John Cutler Profile picture
Jul 15, 2018 5 tweets 4 min read Twitter logo Read on Twitter
Heard (again) that #design and #ux is somehow incompatible with #agile (which to most, means #scrum).

..that ppl can’t always jam their work into little increments

..that MVPs suck because they’re never improved

..that work can’t always be boiled down into a “ticket” 1/n
...that #design is more than screens...a more holistic view is needed

...that an output fixation is killing products

...that quality shouldn’t be sacrificed just to get stuff out the door

...that craft should be respected

...that #ux debt sucks 2/n
...and you know what? Those exact same things are muttered by engineers/QA all the time.

They have nothing to do with #agile, but everything to do with paint-by-numbers approaches to “delivery”, org silos, and overly simplistic “#design then build” models. 3/n
Engineers and #design tend to both care very deeply about the impact of their work.

As equal members of a team (and that’s the crux), there’s plenty of room for “inspect and adapt” and figuring out something that delivers value to customers and feels good as a contributor 4/n
Finally... this idea that [insert function X] needs to figure out how to “do #agile” is wrong. Do what works, and in so doing, you’ll draw from SOME patterns/approaches that fall under the Agile umbrella, and many that do not. #agile is ideas and a community, not rules. 5/5

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More from @johncutlefish

Sep 30, 2018
So let’s take an org that is experiencing 50%+ drag due to technical debt.

You would think that would ring alarm bells everywhere, right? It would be all hands on deck fixing the issue, right?

Well... (1/13) #leanagile #devops
“How could YOU ever let it get this way?”
“Well, WE’VE been warning YOU about it since.”
“But YOU never said it would be THIS bad!”

“We did. You’d ask for a plan. We’d give you a plan. You’d say no way. And then we’d settle on a band-aid like 10% time” (2/13) #leanagile #devops
Typically, someone was raising the alarm, somewhere. But it all got watered down...

the org was experiencing growth, hiring lots of people, launching new products. So much noise. Little signal.

“Oh, it’s just developers complaining...” (3/13) #leanagile #devops
Read 13 tweets
Sep 18, 2018
Company Culture Is ...

- What you say, and how often you say it
- What, when, and how you celebrate
- The losses and missteps you acknowledge, and how you respond
- How you behave when the chips are down
- What you fight for at all costs
- The corners you cut

(1/4) #culture
- Who you hire, promote, and compensate, and who you fire
- Who you “smoke out” until they leave the organization
- The worst behavior you accept and the best behavior you reject
- The voices you amplify, and the voices you suppress

(2/4) #culture
- When you encourage conformity, and when you promote diversity
- How you handle disagreements and differences in opinion
- How and where you spend your time and money
- What gets discussed out in the open, and behind closed doors

(3/4) #culture
Read 4 tweets
Sep 5, 2018
Here’s something you see often w/ teams and #kanban

Team: “Can we move cards backwards?” (1/11)
When this happens, we’re in a pickle. In true pull-system fashion, the developer has pulled another card. Test finds an issue that demands developer’s attention. What to do? (2/11)
One solution is to say “hey dev, you can only be on two things at once...one of which is developing”. Seems reasonable...and keeps their bandwidth open to fix issues. (3/11)
Read 12 tweets
Aug 19, 2018
Some #prodmgmt Qs for interviewer... (1/4)
- technical debt
- recent prod issues / reactive work
- direct access to customers
- attrition rate for PMs
- typical calendar / mix of activities
- last 5-10 prod decisions and outcomes
- details of decision making process
- metric you must drive to be successful
- psych safety on teams
- dedicated #ux ?
- how team missions are crafted
- autonomy over roadmap ?
- deployment pipeline, ease of collaboration
- access to product usage data (tools?)
- current “big bet” and key unknowns

#prodmgmt 3/4
- career development (conferences, training)
- incentive structure for team members
- amount of pre-committed work
- examples of PMs being reward for specific behavior
- details of approvals, sign-offs, roadmap reviews
- overall product “culture” (role of product)

#prodmgmt 3/4
Read 4 tweets
Aug 14, 2018
[thread]...Some two column tables. Apparently I enjoy this :)

(1/7) Our intuition says ... instead try
#prodmgmt #kanban #agile #lean
(2/7) What you say ... what they hear/think
#prodmgmt #kanban #agile #lean
(3/7) Evolving product manager role .... moving towards
#prodmgmt #kanban #agile #lean
Read 7 tweets
Aug 12, 2018
#kanban tips (1/3)

Model the work, not the “workers”. With team member magnets, checklists, and markers...the bottom design can more than adequately model the work

If work ever “moves left” (e.g. QA/demo passes an item “back to dev”), then the top dsgn breaks. It is all doing.
Another classic anti-pattern is team/individual lanes and “splitting” the work. The bottom option will probably catalyze the right conversations....though the top option with string can also do the trick. (2/4) #kanban
A compromise if teams want their own card for some reason... is a hybrid board with “epics” (larger chunks of work), and all of their related cards.(3/4) #Kanban
Read 5 tweets

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