Tag Archives: David McLachlan

Retrospectives – The Agile Practice Guide

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The Core Agile Practices

There are certain core Agile practices, that when you practice them you will gain the benefit of Agile whether you call yourself an Agile team or not. In fact, many different organisations might be using many different Agile Framework names, but not practicing many or all of these practices behind the scenes.

Knowing the practices themselves will also help you get a deeper understanding of Agile as an approach. The Agile Practice Guide by the Project Management Institute and Agile Alliance has all of this information, and this one in particular is retrospectives.

Check out the video and article below!

Agile Retrospectives

In Agile development a retrospective is a meeting often held at the end of an iteration of around two weeks. As we’ve seen, iterations can be between two and four weeks, where we’re usually releasing an increment that a customer can see, feel and touch. We’re getting that early feedback on whether they’re happy with the product and happy with the requirements of that product.

At the end of that iteration, now we have a short meeting to discuss what was successful, what could be improved, and how to incorporate those improvements and retain those successes that we’ve had in future iterations. That means as we’re going along we’re improving and getting better. So we ask ourselves:

  • What worked well?
  • What didn’t work well?
  • What have I learned?
  • What still puzzles me?

By asking these questions and putting the feedback that we’re gathering back into our process, we are continually improving.

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Daily Stand Ups – The Agile Practice Guide

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Daily Stand-ups

There are certain core Agile practices that you may already be performing as a team – and if not they are very easy to start.  Direct from the Agile Practice Guide, and by the Project Management Institute and Agile Alliance, this is a guide to daily stand-ups as they relate to Agile and Agile project management.

Check out the video and article now!

What is a daily stand-up?

Daily stand-ups are short meetings to update the team on what we’ve done since the last meeting, and what we intend to do before the next meeting. The intention is also to help remove any blockers and make sure everything is flowing nicely. In that way a daily stand-up is a short meeting that’s used to micro commit to each other as the whole team. With the whole team approach we’ve got everyone involved in the one place – it’s a cross-functional team. Everyone necessary is in the one place to produce this product or complete this project, so when micro committing to each other and uncovering and removing blockers we’re raising them in this short meeting called the daily stand-up.

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The Agile Practice Guide Video Course

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The Agile Practice Guide Video Series

The Agile Practice Guide – Video and Audio Series

Have you ever wanted to learn about Agile, but did not know where to start?

Start here.

Directly from the Agile Practice Guide, which is a book designed to add Agile to the prestigious Project Management Professional (PMP) qualification by the Project Management Institute and Agile Alliance, this video and audio series takes you through the whole range of their Agile lessons.  From project life-cycles (why and when to use Agile), though to the common practices you will see, and the many different Agile and Lean Frameworks that have evolved over the past 30 years.

This free guide will help you get up to speed quickly, even on some of the rarer parts.

Check it out now!

Agile project lifecycles video  1. The different type of project life cycles – Waterfall, Iterative, Incremental, Agile (and Hybrid)

Project Lifecycles agile waterfall video  2. When to use Agile, Waterfall, Iterative or Incremental project approaches

Agile Manifesto and mindset video  3. The Agile Manifesto and Mindset

Agile 12 clarifying principles  4. The 12 Agile Clarifying Principles

The Agile Core Practices

Agile Whole Team Approach  5. The Whole Team Approach

Agile Early and Frequent Feedback  6. Early and Frequent Feedback

Agile daily standups video  7. The Daily Stand Up

Agile Retrospectives Video  8. Retrospectives

Agile Practice Guide Release and Iteration Planning  9. Release and Iteration Planning

Agile Practice Guide Collaborative User Story Creation  10. Collaborative User Story Creation

Agile Practice Guide Demonstrations and Reviews  11. Demonstrations and Reviews

Agile Practice Guide Continuous Integration  12. Continuous Integration

Agile servant leadership video  13. Servant Leadership

Agile and Lean Frameworks

Agile Scrum  14. Agile Frameworks – Scrum

Agile Kanban  15. Agile Frameworks – Kanban

XP Extreme Programming Agile  16. Agile Frameworks – XP, Extreme Programming

Agile_Practice_Guide_Feature_DrivenDevelopment  17. Agile Frameworks – Feature Driven Development

Agile_Practice_Guide_Crystal  18. Agile Frameworks – Crystal

Agile_Practice_Guide_Auxiliary_Methods  19. Auxiliary Agile Frameworks – DSDM, AUP, BDD

Agile_Practice_guide_Scalable_Agile_Methods  20. Scaling Frameworks – SoS, SAFe, LeSS, Enterprise Scrum, Disciplined Agile

Delivering_Agile  21. Agile Delivery – Team Charter, Burndown charts

Agile_Practice_Guide_Evolving_Organisation 22. Evolving the Organisation into Agile

I hope you enjoy!  – David McLachlan

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Want to learn about Lean? Get the book "Five Minute Lean", by David McLachlan - a wonderful book that blends teaching of the tools, culture and philosophy of traditional Lean with a modern-day Lean parable. You can get the whole book on Amazon here and enjoy your own copy.

The Agile 12 Clarifying Principles

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The Agile 12 Clarifying Principles

These are the principles that dig deeper into the Agile Manifesto and mindset. Check out the video and article below to see if your team truly follows the Agile concepts in the way that is right for you.

We’ve already had a look at the Agile manifesto and mindset where we value the items on the left:

  • Individuals and interactions
  • Working software
  • Customer collaboration
  • Responding to change

…more than the items on the right, which are your typical linear methods or waterfall approach. Now we’re delving into it in a little bit more detail using the Agile 12 clarifying principles. When we’re delivering in an Agile way of course you know we’re using iterations where we’ve got time boxed work of between two to four weeks and we’re often delivering an increment to the customer, which is a “feature” that they can see, feel and touch, just to make sure that everything is on track, that they understand what’s being delivered and that the requirements are fit for purpose. So number one is:

1. Our highest priority is to satisfy the customers through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.

And that’s done through that iterative and incremental approach that we will be looking at in this series. You’ve got iterations of between two to four weeks where we’re putting all that feedback back into the product and we’re getting that feedback from the customer. And increments, where we’re delivering a feature so that the customer can just tell for themselves whether the requirements are fit for purpose.

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When to Use Agile, Waterfall, Iterative or Incremental Project Life Cycles

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Project Development Lifecycles

Project Life Cycle Deep Dive!

Do you know when to use Agile, and when to use Waterfall?  Do you know the difference and benefit of using iterations versus increments, or both?  From the Agile Practice Guide from the Project Management Institute (PMI) and Agile Alliance, we look at the four types of Project Lifecycles and the best times to use them.

Check out the video below now!

We’re looking at the characteristics of project life cycles from the Agile Practice Guide from the Project Management Institute and Agile Alliance.

Previously we’ve looked at the different types of life cycles.  We’ve got the predictive life cycle which is your traditional waterfall approach – very step-by-step.

We’ve got an iterative approach where we’re iterating, and we’re not necessarily releasing something but we’re getting feedback on a regular basis, usually every two to four weeks.

Then we’ve got the incremental life cycle and that is where we’re actually delivering an increment to something usable that a customer can can use see feel and touch and getting that feedback as well using that approach.

Lastly the Agile approach which is both incremental and iterative so we’ve combined those two things or we’re iterating towards success building that feedback back into the product but also releasing that product on a regular basis to refine that work and to deliver frequently.

So let’s delve into the characteristics of these life cycles a little more deeply.

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21 of the Best Pieces of Research on Employee Engagement (and How To Motivate Your Team)

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Employee Engagement Research & Sources

If you’ve read any form of leadership literature over the past year there’s a good chance you’ve heard about the epidemic that is sweeping the globe, and has been for some time.  No country is safe – whether it is a first world country with all the benefits a person could want, or a third world country where workers are truly exploited.

That epidemic is employee engagement.

Low engagement across the world in what should be a meaningful endeavor – work, has strangled productivity and is robbing employees around the world of their energy and happiness.  You see, it’s only in the last 100 years that work has really been separate from the management and planning.  And that separation has led to meaningless work, separated from the customers who benefit or the outcomes they produce.

Now more than 70% of employees, even in first world countries, are disengaged in their work.

I’ve put together a manifesto with a clear step-by-step guide to improving employee engagement, and below are the sources for research that all point to the same thing: We crave clarity, regular checking in from our leaders where they focus on our strengths, and continuous improvement, and despite what you may have experienced the meaning we can get from normal every day jobs runs very deep.

Let’s check it out!

  1. The State of the Global Workplace, Gallup
  2. Growth Mindset
  3. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
  4. Hertzberg’s Two Factor Theory
  5. Happiness, income satiation and turning points around the world
  6. High income improves evaluation of life but not emotional well-being
  7. Eustress versus Distress
  8. Harvard Forces of Employee Engagement
  9. Self-Determination Theory and the Facilitation of Intrinsic Motivation
  10. SWOT Analysis For Management Consulting (Albert Humphrey)
  11. Do Employees Really Know What’s Expected of Them? Gallup
  12. The Million Dollar Checklist: Sustaining reductions in catheter related bloodstream infections
  13. The Person and the Situation – effects of environment on motivation
  14. Universal and Cultural Dimensions of Optimal Experiences
  15. Motivating Language Theory
  16. The Art of Motivating Employees
  17. Driving Engagement by Focusing on Strengths
  18. Inner Work Life: Understanding the Subtext of Business Performance
  19. Harvard, The Easiest Way To Change People’s Behavior
  20. Timing Matters: The Impact of Immediate and Delayed Feedback on Learning
  21. The Power of Feedback
  22. Google’s research on Clarity and Meaning

First, the statistics on the current engagement epidemic.

Continue reading 21 of the Best Pieces of Research on Employee Engagement (and How To Motivate Your Team) →

Lean Management For White Collar Work – DO NOT Be Fooled By Well Meaning Consultants

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Lean Management white collar

When it comes to Lean Management in general, there is a lot of mis-information and mal-practice out there in the world.  After all, Lean Management and operational excellence sound good at face value.  If it’s been well defined, it will look like “Quality, Delivery, and Cost” – improving quality and tasks being first-time-right, improving delivery times and getting things to customers (and team-mates) faster, and reducing cost.  But most companies and leaders don’t even get that far.

Add to this another challenge – that being a manager often involves many parts of a business, not just manufacturing.

These are areas in your business that need Lean Management too – like technology, software or website development, customer service, sales, administration, human resources, quality assurance, projects, training, change programs, communications and much more.  They can all benefit from the right approach and start to improve on those Lean Management measures of “Quality, Delivery and Cost”.  But it just can’t be done using the old Lean Manufacturing way.

So buyer beware – Lean is traditionally a manufacturing methodology, and few (if any) leaders have gotten it right when applying it to the other important parts of a business – parts that are considered “white collar”.

Every company, even if they are primarily in manufacturing, has these white collar areas to be managed and apply true Lean Management to.  Sales have to be made, scheduling has to be done, items have to be handed between departments, customers have to be served.

So how do we adjust this decades-old approach to a white collar world to achieve real success?  Simple – we strip the principles of Lean and operational excellence back to their core, to the outcome they are trying to achieve, and take the parts that give us a meaningful result as leaders and applying true Lean Management.

Five Steps to Lean Management for White Collar Work

Before we define Lean Management for white collar work, traditional manufacturing Lean is based on a handful of solid principles, most commonly shown like this:

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A Framework For Operational Excellence and Customer Obsession

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This is a powerful definition of Operational Excellence, how it relates to Customer Obsession and has a huge impact on revenue, profit and employee engagement.  You can download a PDF version for yourself, free.  Enjoy!

 

A Framework For Operational Excellence and Customer Obsession

Operational Excellence.  It’s a term most of us have heard, maybe even used, but when it comes down to it few people know what it really, truly means.  Operational Excellence certainly sounds like something we should want – after all, everyone would say they want their business or team to operate well, and we want it to be excellent rather than average, right?

We need Operational Excellence

Operational Excellence is important enough for Jeff Bezos (the richest man in the world and the CEO of Amazon.com) to mention repeatedly in his shareholder letters, so there has to be some value in it.  And let me ruin the ending for you here – because when it comes to well defined operational excellence there is massive value indeed.

It’s a strategy that has helped Amazon become the most feared (and revered) business of the century so far – sending whole industries running for cover at the slightest mention of working there.  It’s a strategy that helped Toyota thrive for over 100 years in one of the toughest industries on earth.  It’s a strategy that took McDonald’s from one store to over 36,000 stores worldwide, and it’s a strategy that enabled Uber to grow to more than 2,000,000 drivers worldwide.  Bezos says:

Congratulations and thank you to the now over 560,000 Amazonians who come to work every day with unrelenting customer obsession, ingenuity, and commitment to operational excellence.

 

The thing is, when Jeff Bezos talks about customer obsession, he’s not talking about meeting a customer at a cash register and giving them a smile.  He’s talking about reducing any friction a customer might have in doing business with Amazon.com, and making it ridiculously easy for them to buy (and continue to buy) from them.

Which gives us some good news.  When it comes to Customer Obsession and Operational Excellence, those two things are 100% related.

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Leadership Card 33 – Problem Solve for Exponential Growth

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Leadership Card 33 – Problem Solve for Exponential Growth

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Solving The Root Cause of Operational Problems

Wow, that’s a mouthful, isn’t it?  Solving the root cause of operational problems.  What does that even mean?  Well it must mean something, because Jeff Bezos (he’s the CEO of Amazon.com if you haven’t heard of him, and currently the richest man in the world) makes a point of doing it day in and day out in his business, and ensuring his managers do the same.

And it might sound fancy but in fact it’s very simple – find out what is bothering your customers, then don’t just fix it one time, fix the reason behind it.  Here’s an example from the book “One Click: Jeff Bezos and the Rise of Amazon” by Richard Brandt:

“When one elderly woman sent an email to the company saying she loved ordering books from the site but had to wait for her nephew to come over and tear into the difficult-to-open packaging, Bezos had the packaging redesigned to make it easier to open.”

 

He had the packaging redesigned.  He didn’t just apologize.  He didn’t go to her home and open the package one time.  He had the packaging redesigned so it wouldn’t happen again.

Lean Cartoon Next 352 Problems

Companies With the High Velocity Edge

A man by the name of Steven Spear found the same thing, through research in his book “The High Velocity Edge”.  Companies who outperformed others over long periods of time had leaders who:

  1. Designed their work to reveal problems and opportunities
  2. Solved the root cause of those problems
  3. Shared that knowledge throughout the organisation, then;
  4. Developed the problem solving skill in others.

This meets the actions of Jeff Bezos perfectly.  By solving the root cause of problems customers are having, they stop those problems from happening again.  They are saving time, money, and retaining customers.  Then by sharing that knowledge and building the problem solving skill in others, the managers and teams at Amazon.com are building upon previous successes in a way that starts as small improvements and gains, but soon grows to large gains as the improvements compound on each other.

Start and Finish with a Repeatable Process

Problem solving by itself may not give you the results you want.  If you improve something, but don’t lock in those changes, there’s a good chance things will revert to normal after a short period of time.

This is where a standard, repeatable process comes in to play.  By ensuring each product we sell, and each operational process we perform to get there has a clear, repeatable way of doing it, we can use that process to improve.  Something as simple as a checklist, or screenshots, can work wonders with ensuring everyone knows what to do and can do it the same great way every time.

Then when you improve things, you can lock in the changes by updating the process, checklist, screenshots (or any other way you prefer), so the improvement isn’t lost and you can continue to grow over time.

In that way, small incremental improvements will compound on each other over time, leading to large improvements overall.

In that way, solving operational problems is the key to operational excellence.  And by solving problems your customers bring to you (whether through complaints or other feedback) you are unlocking the door to a customer obsession mindset.

Chat soon – David McLachlan

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Leadership Card 32 – Checking In To Increase Engagement (and Customers)

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Leadership Card 32 – Checking In to Increase Engagement (and Customers)

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The Best, Most Loved Leaders Check in Regularly With Their Team

The Gallup business journal recently found that there is a very clear way to increase your team’s engagement in their work.  They found that leaders who check in at least once a week with each individual in their team, while focusing on their strengths, saw up to a 27% increase in engagement.

To put that into perspective, companies in the top quartile of engagement have enjoyed twice the revenue of companies in the bottom quartile of engagement, according to a study by Kenexa.  Other studies by Gallup have shown lower absenteeism (by 41%), improved sales rates, and significantly improved productivity in companies with highly engaged staff.  Improving your engagement by 27% could easily move you into that top quartile where all the magic happens.

Do you want to be a leader that everybody loves?  Check in with people regularly, and focus on their strengths.  Part of this comes down to another key to increasing engagement – in fact some people have called it the main key.  And that is progress.

Employee Engagement cartoon Making Progress

By checking in regularly with your team, and focusing on their strengths, you are facilitating both a sense of progress, and the likelihood of real progress itself.  Teresa Amabile found in her research and writings called “The Progress Principle” that people’s happiness increased when they had a sense of progress.  In fact, there’s a good chance you can relate to this.  How many times have you thought about (or actually gone ahead with) quitting your job or business plan because you weren’t making any progress?

So check in with your team, focus on their strengths, and make sure they are on the right track making progress.

Check In With Your Customers To Significantly Increase Sales

Retaining customers can be one of the hardest things in business, but when you get it right, studies have found very real increases in revenue and profit.  One study by the author of The Ultimate Question 2.0 (Frederick Reichheld) found that retaining an extra 5% of your customers led to an increase in profit of between 25% and 95%.  And if you think about it, it makes sense.  Most of the cost to acquire a customer is spent up front, with advertising, brand awareness, many meetings or phone calls and even steep sales discounts.  But once a customer has formed a habit of doing business with your company, there is a much lower chance they will go searching for something else.

And this is where feedback comes in.

It’s such a simple concept, yet almost no company does it well (outside of many of the best, most profitable companies).  You want to search out customer feedback.  Are you getting complaints?  Great!  At least your customers are telling you.  Don’t hide away from the complaints – they are free feedback that is worth its weight in gold if you know how to fix their problem and improve.

Customer feedback might take the form of a survey, a Facebook or Google review, a complaint (as we noted) or even praise (statistically less likely, but still nice).  And when we get any type of feedback, we want to solve the operational problems that lead to anything negative.

Lean Cartoon Fix Operational Problems

Work taking too long?  Solve the operational problem behind it.  Staff on-site leaving a mess after their work?  Solve the operational problem behind it.  Quality of the product not lasting long enough?  Solve the operational problem behind it.

And – here’s where things come full circle – the best way to solve operational problems is to ensure you have a standard, repeatable process in place and then check in regularly to ensure it is being done.  And if it’s being done, but the results are still bad, then you improve the repeatable process and roll it out again.

Rinse and repeat on your way to exponential growth – just buy me a beer when you pass your first million.

There’s the other side to this tale as well – as your business grows and you rely on repeatable processes more, if you don’t check in to see if those processes are giving you the outcome you want, there is a good chance you’ll run into trouble.  If you don’t check, you can’t adjust, and if you don’t adjust, you may not get the results you want.  Pilots check their course regularly on their way to their destination, and so should you, by checking in with your team, your customers, and making sure they are getting the outcomes they want.

Chat soon – David McLachlan

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