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Merry Value Delivery: What I Learned About Flow as a Blue Santa Volunteer

By: Resalin Gurka | Dec 14, 2023 |  Business Agility,  Flow Metrics,  Lean

sign celebrating 50 years of Operation Blue Santa

 

So how does Santa deliver millions of toys to everyone around the world? 

As a parent, my children have asked this question a couple of times and I’ve always resorted to the vague answer of “Christmas magic”. 

As someone who hangs out with a lot of Agile coaches, I can’t help but look at international, magical toy drop-off as a value delivery challenge. 

I couldn’t exactly go to the North Pole and observe with a “Gemba Walk”, as coaches like to say, so I did the next best thing: I volunteered for Operation Blue Santa.

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Webinar Recording: Mastering the Art of Integration: Strategic Planning and AOP with SAFe® for Agile Organizations

By:
David Gipp & Resalin Gurka & 
| Dec 04, 2023 |  Agile,  Leadership,  Lean Portfolio Management,  SAFe

Dave Gipp and Adam Mattis AOP webinar recording

 

Recently, Dave Gipp partnered with Adam Mattis of Scaled Agile to discuss strategic planning.

Titled, “Mastering the Art of Integration: Strategic Planning with SAFe® for Agile Organizations”, the webinar explored the challenges many companies face when bridging the gap between strategy and execution.

Predicting results is extremely difficult in any environment, and Adam and Dave sought to acknowledge this difficulty while providing real advice around how to pivot and respond to market changes using improved efficiency and allocation of resources.

Complete the form for a copy of the dictionary of strategic planning terms mentioned throughout the webinar. 


The webinar was followed by a robust Q&A discussion with webinar attendees. Here’s the full transcript of the Q&A:

If you’d like to watch the full webinar recording, click here. 

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10 Steps to Get the Professional Development Training You and Your Team Need

By: Resalin Gurka | Nov 02, 2023 |  Agile Training

A picture of someone doing their professional development

 

We all want it. We all need it. But, it can still be hard to ask your boss for professional development opportunities. 

According to the 2022 report on workplace learning and development trends by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), professional learning and development serve two vital functions to the organization: 

  1. Maintain and gain new knowledge and skills to respond to business needs
  2. Recruit and retain talented employees

Over half (55%) of those interviewed for the survey believe that they need additional training to perform the duties of their role. So how do employees get the training they need and deserve? 

The following will help you ask for professional development. By the time you work through these steps, you’ll have the talking points needed to meet with your leader and come prepared to answer questions that might surface. 

Here are 10 steps to get you on your path to continuous improvement and learning. 

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3 Annual Budgeting Updates that Optimize for Results

By:
Andy Cleff & Sally Tait & 
| Oct 16, 2023 |  Business Agility,  Lean Portfolio Management,  Organizational Agility

In today’s crazy-fast business world, keeping up with the pace of change and making quick decisions is like trying to sprint on a treadmill. Why aren’t businesses getting anywhere? Our hypothesis: Traditional budgeting practices are often like an anchor, holding us back, instead of helping us move forward. 

Over coffee and tea, Andy Cleff and Sally Tait discussed what they learned from Beyond Budgeting. They talked about what’s problematic with old-school practices and how we can spice things up with a more dynamic approach. 

Scaling Agility – The Challenge

Scaling business agility is like trying to turn a flickering campfire into a bonfire. While agility works wonders at the team level, it’s often a struggle when you’re dealing with the whole organization. One of the main culprits? Old-school budgeting that’s as ancient as the pyramids, and just as set in stone (pun intended). It’s like trying to run a marathon in high heels – it’s just not built for speed or adaptability.

The Rigidity of Traditional Budgeting: Unraveling the AOP Conundrum

First, let’s talk about why traditional budgeting practices are about as effective as doing a rain dance in the desert. While annual operating budgets are a necessity for most organizations…is the process truly meaningful? 

The traditional Annual Operating Plan (AOP) in budgeting exhibits significant inflexibility due to its static nature, limited visibility into short-term dynamics, process-centric focus, and its difficulty in accommodating change. Like a road map set in stone, it lacks the agility to adapt to unforeseen business shifts and opportunities. Often, more attention is paid to perfecting the budgeting process than achieving desired outcomes, resembling a dance routine perfected without regard for whether it will bring rain to a parched desert. 

Feeding Bad Habits

Traditional budgeting methods often incentivize counterproductive behaviors. Think of it like being at an all-you-can-eat buffet, but with a fixed plate size – you’re left with two less-than-ideal choices. In the context of budgeting, this leads to practices such as underestimating actual needs (lowballing), stockpiling resources unnecessarily (hoarding), and engaging in a flurry of extravagant spending toward the end of the fiscal year to avoid budget cuts. These habits, fueled by the constraints of traditional budgets, can stifle innovation and foster a short-term mindset, hindering long-term strategic thinking and adaptability.

Updated Budgeting Practices 

So, why do we budget in the first place? It’s all about figuring out how to spend (or not spend) our money wisely. We want the biggest bang for our buck (literally), right? But the way we budget today doesn’t quite cut it. It’s slow and often misses the mark.

Andy and Sally introduced three key budgeting practices that can help organizations break free from the old-school budgeting shackles: setting targets, making forecasts, and allocating budgets. But here’s the kicker – don’t do them one after the other; do them all in parallel, and keep them separate so you can inspect and improve each independently. 

1. Setting Targets

Setting targets is like it sounds and requires defining your goals. Instead of fixed budgets, try relative targets that keep you on your toes but don’t strangle you. Add in a bonus structure that rewards collaboration (instead of competition), and you’ve got a recipe for a nimble, learning-focused organization.

2. Making Forecasts

Forecasts help you keep an eye on how you’re doing compared to your targets. IMPORTANT: Don’t mix them up with your goals. Andy and Sally suggest flexible forecasts that adapt to short-term (context-dependent, but typically months to quarters) and long-term needs (half years to years). Think of it like checking the weather forecast – your clothing and weather gear for today vs. identifying options for potential weather ahead. 

3. Allocating Budgets

Old-school budgets give each department a lump sum for the year. It’s like getting a paycheck and trying to make it last all month – sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Instead, they recommend dynamic allocation based on maximizing value. Ask yourself, “Is this the best way to spend our resources for maximum value?” That’s the question to keep in mind. Use budgets as a tool, not as the rule.

Long-Living Teams and the Power of Collaboration

One cool thing that comes with this new budgeting approach is the concept of long-living teams. These teams focus on delivering value and encourage collaboration, trust, and transparency. 

Beyond Budgeting and HR

While their discussion zeroes in on budgeting and finance, it drops hints about two other critical pieces of the organizational agility puzzle: Human Resources, aka People Ops, and performance evaluation. These areas will probably get their own episode soon because they’re crucial to achieving full-blown organizational agility in today’s ever-changing business world.

 

In a world that moves faster than a caffeinated cheetah, traditional budgeting practices can drag us down. Andy Cleff and Sally Tait serve up a refreshing alternative with three key practices: setting targets, making forecasts, and allocating budgets. This dynamic approach encourages collaboration, innovation, and smarter decisions. As we embrace organizational agility, let’s be sure to include not just financial management but also HR practices to stay ahead in today’s constantly evolving business landscape.

Curious about how to identify, communicate, and prioritize by value? Watch this video by Enterprise Coach Kim Antelo, “The Importance of Articulating Value.

 

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Video: What is Business Transformation and Why Should You Care?

By:
Randy Hale & Resalin Gurka & 
| Jun 14, 2023 |  Agile Transformation,  Business Agility,  Business Transformation,  Leadership

There’s a lot of chatter about transformation….possibly because the entire world just got through (still going through, processing, reeling from?) a pandemic. We saw first-hand just how important agility is when reacting to massive disruption. However, an organization’s ability to be nimble is just as important when the landscape is steady. 

One way for organizations to prepare for the next disruption, whether caused by competition, new technologies, or global dynamics, is to build the internal capabilities necessary for pivoting, persevering, and harnessing change to their advantage.

Enter Business Transformation. 

But what is Business Transformation and how does it relate to, and differ from, other transformations like digital, product, and Agile? 

I sat down with Enterprise Transformation Coaches Randy Hale and Richard Dolman to discuss the benefits of Business Transformation, why it’s worth consideration despite the investment, and how you can get started. 

(more…)

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5 Agile Transformation “Aha!” Moments Learned From Swim Lessons

By: Resalin Gurka | Oct 28, 2021 |  Agile Transformation

I was a late bloomer when it came to swimming and didn’t learn how to swim until I was 8-years-old, the year I immigrated from the Philippines to America. One of my goals as a parent was to make sure that my kids were confident and safe in the water so they began swim lessons at an early age. 

Lulu, my youngest, started lessons this spring and now she is in the ‘Water Movement I’ class. Every week for 1 hour, I sit by the pool and watch the class learn to float, safely get out of the pool, and how to kick. It’s as adorable as you think. Image of kid learning how to swim while mother thinks about agile transformation

In addition to all the picture-taking, I’ve also been thinking about how the process of learning how to swim is similar to Agile transformations and the development of new Agile capabilities. It may seem like a stretch, but hear me out:  

It’s a process 

Katie Ledecky didn’t break world records out of the gate her first day in the pool. Likewise, transformations take time, especially if organizations are from traditional project management backgrounds. 

Agile transformations are not only about addressing pain points. According to McKinsey, it’s about fundamentally changing how work gets done. It’s a process with steps, stages, and phases that build on one another, much like learning how to swim. 

You (probably) need an expert

I can swim but not at the level where I can teach others. A swim coach can spot what they’re doing wrong and know how to help. They know how to deal with a scared or anxious child because they’ve done this before many, many times. In fact, they’ve done this so many times that they know what to expect and can guide you past, and through, common challenges (like swimming into other lanes). Likewise, an Agile transformation partner understands how different skills and capabilities build upon one another. They understand who needs to be involved, at what level, and can plan and orchestrate different activities because they’ve logged the miles and have many experiences to fall back on.

Observe, learn, and improve 

When it wasn’t Lulu’s turn, she was supposed to sit down on the steps and watch her friends and teacher. (You can imagine how well that worked with a group of 3- to 7-year-olds!)

There are two main reasons that I could think of for this rule. One, safety. After all, this is a group of non-swimmers so it is critical that they stay in the shallows where it is safe. Two, this provides them with an opportunity to learn from those going before them.

For organizations embarking on an Agile transformation, one approach is to rollout agility in waves, where groups are trained and coached according to a prioritized sequence. This approach allows transformation leaders to learn from the previous waves and use that data to make the next more effective. 

A Coach to meet you where you are and can adjust accordingly

In Introduction to Water (the first class of the program), there were kids who were terrified of the water and some who were comfortable. With every child, the teacher adjusted her approach to meet their needs. 

Learning something new–like new ways of working–is scary and change is difficult. You need a partner who not only knows where you want to go, but also understands where you are currently on the path to agility. This includes taking into account the organization’s history, biases, dysfunctions, and hesitancies. The right partner or Agile coach will be able to adjust the plan and approach to fit your organization.

It’s time to get in the water

There are many things you can do to prepare for a transformation and assess readiness. However, there comes a point when it’s just time to get in the water. It may not be a cannonball or swan dive into the deep end. It could be baby steps through the shallows or maybe a push from someone or some event. In our transformation readiness webinar, we discuss that there’s no such thing as the perfect time to do a transformation. However, there is a good time for change–and that’s when there is a sense of urgency for change. 

As a parent, the sense of urgency for learning how to swim is high (OK, panic mode high). Similarly, as an organization you need to understand the why behind the transformation, which will help you understand when it’s time to take the plunge. 

There’s a lot of theory when it comes to Agile but there’s also a lot of concepts and principles that can be related to environments beyond the office. Where have you seen a neophyte jump straight into the deep end?  Or…where have you seen a continued unwillingness to get out of knee-deep water? Leave your comments below.

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What does a ScrumMaster Do Anyway?

By: Resalin Gurka | Feb 12, 2018 |  Article,  Scrum,  ScrumMaster

what does a scrummaster do on a daily basis?

We’ve discussed what a ScrumMaster is and what their main responsibilities are. We’ve even discussed the hard and soft skills needed to make a successful ScrumMaster (thanks, Leslie Knope). But, still, what does a ScrumMaster do anyway? What makes up an entire work day? How does their day (and their effectiveness) change as they engage with more teams?

ScrumMaster As A Servant Leader

As a servant leader, the ScrumMaster’s main responsibility is to facilitate value delivery by removing roadblocks that stymie progress. It sounds accurate but vague at the same time. What does it mean to remove roadblocks? Or facilitate value delivery.

Our Senior Agile Coach, Braz Brandt defines a servant leader as “An individual who believes in the inherent power and abilities of the people and teams around them, and works to help elevate those people while creating the environment for their long-term success and happiness”.

So while ScrumMasters are not expected to play barista every day, it’s not uncommon for them to treat hard working teams to a coffee or a pint (or two) every once in a while. Other examples of servant leadership include:

Making sure the process works for the team, and not just for the unicorn. Most of the workforce is not made of up unicorns, just good workers who need systems like Scrum to make them more efficient. While the ScrumMaster is the “master” of Scrum, it doesn’t mean that Scrum is the only framework that will be used by their team. Being a master means knowing something so well, and the intent behind it, that they are able to adjust in the right way when necessary. ScrumMasters work with the team to determine the best solution for the problem, even if the final answer is not Scrum. Maybe Kanban is better in a particular instance; or maybe a hybrid of the two, Scrumban. Other examples of mixing it up are demo-ing in real-time instead of waiting for a planned Sprint Review or a team creating an experiment-driven learning mechanism for improvement that isn’t a Sprint Retrospective.

Protecting the team, by helping stakeholders understand and respect this new way of working. Agile is completely different. Teams are now empowered and don’t need managers to delegate tasks. Planning projects with Agile is also very different as the focus shifts from the plan to the result. Instead of having access to team members and assigning rush projects, leaders are encouraged to work with the Product Owner to prioritize the project in the backlog. It takes time for this shift to occur, and as the Agile champion, it is the ScrumMaster’s job to continue to educate and help stakeholders and team members navigate the new terrain.

Facilitating Scrum Ceremonies, there’s more to being a meeting facilitator than creating a Google calendar invite with the agenda. A great facilitator understands the goals of the workshop and makes sure the team is on track towards meeting that goal within the designated time frame.

For example, Sprint Retrospectives are meant to help the team improve by identifying issues and determining action items that will help solve them. A ScrumMaster should be prepared for the meeting by having the foresight to know what potential issues might be discussed, determining an activity to create space for the team to surface said issues, and then guiding the team to find a resolution.

Championing information radiators, like Kanban boards and burndown charts. There are two sets of information radiators: the ones for the team and the ones for stakeholders. Artifacts geared towards stakeholders prevent them from micromanaging because they have a view of the progress being made. Team-based information radiators help teams because they provide visibility into the Sprint, which allows them to raise issues and make decisions when they begin to see red flags.

A way to keep teams happy and productive is to make work and progress visible. This keeps stakeholders focused on strategic initiatives and away from micromanaging, which makes teams happier. Micromanaging is the number one thing leaders should do if they want to drive away talent.

Working with leadership to get tools and training for the team.
One way to prevent frustration and grumblings from the team is to make sure they are set up for success. Examples could be helping to secure Product Owner training for the Business Analyst who just became the new PO or getting an updated laptop for the QA so that they can test in multiple browsers simultaneously.

Example ScrumMaster Daily Agenda

To help you better understand the day-to-day of a ScrumMaster, we asked to see the calendars of actual ScrumMasters. Meet Link’s calendar. He is the SM for two teams, Avengers and Ultron. Below is an example of what his week looks like during Sprint end/beginning. Since the teams are working in a similar area of the product and have the same stakeholders, they have a combined Sprint Review.

Example of a daily agenda for the ScrumMaster of 2 teams.
Coverage And ScrumMaster Effectiveness

In order for a ScrumMaster to be effective as a servant leader, it is important that they have ample time to teach and coach teams and leaders, and just be available for the team. They also need time to prepare for meetings, analyze data, mentor team members and meet with stakeholders and leaders to remove impediments that prevent the team from making progress.

The best ScrumMasters have this one thing in common: time for their teams. If a question or problem arises, they need to be there to help find a solution. They have an open-door policy; they are available. Imagine if Link was the ScrumMaster of three teams? Four? What would his calendar look like then? Check out Ana’s below. She has 3 teams.

 

Example agenda of the ScrumMaster of 3 teams
Doesn’t leave a lot of breathing room. During Sprint week she basically goes from meeting to meeting with no time for other work that will help make the team really effective. With this many teams, the consequence is the teams have to schedule their meetings around her rather than her scheduling them to meet the teams’ needs. Or in this case, you might notice that she doesn’t have a Review on the books for Fight Club due to calendar conflicts with the other two teams. You might also see that the Retrospectives and Sprint Plannings are shorter than recommended for maximum outcome. It’s hard to fit it all in when ScrumMasters have too many teams. Our recommendation is to limit 2 maybe 3 teams per ScrumMaster.

Get started on the right foot. Learn about private Agile training.

We hope this article clarifies questions about the ScrumMaster role. In the meantime, let us know if we missed anything. What is your definition of servant leadership? How do you exemplify that as a SM and as a leader?

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Order Up! Agile and Lean Lessons From The Restaurant Industry

By: Resalin Gurka | Mar 15, 2017 |  Article,  Lean

Pizza similar to the pizza found at Aviator's--A surprisingly Agile restaurant
Photo by Alexandra Gorn on Unsplash

Three weeks ago. It’s Friday night. We’re in a lazy mood so we hop in the car and go to the new neighborhood pizza place, Aviator Pizza. It’s our second time to go and it’s even busier than the first time, which is a good sign. The burger joint that occupied this space prior to Aviator didn’t last long.

Seems like blue skies are ahead for Aviator.

We order at the bar and find an open table to wait for our food and I spot the sign next to the side door. Written on a small chalkboard, “Grand Opening – March 4th.”

Since I started working in the Agile industry, I’ve started to see Agile and Lean thinking outside software development. Apparently, work followed me to pizza night. (more…)

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Technical Skills And The Product Owner

By: Resalin Gurka | Jan 24, 2017 |  Article,  Product Owner,  Scrum

Product Owner Skills require a lot of multi-taskingProduct Owners are in high demand. Searching on Indeed for “Product Owner” pulled up 103 new jobs posted this month. While its existence is relatively new compared to a Product Manager, it’s gaining attention as Agile and Scrum begin to overtake traditional methods of building software and managing creating projects.

The Product Owner (PO) is responsible for creating the product vision and guiding the team as they work to make the vision a reality. They are the bridge between stakeholders, team, and the end users. It’s a job that requires a number of different hard and soft skills, from knowledge of Agile and Scrum to a Mama bear instinct to protect the product.

One of the most frequently asked questions in our CSPO classes is whether technical knowledge is required in a Product Owner role. The short answer is no, but the long answer is that technical skills are helpful, but not in the way you might think.

When you’re looking for a new PO, you want someone steeped in product development experience (clearly). The list below consists of hard and soft skills required in the PO role in addition to the years of experience needed. Because this post pertains to product ownership, we prioritized it in order of least to most important. You’re welcome.

Analytical Brain

From looking at usage stats, user demographics, resource allocation, and market data, you need a PO who is at home with data and can put the various points together to make smart decisions and see the big picture.

Technical Skills

As someone in product development moves through their career, they will pick up an understanding of how products are made and be familiar with architectures, languages, and build cycles. However, that’s really all they need to have in terms of technical skills. Remember, they’re not building the product, they’re just collaborating with the people who are. They need to learn to rely on and partner with the assembled team of technical experts.

Written, verbal, and presentation skills

Can they listen to understand instead of listening to reply? Can they articulate their thoughts and ideas so that anyone within earshot can understand them? Can they present information to stakeholders with confidence? Product Owners use their communication skills-written and verbal–on a daily basis. In addition to listening and talking, their user stories must be clear so that the team understands the work while at the same time capturing the task’s intent. The vision statement must be inspiring enough to carry the team through the months of work ahead.

Agile & Scrum Knowledge

For those who are new to Agile and Scrum, the Product Owner may seem like a hydra with three heads: Product Manager, Project Manager, and Business Analyst. It is similar to these roles but has specific responsibilities which are unique to Agile. It is important for anyone stepping into the PO role to take a CSPO workshop so that they are able to communicate with their Agile team. They need to understand their role and the daily interactions required with the team.

Prioritization Skills

I have already discussed how product owners are the liaisons between stakeholders and the team. Another primary PO responsibility is to create and prioritize the Product Backlog. The Product Backlog is a prioritized list of all the features or components of the project with user-centric descriptions. It can contain bugs, technical work, and knowledge acquisition. A Sprint Backlog is the work that needs to be done in the upcoming Sprint. The PO should come to the Sprint Planning meetings with the Product Backlog Items (PBI’s) prioritized, ready to be discussed by the team. In order to create this list, the Product Owner needs to be able to work with a disparate set of stakeholders and leverage their input to create an ordered list of priorities for the team to pull into their Sprint Plan.

Gumption

Guts, determination, courage–people with gumption have all of the above. Product Owners bridge the gap between stakeholders and the team, which can be a difficult task because what stakeholders want (more, more, more!) can be at odds with what the team believes can be done within scope. They need to be able to say no to stakeholders if their desires are out-of-reach, which takes a lot of courage. They need the determination to make sure the product vision becomes a reality, even if that means extra work.

Vision

While creating a vision may seem soft and squishy, communicating a vision is a hard skill Product Owners should have. Vision statements explain why accomplishing the mission contributes to a better future. Part of Apple’s current vision (revised by CEO Tim Cook) states:

“We believe that we are on the face of the earth to make great products and that’s not changing. We are constantly focusing on innovating. We believe in the simple, not the complex.”

This part of their vision explains their guiding principle when it comes to design: simple is best.

Visions can also explain how teams will work together and values that will carry them through the project. Apple goes on to explain:

“We believe in deep collaboration and cross-pollination of our groups, which allow us to innovate in a way that others cannot. And frankly, we don’t settle for anything less than excellence in every group in the company…”

Finally, a vision explains what makes the product or company unique in the space, which requires a substantial amount of market analysis. The job of the Product Owner is to clearly communicate a vision that aligns the team around a common motivating purpose.

Domain Knowledge

Speaking of market analysis, the number one skill a PO must possess is domain expertise. Whether it’s an EMR or finance software, Product Owners are the subject matter experts for that tool’s domain. They know the user to the point of obsession and the value the product will bring. They know what users are using now and how and why the new product is different from the rest and they use the UVP to make it a success.

The Product Owner is an important role in the Scrum Team. We offer public and private training to help existing team members develop the above soft and hard skills.

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Should The POTUS Be More Like A ScrumMaster Or a Product Owner?

By: Resalin Gurka | Nov 04, 2016 |  Article,  Product Owner,  ScrumMaster

Neil Armstrong on the moon -- getting to the moon is like a sprint, is the POTUS a Scrummaster or Product Owner

Did you guys know it was election season?

Don’t worry, we’re not here to discuss the five candidates on the presidential ballot. We’re here to discuss and debate the following question…

If the United States was a development team, would POTUS be a ScrumMaster or Product Owner?

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