A 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 systemLean 5S is usually talked about in the context of factories, workplaces and production systems.
But it is also a powerful way to think about personal productivity.
At its heart, 5S is about creating an environment where useful things are easy to find, unnecessary things are removed and the system is simple enough to maintain.
That applies to a workshop. But it also applies to your home, your desk, your files, your inbox, your notes, your photos and your task manager.
Continue reading Lean 5S for personal productivityAgile has a funny reputation.
On a good day, it’s the way a team stays calm and effective in the middle of change. On a bad day, it’s treated like a system for making change stop happening.
And that’s where things go wrong.
Agile works with uncertainty; when we try to control it out of existence, we end up with certainty theatre and slower delivery.
Continue reading Agile doesn’t eliminate uncertainty. It manages itMost productivity advice treats capture like a filing exercise. Get ideas out of your head, put them somewhere ‘safe’, then sort them later.
That is useful, but it misses what is actually happening inside you.
Capture works because it externalises anxiety, not information.
Continue reading Capture works because it externalises anxiety, not information
