retrōspectus

aka "looking back" — thanks Joe... Joe Justice is author of Scrum Master, published in 7 languages. Joe lectures globally and certifies professionals in #JoeDX which represents the business practices, culture, and operating model used within Elon Musk’s companies, as interpreted by Joe Justice, a former Tesla employee.

Sprints: Looking Back

As a Jonah's Jonah in Dr. Eli Goldratt's Theory of Constraints (TOC), I have added a number of "tools" to The Logical Thinking Process (TLTP) that others may not consider important. Among them, Use Cases (thanks to Ivar Jacobson and my Object-Oriented Programming career), Scrum, and the OODA Loop (thanks to Bill Dettmer adding it to TOC with his landmark book [now in its second edition], "Strategic Navigation").

SIDENOTE: The late Colonel John Boyd, an Air Force officer is one of the most respected officers ever, by U.S. Marines. However, that is a story for another day. #SemperFidelis

Two of the elements from Scrum are extremely important to TOC, as there is not enough focus on two areas within the methodology:

Sprints

Stand Ups

I discovered Scrum circa 2011 or 2012 in a startup for which a colleague was a founding member. As I studied the concept at length, Agile (with a capital "A") offered nothing over TOC, but within Agile circles, this tool box called Scrum was quite profound. But like most breakthroughs, it was and remains misunderstood in too many cases. Plus, outside of Agile, Scrum is just not that popular. #sad

So what is a Sprint

All four components work extremely well within TOC, and in my TLTP "Jonah" course, titled Most Critical Thinking Isn't, I point out where, when, and how I do so.

retrōspectus

The Retrospective is today's lesson. From Latin, it means to look back. Goldratt covered a major aspect of this in his Five Focusing Steps:

#5 Prevent Inertia from Becoming the Constraint: Once a constraint is addressed, the process should be repeated to prevent inertia from becoming a new constraint. This step emphasizes continuous improvement by returning to the first step and identifying the next constraint.

But wait, there's more!

A project (and I treat anything with more than three simple steps as a project) can have numerous Sprints. Maybe hundreds! But not until Joe used the term 73 times in his book Scrum Master — The Agile Training Seminar For Business Performance, did I sit up and take it to heart.

Furthermore, what is crazy about Joe Justice 's focus on this action is that Tesla does NOT do formal Sprints! Why? They are moving WAY too fast! Check it out in Chapter 21.

Within my TOC projects, it is mandatory that we do a Retrospective after each Sprint. And in TOC the perfect Sprint corresponds to each logic tool and its use. For example, in the Root Cause Analysis (Current Reality Tree in Goldratt-speak) you might have one Sprint for The Wailing Wall (shout out to Tanya Ross-Lane for renaming Goldratt's "Bitch & Moan" session into something more appropriate).

How

At the close of the 90-minute Post-It Note session, we can quickly review the notes out loud as we seek Clarity (one of the formal rules of Logic within TOC), which is defined as a "complete understanding" of what has been written. In other words, it is easy to get lazy or lax in writing down "what went wrong" on the small notepad.

The retro look helps with the next step, grouping the notes by like causes. The more clear the statements on the note, the better the logic.

Another aspect is that reviewing the notepads, it should help to know the kinds of things that get revised so that you watch for them during capture, reducing the time spent on this phase next time.

If these posts on LinkedIn are beginning to make sense, or even better, if they make no sense but yet you are beginning to realize that you are leaving money on the table, we should talk.

Together, we can disrupt the Status Quo in your world.

Which, would be a good thing.

P.S. Ready to sign up for class? #getRdone