When tools stimulate interactions between individuals

When did tools become evil?

It’s disappointing how shallowly some fellow Agilists have chosen to interpret the first statement of the Agile Manifesto. “Individuals and interactions over processes and tools” 

We have somehow arrived at a point where many regard tools is synonymous with bad or improper Agile. For some people the use of 'tools' imply a devaluing of the human aspects of Agile.

However, where tools create insight, enable collaboration or reduce stress, then surely they make work more respectful of, and fulfilling for, the people involved. 

Have we come to laud the board too highly?

We are in danger of discounting the real value that is available to us, if we don't look beyond the board.

The daily stand-up of a team around a physical board enables an effective and very human kind of collaboration, which we rightly value very highly.

However, let us not overlook other aspects of collaboration which we risk losing by fixating on the board.

1 - There is a lot going on, at the team level, which remains un-see-able when using a board.

For example, trends are a vital consideration, whereas the board just provides a snapshot in time. Whilst we can derive trends from the board, these necessitate pretty dull manual work. Work which, in Lean terms, is non-value-adding and therefore waste.

2 - The team is working within a far broader and more dynamic system. It’s important for the team, and others, to be aware of and respond to the smallest changes in that system.
The flow of work (value) 'from idea to live' should be our collective focus.

3 - The physical board may work best for the team – however, are we in danger of sub-optimising the overall system by optimising for the team.

4 - Business stakeholders hold a slightly higher level understanding of the process. They wrestle with key questions like ‘are we on track?’ or ‘what am I likely to get for my budget or by a given date’.

These questions can only be answered if we look beyond the board.

5 - Many teams are dis-located and a tool is the only way in which they can share their work and collaborate.

6 - Much of the tactile visual cues of boards are available with a digital touchscreen, which I have been using with teams for the last 5 years. Whilst it doesn’t have the human element of analogue touch and feel, it is possible we have over-emphasised this aspect. 

Process telemetry: Real-time, data-based, visual feedback loops 

In the CSM training with Ken Schwaber in 2006 I remember his example of 'Empirical Process Control' in a complex chemical plant – the kind of plant that has telemetry everywhere, sensing whenever the system goes out of balance and adjusting accordingly.  

The Scrum Guide states. 

Scrum is founded on empirical process control theory, or empiricism.

The cornerstones of which are: 1 - Transparency, 2 - Inspection and 3 - Adaption

We need to be sampling a dynamic system like software development several times a day. We cannot wait for the ScrumMaster to create a Sprint Burndown once a day or a Project Burn-up every two weeks

We have a data-rich environment, where most of the data comes ‘free’, resulting from movements of cards across the board, check-ins of code, automated tests and deployments.

This is a hugely valuable asset which remains largely untapped.

At recent workshops I have asked what visuals teams are using to guide and inform their teams. I am sorry to report that we’re still largely stuck using Sprint Burndown charts or Project Burn-ups based on velocity – mostly hand-cranked in Excel.

As a team we should focus on the state of work in the system right now; what’s the WIP, what items have got stuck or overlooked, where are the bottlenecks, which items in the backlog should the team refine next?  

Teams using SenseAdapt are finding that a shared, visual understanding of their complex work catalyses and deepens the collaboration.

The visual insights can be surprising, as they surface the weak signals within the wider system that their board was not previously picking up

All of this goes to the heart of Agile; dealing with complexity with frequent inspect and adapt cycles and the PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) cycle. 

For this we need leading indicators of change – not lagging metrics.

When Metrics became toxified

Metrics have become associated with governance, used to feed the process gods, or have created a cottage industry of Excel-wielding project managers. 

Both Jim Highsmith  https://jimhighsmith.com/velocity-is-killing-agility/  and Martin Fowler https://martinfowler.com/articles/useOfMetrics.html  caution about the potential downside of metrics. 

However they also clearly identify the value of doing it right e.g. tracking trends rather than absolutes and using throughput data to align a team’s capacity to the demand.

Let us re-frame ‘metrics’ as ‘data-based, real-time, visual feedback loops’.

We may then be able to move tools from being guilty by association with metrics towards being an enabler for the team to deal with complexity, stimulate collaboration and reduce stress. 

Slack: a collaboration booster 

For those still doubting the possibility that tools encourage interaction, I would put forward evidence from our, and millions of others, adoption of Slack. https://slack.com/is

Using Slack has transformed the way our small team of 10 homebased people have collaborated, often playfully, for the last 9 months.  Email traffic has plummeted and we have a real-time space where we can puzzle things out together.