3. Transforming Ways of Working
Bring Your Transformation to Life With Ceremonies & Feedback Loops
A ReBoot Co. blog series that helps you & your teams discover a better way of working.
"Transforming" your ways of working to be more Agile and to use more Lean techniques can be disappointing at times, it's hard to get change happening… and to get it to stick.
Investing time and energy into training, measuring maturity and spreading the word is important, but Transformations are really made and conquered in the doing - rather than the talking, training and measuring.
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In order to get your transformation leaping into life, start by putting Ceremonies and Feedback loops in place, and not just at the team level. Ceremonies and Feedback loops are key to Transformation at all levels of the organisation.
The following outlines the basics in starting to "Do".
START SMALL: THE TYPICAL AGILE TEAM
First take ceremonies at the smallest team or squad level as a given of what a typical 'Agile' software team does, that is, they:
Plan collaboratively at a Planning Event
Have a Daily check in to stay aligned to team goals
Share their delivered work for feedback
Continuously improve via collaborative ideas.
Prioritise new work via collaborative Backlog Refinement
These 5 Agile basics are the ceremonies and feedback loops that make our small self organising teams able to perform. If this is unfamiliar to you or you’d like a refresher, visit the ReBoot Co. Learning Space where you’ll find Agile Fundamentals - an online course designed to provide the foundations and building blocks of Agile.
SCALING UP: THE TEAM OF AGILE TEAMS
Transforming at all levels of the organisation can accelerate if we apply the same concepts of those small team based ceremonies at other "scaled up" levels of the company.
A larger team that consists of several Agile teams that share a united goal to deliver value can:
Plan collaboratively at a mid term Planning event
Have a frequent check in to stay aligned to that uniting goal
Share their work with the team of Agile teams for feedback
Continuously improve as a bigger team of Agile teams
Choose the ideas for delivering value via collaborative prioritisation
Putting these 5 ceremonies in place is an important first step of "doing" to get the whole system of work kicking in. Training yourself to see the Ceremony AND the Feedback Loops will really get it humming.
1. Mid Term Planning >> “Plan collaboratively at a Planning event"
The Ceremony
This ceremony is one of some controversy, the SAFe Agilists have formalised it as "PI" (Program Increment planning). It is often criticised for elements of being too performative, too hectic with hundreds of attendees and too large a batch for planning. We coach companies to use it as regular alignment, a chance to re-articulate objectives that connect people to the "why" behind the ideas that are chosen for delivering value. Also known as Quarterly Planning or Big Room Planning this ceremony benefits from strong facilitation from people who have done it in the past. Done well, it can be energetic, engaging and a way of compressing ideas and input from many sources into a forward plan that unifies and motivates the masses.
The Cadence
Large Corporates tend to settle on quarterly cadence. Medium and small companies might increase the cadence to once every two months or even monthly, the more dynamic the business the more frequent the mid term planning can be.
The Feedback Loops
"What value we can deliver?" The undeniable output that can be attained by this mid term planning is that the Team of Agile Teams starts to get a sense of what can be delivered of value in that period. They are also confronted by the reality that people tend to underestimate the effort that is required to deliver. These observations allow people at all levels of the organisation come to terms with the challenges of the system of work, they learn to push less INTO teams, and focus more on prioritising what's really valuable. For all the naysayers of Big Room planning, this is one of the most valuable insights a company can attain from these events. An important pre-cursor to mid term planning is the continuous improvement ceremony, where we find out "What we DID deliver."
"What level of dependencies do we have?" Another piece of feedback is the level of dependencies teams have, with that information they can start to reduce the dependencies, decompose problematic architecture and free teams to release value more frequently to their customers.
The Artefacts/Visual Management
The Program Board/Planning Board - You may have seen examples of these, pictured below, that show when teams need things from each other. These visualisations of the team of Agile team’s work are very powerful to senior managers, to appreciate the complexity teams are dealing with.
The more red string the more dependency and complexity
2. Scrum of Scrums >> "Have a frequent check in to stay aligned to that uniting goal"
The Ceremony
Once we have a mid term planning event, it's useful to check in with how the work is going. At this frequent fast check-in we talk through what is blocking the teams, what other work they are blocking and any needed changes or replanning that’s needed. These are commonly referred to as Scrum of Scrums, and appear in a few of the formal scaling methodologies. A representative from every team attends and speaks on behalf of the teams and any curious leaders. If this is new for an organisation then experienced facilitation will help.
The Cadence
Generally once a week or once every two weeks is enough of a touch-point to keep most teams aligned in delivery.
The Feedback Loop
"How difficult is it to deliver?" The amount that dependencies, risks and blockers hold up teams is on show at these events. Immersing leaders in these insights can be helpful. Problem solving as a group and understanding how to remove blockers is empowering when done collaboratively. People having to deal with these things as individuals without a Scrum of Scrums event in place is not very very empowering at all and could be a source of waste and misalignment. Scrum of Scrums helps teams to be more efficient and effective.
The Artefacts/Visual Management
Some teams use the Program Board itself, some move to using a Kanban board to watch the work flow and highlight blockers. Having some visual management is key to keeping this ceremony engaging and useful. A simple shared Visualisation preserves the thread of progress without needing a lot of work preparing slide packs and reports in advance. You can effectively replace a whole Project Office with some light visual management of teams of a team of Agile team’s work.
3. Group Showcase/Demonstration >> "Share their work with the team of Agile Teams for feedback"
The Ceremony
Get everyone together and demonstrate what the Team of Agile teams have delivered, at a slightly higher level than a sprint review/iteration showcase.
The Cadence
Most companies can achieve this once during their planning cadence, my Agile sensibilities say more frequently would be better. My advise would be to ensure that it happens at least once, and towards the end of the planning period is better, focussing on what has actually been achieved.
The Feedback Loops
"Did we deliver what we said we would?" Like a team's showcase you want to see the value that has been delivered, the opportunity is to show whole working features and link them back to the original objectives shared in planning, and inspect to see what was actually delivered. A good metric is how many planned outcomes have been achieved, an important piece of data to take to the next mid term planning event.
"What else did we learn?" There are always changes, unexpected happenings and pleasant surprises that we can learn from, the group showcase is a place for sharing.
"What do you think of it?" A place for feedback from the other teams, it's important to get more perspective than your immediate team.
The Artefacts/Visual Management
The Working software and delivered value - avoid slide decks please! And increase the story telling if possible!
4. Group Retrospective/Tribe >> "Continuously improve as a bigger team of Agile teams"
The Ceremony
Group Retros are an opportunity to step away from the content of the work, and observe how the work is working. Attendees are generally a representative from all the teams and leaders, if you can get everyone to attend then the improvement opportunity could be richer, some companies find it hard to host and engage so many big sessions, so having representatives is a fair compromise to ensure that improvement is facilitated at this level.
The Cadence
Once a planning cycle and just before a new planning event is a good cadence, so that changes can be incorporated before mid term planning, however sometimes improvement ideas take more time to implement, so consider moving it the week before rather than the hour before!
The Feedback Loop
"How are we performing?" The Group Retrospective is where we really get to swim in our results as a team of Agile Teams. This is where the number of outcomes delivered metric is useful as hard data.
"What can we improve?" We can workshop some ideas to make any of the ceremonies, cadences or artefacts better. If we didn’t perform then what’s blocking our performance. This is where the System of Work can be tailored to meet the needs of the organisation, so it's advisable to get leaders to attend if their permission is needed to implement changes. If leaders don't attend and permission is needed, then the team is stuck unable to improve elements of the system of work. Conversely a truely empowered team and/or heavily engaged set of leaders are able to continuously improve.
The Artefacts/Visual Management
All of the evidence of the mid term planning cycle, the delivery of value, the visual management artefacts and importantly the measured results of the objectives - number of outcomes achieved are input into Retro. This is more than usually occurs at a team Retrospective. Experienced facilitation enables the teams of Agile teams apply data to their collaborative work at Retro. In addition a more formal write up of the outcomes and actions for sharing to the wider team of teams AND leaders is pertinent as context for changes they might see next cycle.
5. Program Prioritisation of "The Funnel"/Program Kanban >>"Choose the ideas for delivering value via collaborative prioritisation"
The Ceremony
A Regular catch up at to look at the Funnel of Ideas and make prioritisation decisions.
The Cadence
Weekly or fortnightly is a good place to start. Monthly may be tolerable for a very large organisation but a lot can change in a month, the danger of meeting less often is that teams will experience changes in priority that skip prioritisation and may come directly to the team creating chaos and potential waste in re-work.
The Feedback Loops
"What Ideas are coming up?" Understand the frequency of ideas that have potential for the organisation is important to get a feel for.
"What should we focus on?" Actively making prioritisation choices and getting real about tradeoffs and the volume of work currently in play.
"What is slowing us down?" Find out how blocked idea to value generation is. Do we have enough Focus on what is important? It can take many cycles for the people running the company to see the true pace of idea-to-market in their organisation, this ceremony is fantastic for making customer lead time transparent.
The Artefacts/Visual Management
A program Kanban works wonders for collaborating around prioritisation. Of course you can just read our previous blog on Prioritise your Priorities with Visualisation! to get a better feel for the entire topic of Program Prioritisation!
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These 5 classes of Ceremonies and their corresponding feedback loops are the beginning of learning by doing in your Agile & Lean Ways of Working Transformation.
TWO MORE PRO TIPS!
Ceremonies and Feedback loops can be found everywhere in organisations that leverage Agile and Lean approaches to delivering value. One thing I have observed over the years is that some ceremonies are very successful and well attended and some become less effective and start to be avoided. A few tips I've picked up from other practitioners over the years that seem to yield results are: Make it simple, Make it engaging.
The folks you are inviting to ceremonies need to understand what they are there for, in simple terms, and also deserve to have a good time in return for their participation. There are many ways to do this and we'll weave them into the blogs to come. It's a space where experienced Enterprise Agile coaches really earn their stripes, so consider getting some assistance when it comes to implementing Ceremonies and feedback loops.
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Tune in next time where we blog about the ultimate feedback loop for Transformation "Managing and Measuring your Transformation Success"
Looking to Take Your Teams to The Next Level?
Book a preliminary chat or even a coaching session with ReBoot Co. co-founder Alex Stokes to learn how we can help with your transformation needs. There are 30 minute slots for a chat, or 60 minute slots for a coaching session.