John Cutler Profile picture
Sep 5, 2018 12 tweets 4 min read Twitter logo Read on Twitter
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)
Another approach is to have a WIP limit across Development and Testing. Even if we move an item from Development to Testing, we will not be able to “pull” a new item into Development until something moves from testing to Done. The developer better help with testing :) (4/11)
We can indicate that items move from a period of development and test plan refinement to a period of testing and fixing issues. But keep a WIP limit (2) for a combined phase called “development & testing”. This prevents overloading in case issues arise...(5/11)
We can add things to the cards themselves to indicate who has “the ball” ... (6/11)
Super high level, we don’t let things “move left”. Why? Because our columns don’t represent functional groups, people, teams, etc. If there’s any chance a designer will need to assist a developer, or developer a tester ... we need to visualize that. (7/11)
When you have columns represent people/functions, and those functions are needed elsewhere, you get something like this .... people have to stop their work in progress and go downstream (8/11)
With #kanban we want to represent things as they actually are. With most prod dev work we have a combination of:
- currently has the ball
- contributed, is ready to assist again
- is monitoring/doing prelim work (9/11)
It’s loops...not parts moving across a factory floor. Which means we need to accommodate for collaboration and refinement. (10/11)
It often looks more like this... (11/11)
All this to say that to accurately represent their workflow — not their theoretical workflow — many teams would be better off with To Try | Trying | Reviewing, and a judicious use of stickers, flags, etc. Don’t use columns to depict people...rather actual activities (12/11)

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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
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
Jul 15, 2018
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
Read 5 tweets

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