Process
Process is how work flows from an idea to something delivered. There is no single right process: what fits depends on the complexity and uncertainty of the work, and on where you are starting from.
My work here draws on the Kanban Method, flow metrics, and Little's Law to make work visible, limit work in progress, and improve predictability. It also covers making Scrum work better, avoiding the common agile anti-patterns, scaling without losing sight of the system, and forecasting with data rather than relying on individual estimates.
Sound familiar?
- Too much work started and too little finished
- Forecasts that miss, however carefully they were estimated
- Scrum or SAFe adopted, but delivery hasn't really improved
- Work spends most of its time waiting rather than being worked on
Articles
- To Estimate or #NoEstimates, that is the Question
In memory of 400 years since the Bard's death, a look at the #NoEstimates debate.
- The ABC's of Software Requirements Prioritization
A simple A/B/C scheme that balances scope and schedule against the inherent uncertainty of software projects.
- The Context Leadership Model
Sheepdogs, colts, cows, and bulls: fitting practices to the complexity and uncertainty of each project.
Featured talks
-
Think in Systems, Deliver at Scale
Regulated, high-capital environments often see local optimization due to excessive constraints while the broader system stalls. We present a real-world AI deployment for real-time optimization of oil wells to show how shifting from local to system-level and Agile/Lean thinking unlocked learning, throughput, and scale. The result: a 14X+ increase in delivery velocity with improved quality leading to multiple millions…
-
Managing Flow in the Age of AI (podcast)
In this podcast conversation, Todd Little looks at how AI is changing the flow of work across the value chain, from product management and project management to development and testing, and what that means for the people and practices involved.
-
Scrum Better with Kanban
Has your Scrum implementation failed to reach the expected benefits or stalled out? You’re not alone – Jeff Sutherland, co-founder of the Scrum Framework has stated that 58% of Scrum implementations fail. The Kanban Method can help.
-
7 Sins of Scrum and other Agile Anti-Patterns
This is about agile “anti-patterns”: “something that looks like a good idea, but which backfires badly when applied” (Coplien). Todd has been around agile development from before it was called agile. In that time, he’s seen teams fall into the trap of many of these anti-patterns, becoming stuck without ever realizing it. Frequently, this is due to a dogmatic understanding of what is right and wrong about Scrum and…
-
Context Driven Agile Leadership
Too often people in the software industry propose the magic bullet "one size fits all" approach to leading and managing projects. As any experienced leader knows, each project has its unique characteristics and it is the context of these characteristics that must influence how best to lead and manage the project and the teams. The Context Leadership Model looks at uncertainty and complexity and has found that these…
-
To Estimate or #NoEstimates
The #NoEstimates twitter hashtag was intended by Woody Zuill "..for the topic of exploring alternatives to estimates [of time, effort, cost] for making decisions in software development. That is, ways to make decisions with ‘No Estimates’." Based on twitter traffic it has been successful at generating activity. It's a bit debatable as to whether it has really spawned much exploration. In this talk Todd will actually…
-
Mythbusting Software Estimation
In the world of software development, estimation challenges exist on multiple fronts. Teams are faced with estimating value, cost, and/or schedule at the task, story, project, and/or portfolio level. There are some agile practices that claim to help with estimation, including not doing estimation at all, but still many agile projects are challenged. In this session Todd will look into some of the reasons for these…
Related talks from other topics
Managed Evolutionary Change, The Preventable Pandemics - Stop the Transformationitis and the Reorganizationitis, The Foundation of Business Agility: Feedback Loops, The Kanban Mindset
Key papers
- To Estimate or #NoEstimates, that is the QuestionT. Little, C. Verhoef, submitted to IEEE Software
- Software Schedule Estimation and Uncertainty Surrounding the Cone of UncertaintyT. Little, IEEE Software, May 2006, Vol. 23, No. 3
- Context Adaptive Agility: Managing Complexity and UncertaintyT. Little, IEEE Software, April 2005, Vol. 22, No. 2