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 systemAgile teams can fall into a trap that looks productive from the outside.
Everyone is busy.
Everyone has work.
Everyone is occupied all day.
But busyness is not flow.
Flow is not about making sure every person is fully utilised. It is about helping valuable work move through the system smoothly, with as little delay, friction and interruption as possible.
These are not the same thing.
Continue reading Busyness is not flowOne question I’ve heard repeatedly from managers moving towards agile ways of working is this:
“But what happens if someone finishes their task early?”
On the surface, it sounds like a practical concern.
Underneath, it’s often something else entirely.
What’s really being expressed is anxiety about visibility, value and safety in an uncertain system.
Over time, I’ve come to see this as a clash between two different value systems.
Continue reading When ‘keeping people busy’ feels safer than finishing work
