is a chapter dedicated on this topic called "user role modeling". It referred to
Recently, I read an interesting experiment from the book "Why we do what we do: understanding self-motivation" by a psychologist called Edward L. Deci. In this experiment, the subjects were teachers. They came into the lab to teach students how to solve problems. They were randomly assigned to
Regarding the time dimension, there are two main options - sprint (aka iteration, timebox) or flow. This choice is often coupled with the choice of implementing Scrum vs. Kanban, respectively. However, in this article, we do not try to compare Scrum vs. Kanban, but only sprint vs. flow. We focus
Introducing coordination roles is a very common choice made by many organizations to deal with coordination complexity. I realized during the recent course that this quick fix is seen by many as the only solution while it is hard for many to even image that there is another fundamental solution.
Feature group is a temporary group of individuals to deliver specific feature. It is very common in traditional matrix organization, and also called feature project. Meanwhile, feature team is a stable team who takes shared responsibility to deliver feature after feature. The below table from feature team primer summarizes the
In a product organization with multiple teams, it raises a choice - whether to have one or many product backlogs. They usually start with one product backlog, either because they start with one pilot team, or because their product starts small from one team. Later, some organizations choose to have
This is one article in a series that tries to see system dynamics behind various choices in organizing work, people and time. Among many choices in organizing people, feature team vs. component team is an important one. The below CLD (Causal Loop Diagram) illustrates the system dynamic around it. The
Feature team gains popularity, but the difference between feature team and cross-functional team is still confusing to many people. Surprisingly, I failed to find good reference to clarify it, thus I decide to write one. 1. Does Scrum require feature team? If you read Scrum Guide, the below defines the
Creating stable teams and having teams work from one priority are two critical ideas in large-scale product development. This means when we discover some work, we put it into the overall backlog with appropriate priority; then, all teams share same priority, and any team may do the work. However, two
Real development team is already rare, let alone real management team. When talking about real team, I mean that the group has common goal and takes shared responsibility. Usually, management team is not a real team, but a working group. This is indicated by every member having clear individual responsibility.
After almost 10 years, I got chance again to work on a LeSS Huge adoption. Facing different challenges and reflecting on my experience 10 years ago, I am proposing an experiment here to decouple line organization from requirement area. NSN experience In 2007, I experienced an organizational transformation in NSN
How often do you feel the discomfort? If it is everyday, you burn out; if it is seldom, you probably do not grow much. Sitting on the plane to visit a client in US, I felt discomfort, because of different culture, different language, and more. I expected this to come
In the recent email exchanges, one topic came up as whether introducing more coordination meetings and roles actually solves dependency problem or just "shifts the burden". Shifting the burden is one common system archetype, which consists of two balancing loops and one reinforcing loop. For the topic of
I visited a client recently on consulting LeSS. They assured me that they had feature teams in place, "they are stable as line organization unit, and the size varies from 10 to 15 people." The large size smelled. I learned further... It turned out to be like this.
In the context of multiple teams working on one product, I try to figure out where priority is set. I first ask, "do we have one priority at product level and shared by all teams, or do we have priority at team level?" The answer is often, "