As I boarded the plane this morning, I notice a small cargo vehicle trailing what looks like two silver metal closed-top skips. What with all the sunshine, my imagination cartwheels away before I can stop myself. What if the cargo was some precious pooch going on a posh holiday? Or perhaps it’s the latest life-saving drug as part of a clinical trial? Or, more amazing still, may be it’s an organ for a loved one being transported under careful climate control?

The sight of the vehicle and its cargo reminds me of the mental baggage we all carry. The habit-forming kind with which we’ve grown comfortable and by which we navigate our daily lives both at work and at home.

What if…

Let’s play a game. What if some of the things you believe in are simply not true?

Postpone decisions until the last responsible moment
Most of us are desperate to decide things early. This may be motivated by a multitude of reasons, such as a desire to please, be helpful towards others and/or the simple need to feel in control, even when we’re not. By embracing the discomfort of not knowing and using Real Options Thinking, you can keep options open for as long as is valuable. After all, why decide now when you don’t have to? The secret to making informed decisions is to wait until the last responsible moment, by which we mean the point in time when the necessary criteria and/or constraints determine when a decision needs to be made.

Think ‘AND’ instead of ‘EITHER OR’
I’ve noticed that the most successful and satisfied people have an open mind and postpone judgment. They recognise breakthrough ideas are those that combine ‘a AND b’ as opposed to forcing both parties to resign to an ‘EITHER a OR b’ solution. Remember, you can always have your cake and eat it AND you’ll need to exercise to work it off. Apply the Logical Thinking Process such as the Intermediate Objectives Map and Conflict Resolution Diagram to create a WIN-WIN solution for everyone involved.

Focus on value first then value/cost and retain that focus
It’s tempting to do everything at once. Especially when there’s a deadline and too much to do. To prevent your endeavours from wheel-spinning to a standstill, prioritise by value/cost, level the workload and minimise the work-in-progress. Pop quiz: How do you eat an elephant? Answer: One bite at a time! Better still, opt for elephant carpaccio, delivering end-to-end solutions that add value as thin slices. This ‘thin slice’ approach also minimises risks and surfaces issues earlier by testing integration points early. (Note: No elephants were harmed in the making of this analogy.)

Think Different

How will you change the way you think and behave today?

Let the Conference Season Begin!

2010 looks set to be another year of learning and fun! I’ll be in beautiful Turku, Finland on 17 – 18 March to present at the academic conference of Turku Agile Day.

A Series of Firsts

Pascal Van Cauwenberghe and I will be presenting our first ever Agile Fairytale keynote. It’s significant because 1) it’ll be my first ever keynote; 2) it’ll be our first ever keynote together; and 3) it’ll be the first ever Agile Fairytale to be presented as a keynote; 4) we’ll be presenting a brand new Agile Fairytale – “Pinocchio: On Becoming a Lean Leader“. Exciting times indeed.

And There’s More!

Another first is that Staffan Nöteberg and I will be pair presenting for the first time on a brand session based on a topic close to my heart: “Timeboxed Thinking – How to Make More of Your Time“.

We’ve taken special care to make both the keynote and session highly interactive and full of fun. We hope you can join us. See you then!

Making Dreams Come True

We’ve created a virtual space to grow the community around the Agile Fairytales. It’s a place where you’re invited to share – be it thoughts, ideas, feedback and anything else that you deem relevant to the group.

You’re invited to use the space to:

• Exchange stories on how you first came across the Agile Fairytales
• Share your experiences of how you use the Agile Fairytales at work and at play
• Broadcast upcoming events featuring Agile Fairytales.

We’ll also use the space to:

• Broadcast upcoming Agile Fairytales sessions
• Agile Fairytales releases and updates
• And, of course, we’d love to hear your ideas on how to spread the joy and share the fun! 

Meanwhile, read more about the adventures of Agile Fairytales here. And why not experience the adventures for yourself? Find out when the next Agile Fairytale coming to a place near you. Watch this space!

Count Me In!

To join in, sign up to the LinkedIn group and send a request to join the group. In your request, tell us a bit about yourself and why you would like to join the group.

Meanwhile, keep well and I hope to see you at an Agile Fairytale session soon!

Discuss all things Agile

This year’s Agile Open Belgium will again be held in beautiful Gent, on May 21st and 22nd.

The Open Space format lets participants determine what’s on the program, how sessions are run and what they want out of the session. The conference location at IBBT provides several rooms, so that each session can run undisturbed by others while allowing participants to move easily from one session to another.

See you there!

XP Day Suisse 2010, March 29th in Geneva

I’m looking forward to return to Geneva to take part in the second Swiss XP Day. Last year’s event was a lot of fun.

This year, I’ll co-present “Agile Project Management in practice” with Portia Tung and I’ll help Portia run the “Coaching with the Wizard of Oz” Agile Fairytale.

La gestion de projet agile en pratique

Est-ce qu’il y a des chefs de projet dans un projet agile ? Qu’est-ce qu’ils font ? Quelle est la différence avec un Scrum Master ? Quelle est la différence entre la gestion de projet « agile » et la gestion de projet « normale » ? A travers des présentations, jeux et exercices nous vous proposons un ensemble d’outils et techniques que vous pourrez appliquer dès demain pour améliorer le déroulement et les résultats de vos projets.

Apprenez les techniques de coaching avec le magicien d’Oz

Pour pouvoir aider les autres (et soi-même) avec du coaching il faut mettre en pratique quatre activités :

• Poser les bonnes questions
• Écouter ce qui est vraiment dit
• Observer ce qui se passe vraiment
• Donner le bon feedback au bon moment

Le coaching est simple, mais pas facile. Quelque soit votre rôle dans l’équipe, ces techniques seront utiles pour améliorer chaque jour. Apprenez quelques techniques de coaching et mettez-les en pratique. Les personnages du Magicien d’Oz vous aideront sur la longue route de brique jaune vers la cité d’Émeraude.

A bientôt les amis Suisses et Français!

‘Real love stories never have endings’ – Richard Bach

A Classic Tale of Love and Hate

On 13 January 2010 at 12.10 precisely, my friend Jack calls me to announce he’s resigned with a new job ready to start in March. Jack has been unhappy in his old job for over a decade. You’re probably thinking to yourself, ‘That’s your typical Man-Gets-Paid-To-Do-A-Job-He-Hates story. So what?’ and you’d be right. Except that’s not where the story ends.

Ever since Jack handed in his resignation, he’s taken on more responsibility and become more assertive. His colleagues tell me how he’s been helping to deliver more value to the organisation in the last 20 days than he has ever done in the past 10 years. Intrigued by this mysterious twist in the plot, I call Jack.

‘I’m not sure what’s happened really,’ says Jack. ‘The day after I handed in my resignation, I had an epiphany. You know I’m not a religious bloke. I just figured out that, instead of ekeing out my existence during my notice period, I would do what I’ve been meaning to do for a decade. A good job. By that I mean, make my voice heard. Share my ideas with people even if they’re a bit out there. After all, my boss can’t sack me anymore.’

Know Yourself

Stephen King says, ‘If you love what you do, you can do it forever.’ First you need to know what it is you love doing. Then find out what makes it so lovable. Richard Bolles, author of ‘What Colour is Your Parachute’, outlines an exercise in his book for coming up with your ideal job profile (aka job description). They are:

1. Your favourite interests
2. Geography – where you like to work (venue and location)
3. Your favourite people and environments
4. Your favourite values and goals
5. Your favourite working conditions
6. Salary and level of responsibility
7. Your top 6 favourite skills.

It’s up to you how much time you invest on completing the job description. I remember it took me a total of 5 hours one fateful weekend all that time ago. Once you’ve got your ideal job description, you’re ready to go job shopping.

Remember how much you enjoyed shopping for that gadget or picnic basket? And how was that possible? Because you’d somehow distilled (implicitly or explicitly) the key attributes of what it was you needed to achieve your goals. As Paul Arden said, ‘Without having a goal, it’s hard to score.’

Love the Job You’re In

Now imagine this. You’ve identified your goal. And you’ve got your dream job description. Ask yourself these 4 questions:

• What would happen if you got what you wanted?
• What wouldn’t happen if you got what you wanted?
• What would happen if you didn’t get what you wanted?
• What wouldn’t happen if you didn’t get what you wanted?

Answering these questions might be a challenge, but they really make you think. The questions force you to question why you want what you want and this, in turn, helps you refine your goal and your strategy to do what you need to achieve that goal.

The Neverending Story

On 11 February 2010 at 12.15 precisely, Jack calls me with some news. It turns out that, having seen his remarkable contribution in the past 4 weeks, Jack’s boss has asked him to stay and offered him a package that exceeds his other job offer. And that, dear Reader, is where our story ends. But not Jack’s. And what of your story?

They’re back!

Couldn’t come to XP Days Benelux 2009? You missed a lot of great sessions.

Even if you did go to XP Days Benelux 2009, you missed several great sessions, because the program committee stupidly scheduled great sessions at the same time in each of the five parallel tracks.

Or maybe you want to send your colleagues to those great sessions you attended.

Well now you can, because 8 of your favourite sessions are being presented again at Mini XP Day Benelux on April 26th, 2010.

What’s in it for me?

You could learn more about

• finding the right question to ask to intervene on an individual or a team with Pierluigi Pugliese
• writing executable acceptance tests for real-world applications using Fitnesse with Pascal Mestdach & Michel Grootjans
• creating and improving an Agile office with Ralph van Roosmalen
• managing your backlog with Peter Janssens
• becoming a peer-coach and finding new insights for old problems with Portia Tung and the cast of The Wizard of Oz
• organizing and refactoring code with Matteo Vaccari & Antonio Carpentieri
• using Lean and Kanban techniques to increase teamwork and delivery speed with Machiel Groeneveld
• becoming a more effective Product Owner with Serge Beaumont

Mini XP Days Benelux remains the place to exchange ideas and share experiences about Agile in an open and relaxed atmosphere.

Don’t wait too long

Register quickly because the event is limited to 60 participants and the event usually sells out.

See you on April 26th in Kappelerput, just to the south of Eindhoven, near the Dutch-Belgian border (which might have an effect on the availability of beers…)

Going Agile

The second ever Agile Fest, short for ‘Agile Festival’, took place last Tuesday in the UK. Agile Fest is an annual internal event run by one of emergn’s clients to promote awareness of how and where Agile is being used within their organisation as well as to create an opportunity for 1-2-1 networking and community building.

Fun and Games

The event atttracted an exceptional turnout, with more than 250 visitors dropping in and taking part in the 3 hours it took place. The festival consisted of 12 stalls, with topics ranging from Planning Poker and Agile First Aid to Evolutionary Design and Distributed Teams. Each stall was run by internal Agile enthusiasts, with support from emergn’s coaches, giving practical advice on and demonstrations of Agile Principles, Practices and Techniques.

It was super fun because it gave me the opportunity to work alongside the client and a bunch of emergn Coaches, first in preparing for the event, then in mingling with the participants. Can I sum up the kinds of people who attended the event in 4 words? I think I can. It’s ‘Curiosity’ and ‘Willingness to Learn’. These are essential traits for an organisation serious about delivering more value to their customers.

Organising the Organising and Giving Back

The organisation of Agile Fest in itself was an example of agility in action. The event was made possible only by the incredible creativity, contribution and collaboration from both the organisers and the participants. Great thoughtfulness had gone into the event, such as handmade badges and a homemade cake sale which raised £300 in sales for the Haiti Relief Fund (which the organisation is doubling!). My tastebuds tell me Collin’s special carrot cake with coconut shavings had something to do with how much we raised!

Most Memorable Moment

The fantastic turnout and number of compelling questions asked is evidence of what transforms an organisation from Good to Great. How are you going to add value at work and beyond this week?

Thanks to all your feedback on the game and your enthusiasm for Peer Coaching, we’re pleased to announce the release of version 2.0 of The Yellow Brick Road Game – Fresh Insights Through Peer Coaching.

The headline changes include:

• Making the game and session more generic – Not only can you use it to learn about peer coaching for Agile Adoption, you can now use it to learn about peer coaching for any context or domain you wish
• Full presentation with speaker notes – The presentation for running the session is now available so that you, too, can run it with ease and flourish at work (and even with family and friends)!
• New User Manual – Detailing the contents of the downloadable game kit and further resources about peer coaching

Find out more about Happy Endings with Agile Fairytales. Keep the feedback coming! Happy Peer Coaching!

The Business Value Game translated into Spanish

Juan Gutiérrez Plaza has contributed a Spanish translation of the Business Value Game. Thanks also to Leo Antolí and Thomas Wallet for reviewing this translation. Muchas Gracias!

You can download the Business Value Game in English, French and Spanish from the Belgian XP site.

In search of Lean Business Value

I’m looking for useful and usable definitions of Business Value. Lean should have a lot to say about value (when they’re not talking about waste): Value Stream, (non-)value-adding work, Value Stream Manager.

And yet, a book like Creating a Lean Culture: Tools to Sustain Lean Conversions that describes Lean Management doesn’t define what Value is or how you define it. The Lean Manager’s job is to ensure that the right thing is done the right way. “The Right Thing” has been defined beforehand and the Lean Production Manager ensures that the value (as defined in the product to deliver) is delivered quickly and efficiently. In production, quality has been defined and is constant (except when the product changes). The emphasis of the production manager is on “the right way” and increasing flow by reducing waste because those are the only variables the production manager (and workers) can influence.

Implementing Lean Software Development: From Concept to Cash has a separate chapter on Value, which comes just before the chapter on Waste. The chapter doesn’t really define value. The closest to a definition of value comes from Lean Solutions: How Companies and Customers Can Create Value and Wealth Together. What do customers want?

• Solve my problem completely
• Don’t waste my time
• Provide exactly what I want
• Deliver value exactly where I want it
• Supply value exactly when I want it
• Reduce the number of decisions I must make to solve my problems

This gives us a good set of criteria to check, because each of these criteria reduces the customer’s value if done badly. How do we know what customers value? The advice is to understand the customer by:

• Living in the circumstances of the customer, for example when the chief engineer of the Siena minivan cruises from Canada to Mexico to understand how to improve the car.
• A similar technique is “apprenticing”, where we learn how to do the work from a user
• Observe real users at work
• Perform usability testing to ensure we haven’t reduced customer value

Toyota Way Value

If we look at the 14 Management Principles from the World’s Greatest Manufacturer from the Toyota Way (p. 37) we see that Customer and Value are only mentioned a few times:

• Generate value for the customer, society and the economy – Principle 1: Long Term Philosophy
• Quality for the customer drives your value proposition – Principle 5: Build a Culture of stopping to fix problems, to get quality right the first time

So, Value == Quality for the Customer.

Chapter 5 describes how Quality for the Customer was defined for the Lexus.

• Look at who the competitors are
• For each competitor, what do customers like and dislike about them?
• Rank order the quality attributes
• Select a small number of target qualities (in this case: top speed, fuel consumption, noise, aerodynamics and weight)
• Define constraints and basic needs (reliability, safety, resale value, interior…)
• Set targets for each of the quality attributes

Now, we know that if we ask potential customers and users what they like in existing products and want to see in the new product we’re not going to get a very exciting list. In “Kano model” terms, we’re going to get the “must have” basic needs and some performance needs (“It uses a bit less fuel than my current car? Nice.”). Where do we get the exciter features that make the difference?

In this case the exciter was the word AND. The new car had to beat its rivals in all of the target qualities: lighter AND faster AND more fuel-efficient AND quieter AND… than the leader in each quality.

Toyota Production System Value

The Toyota Production System (and all the material derived from it) doesn’t say much about value because value has already been defined and is a constant (or constraint) for production. The Toyota Product Development System has as its first principle “Establish Customer-Defined Value to Separate Value-Added from Waste“.

How is this done?

• Appoint program leaders who have the background and experience to establish an emotional connection with the target customer
• Perform Genchi Genbutsu (Go See the Actual Work) to see the customer in action in their environment
• Create a vision for the product which includes quantitative and qualitative goals (using “Value Targeting Process”, as described above)
• Create a concept paper based on thorough discussion, information gathering and consensus-building
• The leader and the concept paper guide development throughout the project
• The project is broken down into functional teams, each with their own leader who applies the same process recursively, so that each team has a customer perspective
• Value targets are set
• Cross-functional teams work together to find ways to achieve all the value targets

Business Value is a Model

At Agile 2008, Chris Matts and Andy Pols had a session about Business Analysis. They made one statement which clarified what I was looking for and what I was doing:

Business Value is not a value. Business Value is a model.

There’s not just one value or one quality: different stakeholders all value lots of (conflicting) things. Moreover, value is not static. For example: whether I deliver a car (or a software project) next week or in six months can have enormous effects on your valuation of that exact same product.

As with all models, much of the value comes from the thinking about value and the modeling, not the final model. When I come onto a project, I will always ask about the Business Value Model. If you have an explicit and agreed model, decision-making will be much more effective. If you don’t have an explicit model, that tells me a lot: we’re going to have constant discussion about goals and value. Even worse, some teams have an explicit model (“espoused theory“), but use another model (“theory in use“) which leads to no end of conflicts and dysfunctional behaviour. I can usually deduce very quickly what the real model is from the actions of those involved. That’s why I like to add a third part to the statement:

Business Value is not a value. Business Value is a model. Business Value models what you value.

So… How can build a Business Value Model in our work?

Yesterday, as night falls, I finally make it to Edinburgh castle. We knock, but nobody’s home. It’s my third visit to Edinburgh and I still haven’t seen the inside of the castle. I’ve been wanting to visit because I hear it’s a great place with lots to see, do and learn.

Up, Down and Around

Little did I suspect that what began as a casual evening walk to the nearest pub would turn out to be one of the best tours of Edinburgh. ‘We can go this way if you don’t mind climbing a slope,’ says Mark, the Agile Insider. ‘It’s going to be steep,’ he repeats. ‘No problem,’ I reply. ‘I love going for walks!’ As it turns out, the slope was steeper than I expected, and when I finally catch my breath, the sight of the towering buildings that make up Edinburgh Castle takes my breath away once again.

When you really want something, you’ll always find a way

The philosopher Seneca said, ‘Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.’ Take my stumbing upon the castle as though by chance. It fits Seneca’s saying beautifully.

For the past couple of weeks, the Agile Insider has been scouting out the area while touring Edinburgh for himself. Then last night, we decided to meet up and go for a pint. Once the Agile Insider realised that we both enjoyed going for walks, we extended the walk a bit more. After all, our goal was to catch up and it didn’t much matter if we were sat in the warmth of a pub or tramping out and about in the cold. And since the climbing pace was comfortable we extended the walk a bit further still until - lo and behold - I found myself in front of the castle!

Luck is Yours to Make

Next time, I’m going to plan my visit to the castle. I’m going to phone ahead to make sure someone will be in. May be we can even have tea with the Queen if I bring some biscuits. How are you going to capture the castle?

We love Tuesday mornings!

This Tueday morning marked the kickoff of the XP Days Benelux organisers 2010 team. Together, we’ll be bringing you Mini XP Days Benelux on 26 April, 2010, followed by XP Day Benelux (a 2-day conference) in November 2010.

We’ve got a great team and if the fun we had on Tueday is anything to go by, I wouldn’t want to miss Mini XP Days Benelux for the world! To top it all off, we’ve got an awe-inspiring venue this year. Here’s a sneak preview of the venue: Kapellerput in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. It’s got an outdoor barbeque, a human bird-house, garden chess and even a dinosaur made out of rubbish to remind us of the importance of eliminating waste!

Make Work Fun and Fun Work

We’re currently finalising the programme for Mini XP Days Benelux, a 1-day session containing great sessions selected from the XP Days Benelux 2009 program based on participant feedback. There’ll be something for everyone interested in learning from and with Agile practitioners.

For First Timers: A chance to sample what an XP Days Benelux conference feels like at maximum value and minimum cost. It’s a one day conference at an affordable price with great sessions selected from last year’s programme based on participant feedback.

For Old Timers: A chance to catch up on the sessions you wished you’d gone to at XP Days Benelux 2009 because you couldn’t be in more than one place at any one time. And, of course, a chance to meet up with old friends and make new ones!

We’re looking forward to implementing Keith Braithewaite’s concept of a ‘WTF factor’, also known as a ‘Wow! factor’ or ‘Tada! factor’ where learning happens through shock and surprise.

Meanwhile, find out more about XP Days Benelux here. Tot ziens! Watch this space.

Agile Apprentice: Why do I always feel so afraid?
Agile Coach: Fear helps us live and breathe.
Agile Apprentice: I’m sick and tired of feeling afraid.
Agile Coach: Fear keeps us alive.

If We Don’t Speak of Vital Things

Life’s about Balance. Balance, by its very nature, is constant.  Like treading water in order to stay afloat, we need to constantly work at maintaining that balance. Why? Because things change. Because People change.

Embrace Uncertainty

One Agile adage is ‘Embrace Uncertainty’. Like it or lump it, Uncertainty pervades our lives. Most of us have a tendency to make decisions too early. For fear of Uncertainty. For fear of looking indecisive. For fear of looking the fool.

One way of making the most of Uncertainty is by postponing making decisions until the last responsible moment. The trick is to know when you have to make the decision. Given a deadline and the time it takes to execute an action, we can use Real Options Thinking to identify a decision point, the point at which a decision needs to be made. Why do this? To buy us more time so that we can gather more information. Why gather more information? Because more information leads to better informed decisions which, in turn, produce better results.

First Accept Impermanence

Before we can truly embrace Uncertainty, we need to first accept the Impermanence of Life. Things that exist today may not exist tomorrow. Accepting the impermanence in life provides a healthy perspective on Now. Instead of being stuck in a perpetual Blame Game, ask yourself ‘What can I do right now to change? How can I make things better (instead of worse) now?’

Resolve to Change For the Better

Be courageous! Make the most of Now by using The Responsibility Model to transition yourself from Denial -> Blame -> Justification -> Shame -> Obligation -> Responsibility.

Be mindful! Make better decisions Now and in the Future using Real Options Thinking. A Real Option is where Value > Cost. A Stupid Option is one where Value < Cost. Doing nothing is also always an option. The key is to take responsibility for your decisions by conscious decision making.

Be full of heart! Always practice the Agile Values of Communication, Simplicity, Feedback, Courage, Respect, Trust and Transparency to create more happiness for everyone to share. After all, none of us exist in isolation. Everything we do has a cause and effect that impacts others and, ultimately, ourselves.

Dear, oh, dear. It’d been a dreary past few days as the final traces of pristine Snow White was replaced by its cousin Grey Slush. The rumour of Winter Blues had turned into tabloid fact. Nothing was going to be able to shift this slippery muck of seasonal gloom. Nothing? Really?

Until this morning that is. Yes. The snow is back! The dusting of snow reminds me of a conversation I had with a colleague in Boston last week.

How much snow have you got?

‘Happy New Year! We’ve got at least three inches of snow!’ I said. ‘Happy New Year to you, too! We’ve got six inches,’  John said. It suddenly dawned on me that the novelty of snow depended on who you are, where you grew up and where you are now. I remember feeling a fleeting sense of foolishness at what must have seemed like much ado about nothing. After all, Boston had six inches of snow and London only had three. I brushed the thought aside. We had snow in London and that was what mattered to me most. Or was it?

Life as a Competition

All the time I’d been growing up, I’d believed that life was a competition. Not just any competition. It was a competition against other people. To be the winner, there had to be losers. That was just the way things worked. The fact was there were plenty of children bigger, smarter, faster than me. Just like there are plenty of adults bigger, smarter, faster than me now.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been trying to make sense of the Game of Life and the myth that ‘To be the winner, there had to be losers’. I could see how competition can drive things forward, help us achieve things we never thought we could, so competition in itself is not a bad thing. Yet the rule of having a winnner and losers still didn’t make sense. More recently I observed that ‘I am my own biggest impediment’. Don’t you sometimes just hate being right? As I thought more and more about this assertion, I realised it wasn’t the answer to the conundrum either.

What Lies Within

As I peer through the flickering curtain of snow, another thought light as a snowflake forms in the snowdome of my mind. It’s never been about me and the others. The invisible rule to the Game of Life is this. There is no other. You are both the winner and the loser. You are competing with yourself.

Pinocchio: On Becoming a Lean Leader

Portia Tung and I will co-present the opening keynote “Pinocchio: On Becoming a Lean Leader” at the Agile Turku Day 2010 in Turku, Finland on March 17th 2010.

Come and play with us to sharpen your leadership skills!

Two snowmen are standing in a field.
One says to the other, ‘Can you smell carrots?’

Out in the Field

Imagine. You wake up. It’s Friday. It’s almost the weekend. The first thing you see is a blanket of bright white snow. With a deep breath, you take in the tranquil setting. You feel quietly envigorated. A thought light as a snowflake forms in the snowdome of your mind. Yes. Today’s the day. Today marks a fresh start. A new beginning.

And the thought? It is this: ‘I can be better than I was yesterday.’ This thought always takes me back to the Agile Values. Seven simple words. Communication, Simplicity, Feedback, Courage, Respect, Trust and Transparency. How many of us know these words by heart? Words that trip off the tongue so smoothly when times are good? Those same seven words that become a thorn in our side when we come under pressure, leaving us deflated?

Thinking, Being and Doing

In Agile, Retrospectives are a good way to take time out and reflect. To have a good root around our minds to make sense of what we have done, what has come to pass and what we intend to do going forward. It’s a chance for others to show you what you cannot see for yourself. It’s an opportunity for putting those seven values into practice.

And what about the actions we can take to improve? We don’t have to wait for snow. We don’t even have to wait for a new day or  a new year. The moment is Now.

Value is relative

So, if Value is relative to each person or organisation and their situation, before we can start definining Value we have to find out who’s value is important for our project. Who are we doing this for?

The Dramatis Personae

We start every project by finding out the stakeholders we need to satisfy. This, like all other agile analysis activities, is an iterative process: we start off with an initial set of stakeholders and update our list when we discover more information. We need to find at least three types of stakeholder before we can start talking about value:

• Client
• Customer
• User(s)

The Client

The first and most important stakeholder is the Client. The Client commissions or purchases the product we create. The Client is responsible for

• Setting the goals: “I need these results…”. The success of our work will be judged against the fulfilling of the needs.
• Setting the constraints and boundaries: “You can’t touch this…”, “You have to….”. The constraints and boundaries set non-negotiable acceptance criteria for any solution we might come up with.
• Providing the team with resources: money, skills, hardware, software, data, information…
• Defining the Business Values of the product in function of time. Value isn’t static, it changes with time. For example, a games that’s released in time for the Christmas holiday gift shopping, has a lot more value than one that’s delivered a few days later. A new version that’s available at a trade show is more valuable than one that’s delivered the day after.
• Resolve issues, remove impediments and manage risks for these areas of responsibility.

At the end of the day (project), it’s the Client who’ll decide if this project or product is a success. They define value and decide whether it’s been delivered or not.

Some other names for this role are: Purchaser, Buyer, Sponsor or Executive sponsor.

The Customer

The Customer works for the Client to fill in the details and content that will allow us to achieve the given goals with the given constraints using the given resources. The Customer is responsible for

• Setting intermediate goals which, when achieved, will let us achieve the Client’s goals. Achieving these intermediate goals will tell us if we’re on track to deliver the goals of the Client.
• Defining the features to be delivered to implement the goals.
• Defining the Business Value of features, within the context of the Business Value Model of the Client.
• Defining the Acceptance Criteria of the features that allow us to unambiguously determine if the feature is done because it achives its goal.
• Follow up the state of the work, verify that the resources are being applied well to achieve the desired goals.
• Resolve issues, remove impediments and manage risks for these areas of responsibility.

Some other names for this role are: Onsite Customer, Product Owner or Product Manager.

User(s)

I’m not too fond of the word “User”, but for now this word stands for those people who will use the product we’ll create or change. As soon as we’ve identified them, we describe them using their role, group, team or organisation name so that we’re rid of the ugly word user.

If we already have people using the product, we go and see them (“Genchi Genbutsu”) so that we understand what their context and needs are. If the product is new, we may have to invent personas (with the help of Product Management and/or User Experience) and imagine what their context and needs will be.

Discovering stakeholders with the Nine Boxes interview technique

The Nine Boxes is a simple (but very difficult) interviewing technique from the Solution Selling™ sales process. We ask questions about three topics:

• What problems and opportunities does the organisation face?
• Who is impacted by this situation? How are they impacted?
• What would a future in which the problems and opportunities have been dealt with, look like? What changes for those impacted people?

The answers we get from the “Impact” topic give us a first list of stakeholders. The person managing all the impacted people is a first candidate for the Client role.

You can download the Nine Boxes game from the Agile Coach site. Try it, it isn’t as easy as it sounds. Once you master this technique you can get a lot of useful information in a short time.

Discovering stakeholders by going to the Gemba

Interviewing gives us a lot of useful information, but we don’t believe everything we’re told. Going to the place of work (“Gemba”) and seeing the work being done allows us to verify what we’ve been told and discover a whole lot more useful information. You can try two simple observation techniques:

• Stand in a circle: you draw a circle on the ground and stand in it, for at least an hour. Observe what’s happening. Note things that go wrong. Note causes of things going wrong. Note ideas for improvement.
• Staple yourself to a work order: select a client request and follow it through the process to really experience what happens in a process (which might be very different from what you’ve been told should happen).

While you’re at the workplace, take the time to talk to the people doing the work.

That’s just the start!

We’ll discover more stakeholders as we go along. These three stakeholders (with at least one type of user) are the minimum to even start to talk about value. Yet, surprisingly many projects I encounter lack one or more of these stakeholders. Agile projects typically have the Customer role, but they have problems fulfilling their responsibilities because the two other stakeholders are unclear:

• If it’s not clear who the users are, if we overlook some types of users or if we only pay lip service to the notion of customers (like on the “agile” project where for the past five years nobody in the team had actually seen a user using their product) selecting the right User Stories and defining their value (to prioritise) becomes difficult. Next time you have trouble setting priorities or selecting stories, ask who the users are and what their goals and needs are.
• If it’s not clear who the Client is, we don’t have a clear view of the overall goals and needs. We don’t have priorities between different stakeholders’ goals. We don’t have a Business Value Model that tells us what the value of the product will be. Next time you have trouble defining the Business Value, ask who the client is. Who takes care of the responsibilities of the Client? The Client decides if your work is successful, so you’d better know who that person is and what they define as success.
• If there’s more than one person in the Client role, your project will be troubled by endless fighting, shifting priorities and many changes. The Client is one person who has the authority and knowledge to take the necessary decisions. If there are arguments about value and priority, ask who will deal with this risk.
• If the appointed Client doesn’t have the authority and control over the whole area you’re working on for this product, you’ll be mired down in endless debates and requests with those who have the authority. Either reduce the scope to the span of control of your Client or find a Client with a larger span of control.

Whenever I look at a project, these are the first three questions I ask:

• Who is the Client?
• Who is the Customer
• Who will use what the project makes?

A large number of project problems and project failures are caused by not having an answer to one of  these three questions.

When we have the answer to these questions we can start to ask questions about value.

Note: Dealing with constraints and boundaries

I always find constraints and boundaries worth time investigating in depth

• Constraints that mandate certain features often lead to complaints from the team as they have to implement “zero value” features. These kinds of features are “Table Stakes” or “Must Be” in the Kano Model: the whole product has no value unless those features are there. For example: in a regulated industry, all the work and deliverables to pass a required audit may not seem to have a value, but they are the price to pay to be in that market. We can include these kinds of features in two ways: additional stories (for example: “TO assess what needs to be tested AS A certifying authority I NEED a list of changes in the release with their architectural impact“) or as Acceptance Criteria that apply to all User Stories (for example: “Is this User Story’s design documented in the architectural impact document?” ). How do we prioritize these stories? Simply, they get no business value but get marked as Table Stakes. When planning, these go to the top of the priority list.
• Constraints that mandate certain technologies to be used may put undue limits on our creativity, but can make good sense: if the product is to be maintained by the Client’s organisation it should use technologies with which the Client’s people are familiar.
• Being able to break through constraints or boundaries can create an innovative and unique product. Systems Thinking and Conflict Resolution techniques can be very helpful here. Always question constraints, boundaries and the assumptions behind them!

If snow makes you think, here’s a collection of entries featuring the white stuff in various guises:

• A Wintry Summer’s Day – Expect the Unexpected to increase your number of options
• Life in the Cold - First Contact with Finns in Finland
• Snow Joke – Quality as a matter of personal pride
• Winter Wonderland – The KISS principle for adults
• A Winter’s Tale – The Gift of the Present
• An Agilist for All Seasons – Be prepared! in order to turn obstacles into challenges 

Wrap up warm! You don’t want to catch a chill.

The snow arrived in London several hours later than predicted and by bedtime last night, many of the suburban roads were covered, including some sleeping policemen. The good news is that London has been transformed, yet again, into a place of beauty, with all its carbuncles and pimples smoothed over by Nature’s white collagen.

London’s Learning

The better news is that London’s learning. This second time around we managed to stock up enough grit, mobilised the various gritting units in time and by early evening last night, most of the roads were gritted, to the relief of drivers and pedestrians alike. There’s also enough food in my cupboard in case of a snow-in.

Prepare to Enjoy!

The result? We can enjoy the snow this time around instead of seeing it as an impediment or disaster. A classic example of the Girl Scouts’ motto in action: ‘Be prepared!’ – intended to be an instruction, warning and wake-up call. By being prepared, we can turn obstacles into challenges, adversity into opportunity, strife into collaborative achievement. The trick is to train hard and ‘Be prepared!’ What do you do to keep your tools sharp and varied?