On Tuesday, we looked at a simple idea: a new Sprint does not erase the history of work already in progress.
So what can that history tell us?
Velocity shows how much estimated work a team completed in previous Sprints. Throughput counts the items completed over a period. Both tell us about finished work, but neither tells us how long a particular unfinished item has been in progress or has been waiting.
Continue reading What the age of unfinished work can tell usA Sprint gives a team a useful rhythm. At its end, we inspect what we have achieved and plan what comes next.
But unfinished work does not become new work just because a new Sprint has begun. It carries its history with it.
Continue reading The Sprint ends, but the work’s history does not disappearA Scrum team completes an Increment. What happens next?
If the answer includes, “It waits”, the team may have uncovered a wider problem in the delivery system.
Choose a recently completed Product Backlog item (PBI) and follow its journey beyond the team.
Where did it go after it met the Definition of Done?
Continue reading Where does completed work actually wait?A Scrum team can be highly productive and still struggle to deliver value quickly.
The team may complete its Sprint Goals, maintain a healthy Product Backlog and regularly produce a usable Increment. Yet that work might then wait days or weeks before reaching the people who need it.
The problem may not be within the team. It may be the wider system around it.
Continue reading A productive team can still belong to an inefficient systemA while ago, I came across a post on Instagram from a psychologist. Sadly, I didn’t make a note of who wrote it.
The post was about dating after the end of a relationship. One idea in particular stayed with me: when you begin a new relationship, you don’t arrive as a blank slate. You bring aspects of the previous relationship with you.
He said, “Your nervous system is still calibrated to your last relationship.”
Not necessarily because you want it to be, but because experience shapes expectations. Things that happened before can affect what you notice, what you worry about and what feels safe.
And recently I’ve been thinking: the same is true when we start a new job.
Continue reading What we carry into a new job
