Agile 360 research shows clear correlation between team purpose, team commitment and predictability

As Agile Transformation Coaches and –Consultants we noticed in our daily practices, a clear correlation between the lack of a clear purpose and team predictability and team commitment.

Studying dozens of team results, using our Agile 360 app, we have been able to validate these assumptions.

It’s a cascading ‘stairs’ from purpose to commitment.

Each stairway has its own characteristics and its own consequences, towards the next stairway.

No (clear) Purpose

No clear purpose, or the lack of having one, makes it harder for a (lead) product owner to create a product vision.

No (clear) Product vision

Having no (clear) Product vision, makes it harder for team members to understand the team’s contribution to customer- or business value.

As a result, it’s more difficult to prioritise. If there is no purpose and no product vision, where are going to measure value to?

No (clear) Storymap

We often see teams without the knowledge of a clear purpose and without a product vision, struggle with creating a Storymap or a 3-month planning.

And that can’t be a surprise either. If you don’t know where you want to be, it’s hard to plan plan how to get there.

No (timely) identification of dependencies

While these teams don’t plan months ahead and have no clear roadmap, it is hard to manage stakeholder’s expectations.

As a result, stakeholders might demand for new functionality or services, that will hit the teams by surprise. And will most probably will impact the team’s product backlog.

Without a clear roadmap, it’s hard to prioritize the backlog and to discuss the customer or business value of Epics and Stories with stakeholders

Stakeholders will always argue that this new request is very important and should be prioritised accordingly.

That way the product backlog is constantly changing for the next Sprint(s), causing confusion and lack of focus for the team.

The same applies to dependencies that the team has with other teams, departments or business units. Teams that don’t plan ahead, will suffer the consequences. Architecture boards, design reviews, infrastructural demands and testing environments have to be managed up front. Not doing so, will cause delay for the team, while requests to others will come in late. Giving the others ample reason to not deliver the requested information or services the moment the team requires it.

No up-front backlog grooming

Teams that don’t plan ahead, most often don’t groom in advance. To be able to manage dependencies and to prevent that these turn into impediments, the rule of thumb is to refine 2 to 3 Sprints ahead, as a team. Our research also shows that teams that don’t groom two to three Sprints ahead, have significantly more impediments than teams that do.

No well refined Sprint goals

Teams that don’t refine their backlog in advance, almost always have less refined Epics and Stories and most of the time don’t use Sprint goals.

Sprint backlogs in these cases are often a collection of Stories, divided over multiple Epics, with little coherence.

The Sprint Backlog is often composed around team member’s and skills. The major objective being to ‘keep everybody busy’, instead of creating customer value.

As a result, team members are working solo on their own Stories, without much alignment.

Not meeting Sprint goal(s)

Team members that are working in isolation on their own Stories and tasks, often tend to work on Stories that are estimated to take the whole Sprint for one person.

At the same time, team members have a tendency to admit to tasks that are not (directly) related to the Sprint (goal). As a result, most of the Stories spill over to the next Sprint.

This pattern is amplified by the effect of ‘surprises’ by dependencies and by other teams that are not reacting to requests in time, while the team’s request came in late.

No predictability

Teams that do a poor job in meeting their Sprint goals and time after time, spill over their Stories to the next Sprint, have a very fluctuating and unreliable velocity. These teams are not predictable anymore.

Team members most often don’t see any use in keeping the burndown chart up to date, because the biggest part of the Sprint the burndown is showing a flat line.

Low commitment

Working in isolation, being surprised by dependencies, coping with multiple impediments at the same time, not being predictable, not meeting Sprint goals and having no clue on the customer value the team is delivering, eventually leads to low commitment by team members.

 To speak with the words of David Marquet, the question is; “How can we turn the ship around?”

At Agile 360 we have created more than 100 interventions to cope with the challenges of Agile teams. In my next blog, I will elaborate on interventions that has helped teams to cope with these challenges in the past.