Agile Learning Labs

Forget Maximizing Shareholder Value

By Chris Sims

I was a new manager doing annual performance reviews for the first time. I wanted to do a good job, and to truly align my group's work with the company's 'bigger picture'. I wanted to know why we existed, what we were trying to achieve, and what we valued. So I asked my manager.

The question seemed to upset my manager, and she referred me to her manager. He seemed equally annoyed, but explained to me that our one purpose was "to increase shareholder value". Now, would I please get my performance reviews done? I left that conversation feeling unsatisfied by the notion that all our work was for the sole purpose of making our investors wealthier.

The January-February Harvard Business Review magazine examines the idea of focusing on shareholder value in the article The Age of Customer Capitalism. Shareholder value is mostly determined by the company's stock price. The price of the stock, in turn, is mostly determined by the optimism or pessimism of the market.

For managers, the implications of this are clear: The only sure way to increase shareholder value is to raise expectations about the future performance of the company.

The article proposes the radical idea that it is better to focus on the creation of customer value. Employees can have a much more direct impact on the creation of customer value, compared to shareholder value. Besides, if you create customer value, you have a good chance of making a profit. It's possible that this will even influence investors optimism and lead to higher stock prices! What do you know? By placing the focus on creating value for customers, everybody wins.

Cheers,

Chris

Experiential Intro to Agile at Agile Open Northwest

By: Chris Sims

Today finds me in Seattle for the Agile Open Northwest conference.  This morning I lead a session called "An Experiential Introduction to Agile" which was based on our Experiencing Agile mini workshop.  I invited participants to share their insights on sticky-notes, with a promise that I would post them.  So, here they are. 

Cheers,

 Chris

• Estimation works better when done in smaller chunks.
• Easier to fix issues if we discover them sooner, even in mid-iteration.
• Success begets success
• We have been estimating at the beginning of our projects, when we know the least that we will ever know!
• Working in an agile, single-piece-flow, we saw progress as we went.  The felt better and we could work slower and yet accomplish more.
• Feedback is more useful when it arrives early, instead of at the very end.
• Going through a full cycle, quickly, facilitates more learning
• When we worked 'waterfall style' we had lot's of work-in-progress which became waste.
• Taking things (stories, features, units of work) all the way to completion helps us estimate future delivery.  Completing a 'phase' as in waterfall isn't nearly as good for this.
• It's really hard to know how much we will be able to get done in advance, even for simple tasks.  Much better to do some and then see.
• Requirements --> Completion  Since each phase in a waterfall is different kinds of work done by different people, the rate of progress for one type of work doesn't have any bearing on the timelines of other steps/phases.
• The exercise was a wonderful demonstration of how easy it is for even experts to fail.  No matter how good the 'big plan' it's probably wrong.  Better to work incrementally.
• I was surprised that even a basic experiential simulation like this can bring out all the real emotions of a real project.
• Basing our schedule on the original upfront estimate lead to much more waste, than adjusting our plan as we worked.
• People gain satisfaction from shipping
• Get customer feedback early and often!
• Not having to do try to deliver on unrealistic estimates makes for a more relaxed and productive environment.
• "You know the least you ever will about your project when you begin."
• Taking small units from beginning to completion was much more efficient that working in big batches.  We also caught bugs sooner, which is less costly to the project.
• Incremental tasks --> opportunities to learn how to do it better.
• Delivery in small batches allows customers to see product early, if they have changes those can be applied with less waste.
• Moving something from concept to completed & shipped more quickly, caused me to get more done and also gives me more satisfaction.
• Shipping in smaller increments felt better, a greater sense of accomplishment.
• Making a mistake on 1 item is easier to fix than on 20 items.  Much better to get the feedback early!
• We make all of our estimates at the beginning of the project, when we know the least ever.  Worst time to estimate!
• We shipped much more overall when we delivered in small increments.
• Customers don't always know what they want until they see something.
• Somebody is spending real money when you don't deliver.
• My team needs to figure out how to test early with no QA resources available.
• Psychological effect of incremental shippable production helps sustainability.
• Shipping all at once rather than small increments caused a lot of wasted work that was never delivered.
• Estimate by seeing how much we can do, as a complete task, in a time-frame.
• Slow down, think about it!
• Team morale was much higher when we took the 'agile' approach.

Better Software = Agile Software

By Hillary Johnson

This year's Better Software Conference in Las Vegas on June 6-11 is all about Agile, to judge by the program. The conference runs concurrently with the Agile Development Practices West conference (with twofer admission). Better Software is also bookended by certification courses in ScrumMaster and Agile Testing Practices early in the week, and the Agile Alliance's one day Agile Leadership Summit , chaired by Polyanna Pixton, on Friday.

In addition to the usual presentations on release planning, user stories and backlog grooming, the program has a lot of emphasis on what are sometimes termed "soft skills"--i.e., the ability of technophiles to interact with carbon-based life forms, sessions with names like: Selecting Agile Team Members, Verbal Agility and Better Decisions Through Collaboration.

There will also be fun and games. Chris will be leading a session called Eliminating Process Bottlenecks: The Theory of Constraints, which has participants building paper airplanes--and running a paper aerospace company--to explore problems and solutions.

InfoQ: Agile Coach Camp Announced

By Hillary Johnson

Chris' most recent InfoQ article is a preview of Agile Coach Camp, billed as the Open Space conference "delivering value to those delivering value." The conference, which takes place in Durham, NC next month, is a bit different than most Agile gatherings, in that aspiring participants must "audition" for admission by submitting a position paper, guaranteeing a high level of professional discourse. Check out Chris' article for a preview of some of the topics proposed so far. Last year, Chris facilitated a couple of sessions, including one on What Makes Agile Projects Succeed.