21:06:34 I will briefly explain what AsVPN has to look for.
21:06:41 As Dpm is a nonprofit organization founded to help professionals learn agile and scrum fundamentals.
21:06:50 The mission is to create a community of agile thinkers and practitioners to share lessons and best practices on project management from the trenches and offer newcomers hands on Project management experience through the Sv.
21:07:10 Pm. Scrum team program. Now, Silicon Valley Project management revolves around a blog site for technical project management with a focus on agile values and methodologies.
21:07:23 The product is its community. Svpm provides the agile environment.
21:07:29 Mindset bridges, the gap between academics and job experience.
21:07:36 For example, if you have obtained certain sort of certification and education, but would like to gain hands on experience as it go.
21:07:47 Developers run master, coach, or product owner. This is the organization that nurtures and offers opportunities to its members.
21:07:58 We will be adding a link in the chat now to the Sppm website, and if you have any questions, please post them in the chat, and we will gladly answer them all.
21:08:10 After the Asvpm community would like to expand, us, extend a special thanks to our founders, David Bacnia and Donald Strangari, who have built this organization around the learning, practice, of sharing and growing together and safety and
21:08:31 joy and developing the agile mindset. Now, without further ado, we had the privilege to have Larry Aki with us who will talk about the golden rule of Aja.
21:08:47 But first i'd like to give an introduction so last
21:08:57 Larry Appe is currently a principal coach at Team Mobile, and he is the chief agile officer at Job Packers job.
21:09:06 Hackers is a nonprofit organization that provides free training through the agile Mbi class in agile and scrum and provides workforce development via internships through a partnership with ripen for
21:09:21 those in work, transition, or unemployment. The agile Nba class not only teaches basics and agile and scrum, but takes a deeper dive into concepts that work with Scott such as theories constraint system
21:09:36 thinking. Many of us on the call, including myself, have benefited from the programs offered by job hackers.
21:09:44 Larry has been working in software development over 20 years and agile software development for over 10 years.
21:09:51 He has offered 2 books, has written blogs and involved with Podcasts a recognize and thoughtful leader in the agile community. Agileist trainer, insightful speaker!
21:10:09 With a droll approach. Larry frequently speaks to different groups, and at software events, one of his thoughts.
21:10:20 The way we be compared is simplicity rigorously applied.
21:10:26 Everyone attending the meet meet up, join me and the Asv Pm.
21:10:32 Community, and giving a warm welcome to Larry Avenue
21:10:41 Thank you, Felicia, that's awesome we need to hire you for my Pr. I would like to have a little bit of fun.
21:10:51 I like how you said I, I deliver it in a droll manner.
21:10:55 That some of you are used to I I see a lot of friends and and folks who are job hackers. if you're not a job hacker.
21:11:03 I can tell you a little bit about that. because I have the you gave me the bowl, or in here I i'm gonna use it. job hackers.
21:11:10 Some of this is outdated. I just pulled the slide.
21:11:14 Grow quick. I think it's been 5 years now and over I think it's over 6 million dollars free training.
21:11:20 We train literally thousands of people worldwide. and, as I speaking, I think some of you might have heard we had 325 people this morning in the class. I think, was the number of 340 or something like that we had
21:11:33 over 1,300 enrolled in the current class. We offer that class 4 times a year, as we call it, the Agile Mba.
21:11:41 The most recent class that we completed had 325 who who were able to receive certificates of completion, which means that they attended 6 or more trainings will probably have a higher number than that Well.
21:11:53 we've had a at this point over 1,700 I think very shortly.
21:11:59 It's gonna be over 2,000 people worldwide who have completed it.
21:12:01 The interesting thing that we never found out is people take it more than once.
21:12:04 Some of the people here have probably taken it more than once.
21:12:08 We never expected that. But we welcome people. we have a phrase once a once a job back, or always a job actor.
21:12:13 So it's kind of like catching a just a a a a chronic disease in some respects.
21:12:20 I guess the current class which is this one we had over 1,300 enroll from over 40 countries, and we're very proud of the diversity we've been able to have within our program this particular class that i'm that i'm
21:12:36 teaching now, at least from the enrollment numbers. we had over 70% women.
21:12:42 And this is something that I I won't say it's directly technology.
21:12:43 But it's tech it's certainly technology adjacent and to have those kind of diversity numbers in technology is is unreal.
21:12:52 I keep saying that Silicon Valley is is sleeping at the at the wheel, when they don't realize the value that job hackers can bring to companies because of the diversity of talent that we have over 70%
21:13:03 of our participants are non-white as well.
21:13:08 And the average age used to be 40 plus I don't know what it is. we're starting to get younger people in there, and that's fine.
21:13:15 This is the edge adules for all ages I keep threatening my son, who's 16 to make him take it.
21:13:18 I've made everybody else in the family take the class we've been named in the top 10 boot camps in San Francisco by Florida is called switch up dot org I've got a link in
21:13:29 there. and I could certainly provide this presentation it's no big deal. if you go to switch up and you look up job hackers.
21:13:35 We have a 4.9, 8 out of 5 stars.
21:13:39 Somewhere along the line. We must have lost somebody's luggage, and they dinged us that's just a joke. lot of people go on to take the professional scrum, master certification which you might be familiar with through
21:13:51 scrum org over 90% pass It on the first try That's the most recent data we have, and then we have this program where we do pay it forward.
21:14:00 Since we're we are putting on 16 h of free training, we ask people to volunteer 16 h worth of time and payment for the training that they receive, and so far we've logged up well over 30 to 3,200 h that
21:14:13 may not have happened before. for people who are doing volunteer work in their community. and some people are doing volunteer work, I believe, for for this particular organization as well, and that's part of that at pay it forward program so So enough about that
21:14:27 I want to talk about the golden rule of agile now most of you i'm hoping all of you since you're here are familiar with the agile manifesto and you're familiar with 4 values 12 principles if
21:14:43 you're not I encourage you to look it up not hard to find easy to read.
21:14:47 That was set out in 2,001 february 2,001.
21:14:50 When I think it's 17 individuals went up to utah and decided to write off a ski trip, and they had to have some work.
21:14:56 So that's what they did it's really a philosophy when you talk about values and principles, you're talking about a philosophy, and there's other things in life that are philosophies one of those is religion I believe
21:15:08 religion is way that we approach life it's philosophy at its at its root.
21:15:13 Most people have some concept of religion throughout the world they have different religions.
21:15:17 I'm not gonna pick sides on this so I don't get in trouble.
21:15:20 I was raised in the Council tradition. I think a lot of you will probably raise Catholic and or Christian at least, and if you're not familiar with the Western Christian religion.
21:15:31 There's a story about the 10 commandments it used to be on every Easter.
21:15:36 Charleston great movie they don't do that anymore, and the 10 Commandments.
21:15:43 The story goes like this: Mo Moses had kind of a direct line to God.
21:15:47 God spoke to Moses, and Moses went up to I believe it's a top of Mount Sinai.
21:15:50 If I have the geography right. and and God spoke to Moses and said, Here are your 10 commandments.
21:15:57 And he took those 10 commandments down to the people and i'm not quite sure what went on with that It didn't. I don't know if it went over really great and maybe just because as human beings we have this kind
21:16:11 of short-term memory of 7 plus or minus 2 and 10 was just too many.
21:16:15 I don't know. So later, in the in the narrative, a new character merges on the scene, most of you know.
21:16:24 Jesus merges in the Christian tradition, and he comes back, and he says, Look, are not doing such a good job with these 10.
21:16:31 Let me just give you one let me give you something I'm gonna call refer to, which which has been referred to as golden.
21:16:36 Well, I don't know if he says that because of the Golden Rule, he says, Look here's what you need to do.
21:16:41 There's actually 2 things this one is have no God other than this God, I think it's the first one, but set one is to go the rule.
21:16:47 Do unto others as you wish to be done unto you or something like that.
21:16:52 And we're all familiar with that even if you're not Christian. you're familiar with that, because I've I've studied comparative religions, and I believe that every religion in the world has this sense of treat others as you
21:17:04 would like to be treated and I was reflecting on that one time, and I was thinking to myself, you know these 4 values and 12 principals. Man, if we can't get 10 commandments right?
21:17:14 Yeah, we're talking 16, thanks to remember so I ask myself a simple question.
21:17:19 Could we come up with something that would suffice as a golden rule of agile?
21:17:25 If we take those 4 values, 12 principles, could we distill that into something very simple?
21:17:30 Maybe a one word, one sentence thing. so that one specifically because of my day job.
21:17:38 I I do a lot of talking to folks who are who are upper management people.
21:17:41 These are people who generally don't. have a whole lot of time for you So they're not gonna have they're not gonna sit through 4 values, 12 principles.
21:17:46 So I figured maybe I come up with something that's a little bit easier.
21:17:52 Little bit more palatable it it it seemed to work pretty well, for you know, in the Bible story, because there's still a a whole whole bunch of people who follow to tradition.
21:18:02 So I figured we'll give it a shot I know that in some ways it sounds a little egotistical doesn't it?
21:18:12 I can do the same thing anyway. here's what I came up with, and that was pretty recent.
21:18:21 Actually I was just this year i've been doing this stuff for a very long time.
21:18:24 I don't know why to come up with something like this a long time ago.
21:18:26 I kind of kicked myself in the head I came up with this, I think. January, February this year.
21:18:32 That's how new this is so I want to talk with you about it, because it's not something that I generally teach.
21:18:37 I think the the current class. We talked a little bit about it briefly, and it's simply this: We take the 4 values of 12 principles.
21:18:45 We deliver the optimal value to our customers at the shortest possible time.
21:18:49 We can words with that. if you want I think it's been pressure tested a little bit, because I gave a a talk to to, I think it was about 4,550 coaches last week or the week, before last and
21:19:02 if you anybody's ever worked with agile coaches if you get 50 coaches in room, you have 60 opinions, and so i've pressure tested it with my coach friends, and they didn't kill me they
21:19:14 didn't you know burn me. at the steak or anything like that, and they didn't have a whole lot of things that they wish to add or amend to it.
21:19:21 So I think directionally we're we're headed in the right direction, and I I would guess, and and I might even put money on it, though i'm not a gambling man that much anymore.
21:19:33 Like I used to be that if you looked at this you would probably agree that this is at least directionally correct that if we use this statement, we're going to inculcate the 4 values and 12 principles angel that's a
21:19:47 good thing, because then, when I started playing around with it I said to myself, we don't need a whole bunch of stuff, right?
21:19:56 I I I What what was the Felicia quoted of me?
21:20:01 And saying that you know in the world of complexity how we succeed is simplicity rigorously applied.
21:20:07 So I want to get back to that simplicity I think is a very simple statement, but I think it's I I think it's powerful, and it's simplicity.
21:20:17 Those 3 things we need to know. if we're going to follow this golden rule and those 3 things are value who are customers are, and some some concept of time. right?
21:20:35 So we have to have a concept of value. We have to have a concept of time, and we certainly need to know who our customers are and what they find value.
21:20:41 Not what I find necessarily, but what our customers, want by pretty simple right, and if that's the whole thing, you know the whole the whole ball of wax.
21:20:52 When it comes to agile, then it becomes really to me pretty easy. and there's certain things that I see on it fairly fairly regular basis that I think we could do a better job of let me show you how we can apply this how many people out
21:21:08 there familiar with concept of story points. I think most of most of you are a lot of you are story points, story points of estimation.
21:21:18 Let's apply this particular golden rule to something like story points So I have the slides that I present I I have fans in in in the dog world as well
21:21:37 I, this is a slide i've used in some of my other presentations.
21:21:41 So I pulled this slide out and I said Okay, how I apply this to the the particular slide this this particular side I've used before.
21:21:46 Well, i'm talking a lot about time and the slide I I Say, is story points.
21:21:51 You're using them wrong because a lot of folks don't use them optimally.
21:21:55 I don't like the words right and wrong by the way I don't use them very often.
21:22:00 I use them in this case just to be provocative, because I want people to pay attention.
21:22:05 If I use the word wrong i'm saying I don't use that word very often.
21:22:09 Please pay attention to what i'm having to say here time is about delivering.
21:22:17 So in in my class. I ask a very simple question I don't know who who wants to play.
21:22:21 I'm gonna play a little game little guessing game with me who was play guessing game with me.
21:22:26 Anyone raise your hand. No, I intimidated all of you.
21:22:30 Nobody wants to play, So is it. Tell me yep so we Zoe.
21:22:37 I'm gonna play a little guessing game though? he Do you own a car?
21:22:42 Do. I own a car Okay, so far, so good.
21:22:46 Second answer is gonna be, Yes, too, does it break down every once in a while.
21:22:49 Yes, i've had a call breakdown when that car breaks down. i'm assuming, and we'll see if i'm right about this you take it to a mechanic.
21:23:00 Is that correct? a friend, mechanic? Yes, 2 hardest things to find in the world.
21:23:08 This is according to my relationships with women in the past, and my wife is a good hairdresser in a mechanic, right?
21:23:18 2 hardest things to find right. so you find a good command a mechanic.
21:23:22 I'm glad that the mechanic is your friend when you go to your friend the mechanic, and you take the car to him.
21:23:25 You're going to ask potentially 3 questions i'm concerned with 2 of them.
21:23:32 And I. and you're gonna get these because everyone does this is why I can with some certainty in front of a group of people ask those questions.
21:23:39 What What are the 3 possible questions you're gonna ask of your friend the mechanic?
21:23:43 How much it's gonna cost and how long it's gonna take to fix.
21:23:48 There you go that's 2 or 3 and i'm gonna give you a bonus third question.
21:23:52 Do I have any technologist engineers, software developers out there?
21:23:58 No one. I got a few So So here's the third one that the the the the software engine, the engineers in the group are gonna ask what's wrong with it? right because you're curious about If you're engineer you're curious
21:24:14 about such things. Engineers are the type of people my brother is a chemist, so he's an he's a chemical engineer.
21:24:19 He works tomorrow. you're gonna have to view please He works for America Cosmetics down in Dallas Texas.
21:24:25 His Wife's name happens to be Mary kay so he works for Mary Kay all day.
21:24:30 He was the kind that when I got a toy for Christmas he had taken it apart within the first 2 2 days, right if not too that's because that's what engineers do that wanna see how things.
21:24:42 Work. But the first 2 questions were dead on you're gonna Say, how much and how long, and and this is what estimation is all about how much, tells us a little bit about to a certain extent.
21:24:55 What do we have to pay? and how long can I expect it right we should be able to tell those we should be able to give that information back to our customers?
21:25:04 If if I'm building a software product, which is which is where I spend most of my time and I know a lot of you are because we're Silicon Valley group, we're in software, if I'm building a software product my
21:25:16 business is gonna ask me those questions all the time. I should be able to give them some kind of understanding of how much it's gonna cost it when they're gonna get it.
21:25:27 And that how much it's gonna cost when they're gonna get.
21:25:29 It is really this concept of of at estimation or story point estimation.
21:25:32 How big is this thing right? How long is gonna take and so agile is value driven whereas in a lot of cases waterfall, is It's not that wonderful?
21:25:46 Is it's value-driven it's just we determine the value at the beginning.
21:25:49 And then we just we just set it up and then then run it through.
21:25:52 We don't ask questions about value as we're going along
21:25:58 Therefore, therefore, in order to follow the golden rule, we need to know 2 things.
21:26:00 We need to know the time it takes. to move something through the system and the value that we create when we move that item through the system, and in order. so in waterfall, Generally speaking, and I know i'm going to be rather simplistic so
21:26:17 stick with me on this you have a scope and you have a date, and within that scope it doesn't matter.
21:26:24 The order within which you take things you'll probably take them in a specific order.
21:26:26 But it doesn't matter because you're not going to necessarily do incremental delivery. you're gonna do big bank delivery at the end.
21:26:32 So it doesn't matter what you do in between I richard Keep shaking his head. that's gonna be distracting after a while, Richard. We'll get to the Q. and A.
21:26:39 Lighter agile. When is what it's all about and it's about delivering value quickly.
21:26:47 So in waterfall might have one date or 3 dates. a year, or 4 dates a year depending on how I do it, and agile we generally do things. If we're doing scrum, we might have 26 days we might have 52
21:26:56 days. The question is, when do I deliver these things and what sequence Do I deliver these things?
21:27:04 And so you're gonna hear me use the word sequence very frequently I'm gonna show you how we take advantage of it.
21:27:09 So in order to sequence properly I should look for something that is return on my investment, and those things with the least amount of effort and the highest value should be done first, and an ideal world.
21:27:23 Right you'll get how that works it's just mathematical.
21:27:28 So one of the things that we do when we're doing assessments is a lot of teams are not assessing the value of the work that sits on their backlog.
21:27:37 And a lot of teams are doing, the assessment of effort. but they're doing it at the wrong time, because they're making a assumption that the effort is, and it is used for predictability.
21:27:47 But they're making they're using it for spread planning They're doing it very late in the game.
21:27:54 I want to use value and effort to determine the sequence, that I could deliver things which means that I need to determine value and effort as quickly as possible, because if I don't know value and effort, how do I know where it sits
21:28:04 in sequence with me so far I I don't know how many, how many teams out there that you all work with.
21:28:15 I'm assuming some of you folks are out there you're working in a quote unquote real world we're in the real world now.
21:28:21 But how how many of you are assessing the value of each of the items in your backlog?
21:28:31 I don't see a lot of it in the wild maybe it's because as an agile coach, i'm like kind of like a doctor, you only come to me when you're sick.
21:28:36 Maybe there's a lot of healthy companies out there and I don't get to see him.
21:28:39 But I don't think we do that and I think we miss out on a lot of opportunities, and and again this comes back to this golden rule of agile.
21:28:51 Let's deliver the the optimal value the most possible value in the shortest possible time to our customers.
21:28:58 So the way we do it is relatively easy I I don't I don't.
21:29:03 I should have queued that up, and we could have went through that.
21:29:05 But those of you who have been through the course. We do it pretty simply.
21:29:08 We take everything we could do in our backlog, and then we do a relative exercise.
21:29:15 We get the developers together, And we ask a very simple question.
21:29:17 We say, Okay, I could do this thing or this thing which one takes more effort.
21:29:22 And what you end up doing is you do it on a whiteboard with sticking notes or virtual sticking notes.
21:29:26 These days you end up with from you know I do it from left to right.
21:29:32 That's the way we read the the least amount of effort on the left hand side.
21:29:34 The most amount of effort on the right hand. side. and everything in between. and it's all relative to each other. and then we start grouping, and we start putting numbers on, and that's. How that is the way I think is the optical way to do
21:29:47 storypoint is relativity I don't i'm not a big fan of planning poker, and certain other things, because it's too slow.
21:29:59 I want to know as quickly as possible, just like Zoe.
21:30:03 Once all he goes to mechanic I want to know how much is gonna cost me, and I want to know as quickly as possible.
21:30:08 Let's let's go back to to to the 2 questions because I didn't finish my my assessment here.
21:30:13 I hope you're still with me why do you ask those 2 questions that we So I can figure out logistics if I need to get to work and see if it's something that I can afford Yeah, So So let me
21:30:26 i'm gonna reward a different way. and you tell me if I rewarded and correctly, you want to be able to plan the future.
21:30:30 Is that correct? I agree we should be able to do the same with our products, because I I believe, planning and predicting the future, even though we're not gonna be perfect doing so is the hallmark of good business.
21:30:45 If you cannot plan the future, and you can only plan 2 weeks at a time, and you cannot look beyond the length of the sprint to see what's possible, How can you make good decisions?
21:30:59 All your decisions are gonna be short-term decisions. We we have that problem now with with companies that are public companies.
21:31:04 They have to report every quarter, and they have to get bigger and stronger and faster, and grow every quarter, and they do sell to a certain period of time. and then eventually
21:31:12 I was reading an article about apple apple growth is slowed, cause I think everybody in the world that wanted an iphone is already bought on, and we're not going to switch them out every year as much as they might want us
21:31:23 to eventually you're gonna run out of people right you can't grow forever, Anyway.
21:31:30 So we need to do this assessment as quickly as possible, and we do it in relative term.
21:31:37 The value stuff is easy, too, because the value is the same thing, except for different people.
21:31:42 I want to take people who understand from the business side, and and even my customers might get close enough to them.
21:31:49 Maybe our customer representatives. I want to get them in a room, and I want to ask a simple question.
21:31:53 I have a whole bunch of things I can do on my backlog.
21:31:55 I could do this thing today, or I could do this thing today which one brings more value, and that's the way I phrase it, and I keep it really simple. What do you mean?
21:32:05 Say money reduce costs whatever avoid litigation I don't care.
21:32:09 Give me your knee jerk response which one's more valuable.
21:32:12 You have an opinion. don't overthink it we take those things.
21:32:16 We put them in groups. We give them numbers Now i've got 2 numbers for everything in my backlog.
21:32:21 That's really important, Because now I can get to what i'm going to refer to as the ideal sequence, because the ideal sequence follows that agile golden rule looks something like this: We did this with my group in in the
21:32:35 class you'll notice the things that i've highlighted, because those are the things that associate with the golden Rule.
21:32:43 This is a backlog with effort of value for each one of those items, and you'll notice that we have taken and created a third column called value to Effort ratio, and the higher the number we've done a reverse
21:32:54 sort. This is excel I don't need a fancy tool like you're a line or anything like that most of the tools don't work, anyway. anyway.
21:33:00 When you try to do this. Unfortunately, usually usually when I work with Jira, I go to companies.
21:33:06 I work with you, and they have 500 fields I need like 5.
21:33:10 They? They're missing at least 2 of the 5 fields that I want, You know that kind of thing.
21:33:16 So I have this valued effort ratio, and I do a reverse sort.
21:33:20 This is the ideal sequence because what you what we've just determined is, if we did things in this sequence, we would deliver the most value in the shortest amount of time That's mathematical.
21:33:32 Now we can always say that our about that our estimates were wrong.
21:33:37 Great your estimates always could be wrong that's why they're called estimates. but this allows us for an idea value.
21:33:44 Then then the other thing we're gonna say so So this you know adheres to this golden rule of delivering the optimal value to our customers in the shortest possible time.
21:33:51 This is how we can. We can operationalize that very simple concept.
21:33:55 This is very powerful, because you can use it for all things in your life.
21:33:58 I use it for honey? Do! This is an actual honey.
21:34:01 Do list. Jana came to me and said, Larry, we used to live in Arizona, and she gave me a whole bunch of list of things that she wanted to do around the house.
21:34:08 So I wrote them down, and I use it for drink cause I can use it for any list, because i'm just doing relative value and relative effort.
21:34:17 I'm not trying to use absolute I don't need absolute in order to be successful with this again.
21:34:22 Simple concepts rigorously applied now here's the question I would ask you, by a show of hands, how many of you live in the ideal world
21:34:36 I keep waiting for somebody, raise their hand. i'd love to join whatever that ideal world is.
21:34:45 We don't live in an idea world we live in the real world.
21:34:48 The real world is a world of constraints. So once we come up with an ideal sequence, we have to ask ourselves a very simple question.
21:34:57 And and and this this is generally and in in agile. The way we do it is we have somebody who owns the backlog generally call this product owner.
21:35:04 But imagine this was a feature backlog as opposed to a story backlog.
21:35:08 I can apply the same thing, but a feature it wouldn't be a back.
21:35:12 It wouldn't be a product backlog on it might be a feature backlog owner.
21:35:15 I'll blow your mind a little bit but they're a charge of understanding the sequence because they understand their product.
21:35:21 And so they're gonna ask yourself some question what constraints do I have?
21:35:25 And how do I reflect that with the sequence of the back wall?
21:35:31 Because the same sequence, if you think about sequence sequence is basically a roadmap, nothing more than a road here's here.
21:35:38 Here's the you can think about it like you know national amphones. vacation Here's the cities we're going to visit in this order.
21:35:44 If you wanna look at it that way, I always use the National Amphones vacation as a as a perfect metaphor for Waterfall Project management.
21:35:52 Because it's not How wonderful! always works but Chevy Chase plans everything up, and advancing never changes his schedule, regardless of what what happens.
21:36:02 And so he ends up with grandma on the roof debt on the roof by the way.
21:36:08 Sorry to spoil it for you but it's been out for a while, so we have to ask yourself what are the constraints in the system.
21:36:14 Now there's a couple of constraints that I talked about really easy.
21:36:18 How many people know what an ac room is probably not you don't know what a sun room is right, and Arizona's room is like a sunrise, but we don't call it a sun room in
21:36:31 Arizona, because we get 350 days of sunshine.
21:36:34 Every room the Sun room in Arizona we call it Arizona Row. it's basically an enclosed port.
21:36:40 The other feature of Arizona, along with 350 days.
21:36:42 A second is something that I call 110 rule of thumb.
21:36:46 You're gonna have a 100 days of 100 degrees or more.
21:36:48 You have at least 10 degrees of 10 days of 110 or more.
21:36:52 I came up with that about 20 years ago. I think that that's probably even incorrect.
21:36:56 Now they global warming is hitting us. might be worse than that.
21:37:02 You are not going to want to do any work on Arizona room from May to September or October, so i'm looking at today is A August second, which is hard to believe if
21:37:16 it's like the arizona room is at the top of my list.
21:37:19 It's not in the right place i'm not gonna do that second I'm not gonna do the doggy door and then go out and do the arizona room because the doggy door I might be able to
21:37:29 do not too hot, but certainly as late. Arizona.
21:37:34 Room too hot at the outside, probably too hot, too. these things, because of the constraints of the system.
21:37:39 This is temporal. constraint i'm going to move those items down the list, and sequence I will have some things that are dependencies.
21:37:47 Now I don't like dependencies. and I I go let me go on a little aside here. we create more dependencies than our actual dependencies.
21:37:56 When I look at most systems, I go into most companies I look at the they call these things dependencies.
21:38:00 I look at them, and they're not dependencies that are constraints. They're constraints that we built, and if we built them we can unbuild them.
21:38:06 We can build something different. but there are true dependencies or there are things that are similar to dependencies in in terms of order or sequence.
21:38:15 There's another one that's a little further down it says rewire the Arizona room, and that's right now below insight.
21:38:21 There is on a room, and I could tell you that it Doesn't make sense to rewire the Arizona room after you've insulated.
21:38:30 So I would move, insulate the arizona room below rewire.
21:38:32 So i'm going to move these things around based on dependencies constraints.
21:38:36 There's also another sequencing method that that falls into play, sometimes with this sequence of this, and it's called the hipo method.
21:38:51 But again you start with the ideal sequence. Oops, you stop the recording
21:39:00 You just missed a whole tie rate of 4 letter words if you're listening to the recording.
21:39:05 No, not really I I thought I was being censored there for a second.
21:39:10 The you. You wanna start with the ideal, and then work your way with the constraints of the system.
21:39:17 And one of the things that it will show you, too, by the way, is, if I have this ideal sequence, and I find that I deviate from this ideal sequence a lot. What is really showing me.
21:39:27 Is it showing me the constraints in the system and it's showing how the constraints are not allowing me to deliver more value quicker you with me, if I have to if I find i'm doing a bunch of stuff I have to
21:39:39 move a bunch of stuff up to the top that has less value and it takes longer.
21:39:43 It's telling me there's something there's some constraint in my system that's keeping me from delivering that value.
21:39:48 And then i'm that value is being held into the system longer than it should be so.
21:39:53 One of the things that i've measured with teams that have done this particular thing is is you could start to measure.
21:40:01 How much value could I deliver in, and an ideal situation versus?
21:40:05 How much value do I deliver in my current situation and the higher the number the better we are, and the lower the number.
21:40:13 It tells us that there's something wrong with the system and we should change the system, because the system that we've built Doesn't allow us to deliver the most value in the shortest possible time you see i'm just again
21:40:23 applying It's very simple concept of value over time so I will re sequence the backlog.
21:40:32 But the sequence still remains important, because again, this is my roadmap.
21:40:37 And now that I have that I want to get back to Zoe's thing about wanting to predict the future, I could start to be predictable, not just in terms of the work that I can deliver but also to a certain degree, in
21:40:50 the value that I can deliver, which is more important by the way in our world of knowledge, work of intellectual work.
21:40:58 It's not so much the same as in physical work I want you to understand in the physical system the more appetite I put it into something the more output.
21:41:05 I get right if i'm digging ditches and I add a second person digging ditches.
21:41:10 I should get my ditches dog right in half the time, and the value of the ditch right, and the value that I deliver is is lit, and some respects to the effort that is applied.
21:41:24 This is one of the the issues. When we take things from the physical world of a complicated world and try to map them into this complex world, because in the complex world we have asymmetry, we have non-linearity which means there are
21:41:37 things that we could do in the complex world that have very little effort in high value.
21:41:42 We have things that we do in the in the complex world that have a high effort and very little value, and everything in between our goal is to those things with the high value and low effort, because mathematically, we deliver the most value of the
21:41:54 shortest amount of time, but most people don't do it right most people don't do it.
21:41:59 Most people are not putting the the estimation of effort, on their backlog early enough to use that to sequence the backlog to take advantage of these acymmetries, and and they're not using value at all so how are they
21:42:10 identifying the asymmetry in the first place they can't.
21:42:16 Again. simple concepts rigorously apply here's the thing we could start doing, and this is the stuff that most people know most people how many people are familiar.
21:42:28 Grazing had with the term velocity as it applies to a John Scrum.
21:42:33 There's quite a few of you right you could also use the term throughput.
21:42:40 I like the term throughput, better actually but i'll i'll live with velocity, because that's what that's what's generally used.
21:42:45 And if I if I do you know if I say throughput, then people give me that that that look and that doesn't help, so i'll i'll use velocity the problem I have with velocity by the way
21:42:58 is the connotation of velocity as I could just put my foot on the accelerator and increase it.
21:43:02 You can't your team will have a certain throughput if you're working in scrum.
21:43:07 You're scrum team will have a certain throughput of course it would be an average, and there'll be some standard deviation around that average.
21:43:13 But there will be a throughput. it's not like you can just shove more work into the system, and they're magically going to increase their throughput.
21:43:21 It just doesn't work that way, the only way you're going to change the velocity or the throughput is, you have to change something fundamentally about the team and or the system under which that team operates they have an
21:43:33 ability just like you have a capacity or an ability. Every team has capacity which we can for referred to as throughput or velocity.
21:43:40 So I can start to measure the work as it lose through the system, and I can measure it, you know, grossly, and and stories themselves.
21:43:49 But But since we have this understanding of of relative effort, I could start to also get a little bit more granular, at least closer to reality by measuring story points, and we usually measure those story points we call that a velocity.
21:44:02 So it team is able to do you know 30 story points per sprint that's their velocity.
21:44:09 There's a very simple concept then, because when I talk about sequencing i'm talking about ranked order i'm talking about ranked order, meaning that the first thing if I could only do one thing before I die, it's that
21:44:22 thing, and if I could only do 2 things before I die it's that thing, and the other thing that's what I mean by by ranked orator sequence, because now we can take that sequence which is our roadmap these are
21:44:34 the places we're going to go the velocity our ability to move from town to town.
21:44:38 If I'm going to torture the analogy which I do quite often to the chairman where we're going to go, and when we're going to get there, I could start applying that to my backlog so in this
21:44:50 case I could say, let's say my my velocity is is 15.
21:44:57 My throughput I could because i've sequences assuming this is the sequence.
21:45:00 Assuming that this is the right sequence, I now can go.
21:45:04 1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 1015. Oh, good I could do these things in the next 2 weeks.
21:45:14 If that's my spread life, then I can go down another 15 points down to here and say, Well, these would be the one after it.
21:45:19 Bye, and so on and so on and so on i'm not, and because sprints are tied to dates i'm really showing you a schedule, but i'm not showing you the schedule because that's not the
21:45:33 way agile works. The way I all works is we have flexibility.
21:45:38 But what i'm? showing you is i'm showing you what does the schedule look like today, based on what we're capable of doing right?
21:45:44 I'm going the wrong way, so I always use the term sequence plus velocity equals schedule right.
21:45:53 I could show you what I could do and this is what Zoe was asking, And this is what our business is asking, and we're sequence.
21:46:02 Velocity equals schedule. I could do something else, which is, if I want to change the schedule.
21:46:07 What do I change anyone it's still with me I haven't I haven't put all of you to sleep, yet still working on it, though if I want to change the schedule.
21:46:23 What do I change the sequence? Because I told you before I'm not going to change it through? put a velocity?
21:46:31 Necessarily. So if I want to change the schedule I change the sequence. Now, here's the thing I want to.
21:46:37 I want you to ask yourself a question. what is the cost of change in your organization.
21:46:42 It's probably pretty high and waterfall is really high because we gotta go to change review board etc. etc., because we've already scoped it out.
21:46:48 We've already funded it, and a change reboot board?
21:46:52 I always ask people, would you rather go to a change of reboot or get a get a root canal?
21:46:55 And most people say i'd rather get a root canal it's very painful.
21:46:59 It's very expensive, very slow. How quickly can I change the schedule and my prediction about the future in in my world instantaneously Give me something new.
21:47:11 I take something new. I give it value. I give it effort.
21:47:13 I can do that really quickly, by the way, I could do that 5 min, and then i'm gonna put it in the the sequence.
21:47:19 It's going to be you know there's only a couple of place that's going to either be between 2 things, or at the very top of the list, or at the bottom it was right and when I have that new thing what happens i've
21:47:28 changed the schedule. I can re-show it it's just on a spreadsheet. I can I could.
21:47:32 I could countdown 15 points now, right or 15 points I could show you.
21:47:37 Hey? this is the next Spread this next breath. so this becomes oh, it's all on the on the slide.
21:47:43 By the way, so what I can do is is, I did this here on this particular thing.
21:47:49 Now I had 8 prior sprints. I had an understanding of my velocity, my throughput.
21:47:53 I applied it to this slide, and you can see, I just added another column again using excel.
21:47:59 In fact, you could use Google Google sheets you don't need a fancy tool to do this work.
21:48:06 Simplicity is much better. you can see i've added an iteration.
21:48:10 But you can also, because you're smart people and I can tell that by looking at you you also know that if I change something with the sequence, I change a schedule.
21:48:18 If I add something, what happens? A. A. and this is the thing for business that's really important is if I add something new today and a lot of projects.
21:48:26 All I do is i'd add that on the backs of my developers.
21:48:28 They work nights and weekends there's no trade off usually.
21:48:34 Now I have a trade off. You add something new. I put it in the top of the list.
21:48:37 Everything else moves down. My schedule changes immediately and again.
21:48:40 This gets back to this very simple notion of delivering the optimal value to our customers in the shortest time possible, and that's how I would apply it to my backlog, because now i'm adhering to what
21:48:56 i'm considered the golden rule and that's good cause I was about 10 min left, and I I have questions Richard was shaking a sense I wanted to hear from Richard.
21:49:07 So, Larry. Sorry to interrupt you, but we have certain questions in the chat.
21:49:11 Would you like can you ask those questions please I'm?
21:49:22 Happy to answer them. Let's I can look at them right here.
21:49:25 Okay, Thank you. Yeah, Because I was scrolling up.
21:49:31 And they are all beginning with question. Mark, so we will take those up first. Yeah.
21:49:35 So that's so fun I I can go through them if you want
21:49:39 So so my name I don't know who my name is It searched your name here wonderful area the underlying principle of wisdom.
21:49:45 Yes, was just as for weighted shortest job first it's just a if you know whizz Jeff, especially when it intersects, was safe the problem I have with with Jeff and safe is safe actually computes like 4 different
21:49:55 things, and those 4 things are things that my business is generally not that conversant with.
21:50:03 So you ask them the question. they can't give you an answer They look at you like you're crazy.
21:50:06 It's bad enough when I just say value which is very amorphous storm.
21:50:11 But I could say what i'm really calculating here is something called CD.
21:50:13 3 which is cost delay over duration But again if I go to my business, I say, Hey, what's the cost of delay of this thing versus this thing. they're not gonna they're not gonna be able to tell
21:50:22 me because it's ryerson points out and principals of product development flow 85% of the companies that he's worked that are smart enough to hire him don't compute costs away so there's no
21:50:33 value unintended of me asking about possible way it's just as easy to say value, and that's why I say, if I delivered this today versus this day and effort and size are easier usually than duration when
21:50:47 i'm talking to developers so i'm really just creating a proxy for CD.
21:50:51 3 This statement might put expectations of some as hey?
21:50:55 We're agile, so we go faster when when agile does not always mean faster.
21:51:00 It's open interpretation. so day I think David is is passing on the you know.
21:51:07 Pressure, testing the golden rule of agile where i'm saying the shortest possible time.
21:51:10 But what what I said was value value includes quality right I got it's just not speed.
21:51:20 And then, and and this is a bit of a I think it's a bit of a pickle here, that if people you know i'm not saying David is is in this instance.
21:51:27 But if people think agility is about speed it's not they're missing the boat that's about 25% of it.
21:51:34 Agility is the speed with which we can change successfully over time.
21:51:37 There are 4 components to it. So speed. yeah, speed is important.
21:51:42 Our customers have problems. we want to solve. them and we want to solve them quickly, because our competition is trying to solve them as well.
21:51:49 And if You're in the software world being first matters a lot look at the software that you use on a daily basis, chances are they were first I'm looking at you salesforce, there's a lot of value to being first in
21:52:07 fact, if somebody wrote a whole book about software development from a product side and and and emphasize the fact that being first to support
21:52:20 So there. Next question I have here is, I thought, assessing delay more has asked this question.
21:52:25 I thought assessing value was the po's job alone as he!
21:52:31 She has insight into what the stakeholders sponsors want.
21:52:34 Is it essential? the developers vain so Okay, So so I I might have explained it incorrectly.
21:52:42 So i'm gonna take that as to saying I explained it as the is.
21:52:45 It's a product owner along with people who understand the business. value. So it generally won't it could be developers. I mean it could very well be developers when i'm doing this in the phone. I quote real world i'm asking my product. owner.
21:52:59 And saying, Look, it can be you in me, in a room, or it could be you and me and other people that you trust to assess the value of this.
21:53:07 They know who it is. Okay, next one i'm about to why are the numbers 40 and 10, and so on?
21:53:15 What's the you know measurement of value there is no unit measurement of value.
21:53:19 It's all relative we use a modified fibonacci sequence.
21:53:21 So that's why they come out that way I don't care what numbers you use to be honest with you.
21:53:25 But they should be relative. The number see, I mean mathematically.
21:53:30 If I could do anything I could, I could do. Flow is why is an ancient inch?
21:53:34 Have you ever asked yourself a question? Why, an inch is an inch?
21:53:38 Why are there 12 of them enough? What right? arbitrary, completely arbitrary?
21:53:45 The only value is that we know that an inch is an inch and we've we've agreed on it.
21:53:52 So when I start to put things in columns and I start giving them numbers, I've agreed that the things in this column look like things in this column in terms of effort or value, and and we're going to give
21:54:01 that column one that's why next one hardly adopters vag all already in the journey feels like these those just starting will be more challenging.
21:54:16 Yeah, if you haven't started down the agile journey. it's it's certainly gonna be more challenging.
21:54:19 But but for me it's, it's a mindset and I know a lot of people don't like that, because they think it should be more complicated or complex and that it it's how we view the world determines how what we think about
21:54:32 the world. What we think about the world will change, and how we act in the world.
21:54:34 Those things are a feedback loop. By the way, if you wanna think differently, you can do.
21:54:39 You could do so by acting differently. first, and that will allow you to think differently.
21:54:44 When you think differently, you will see differently I believe you start with seeing the world differently, because just acting differently. falls into what I would consider survivorship bias, meaning just do what I do because I was successful But that
21:54:57 doesn't mean you're gonna be successful if it was we'd all drop out of harvard and become billionaires.
21:55:03 A few years later it doesn't work that way it's much, much better to.
21:55:07 I I wrote this down the other day. so it's fresh in my mind because I woke up the morning, and it just kind of hit me.
21:55:13 You know that you can have those times. where things hit you and you write them down, and most of the time you read them later, and you're like That's Crap.
21:55:19 But this one, I think, sticks with me. I said look if you want people to be successful.
21:55:24 You could say, do what I do and that's okay that's Okay, I don't think it's great It's okay, and that's what a lot of people do because a lot of people are looking for
21:55:31 recipes of success, it's better to say I was successful, doing something.
21:55:38 Think what I was thinking in order to be successful. Much, much better right, because thought, the thought will allow you to maybe change it.
21:55:47 But still partially recipe. I think the best thing is, if you I I was successful with something.
21:55:54 It will help you to see the world that I saw while I was being successful.
21:55:59 What did I see in the world that was different that allowed me to be successful?
21:56:02 I think that's the ultimate I think that's the optimal way.
21:56:05 So I always start with how we think about things so will it be challenging to to for people if they haven't started thinking this way, since Agile has been around for you know, a long time yeah could be a lot tougher because i'm gonna
21:56:18 have to get them to think differently next. how you adjust the changes.
21:56:24 I don't know what that means was that me that's as a rage right
21:56:34 Yeah, rash is it's? you said, How?
21:56:41 How do you adjust the changes? I wonder what that makes?
21:56:43 So I guess. Yes, and you also answer as well, because later on is new.
21:56:48 You mentioned the schedule, and then using so there's an equation here.
21:56:52 So what I mean is in the real business. board there are so many different things This could happen.
21:56:57 So i'm suddenly it's not different demanding and different things.
21:57:01 So I think there's no way on those slides you already explained.
21:57:05 Where does business value come from? I think I I hopefully I explain that if you still have a question, any weaknesses of agile, I don't know.
21:57:15 I don't think I built my house actually I wouldn't call the weakness.
21:57:21 I would say that there's a fit agile fitswell was complex.
21:57:24 If you, if you go back to scrum and you look at the definition scrum, it's southern swivers. say it's it's used for complex adaptive problems.
21:57:35 The the world of complexity and the world of knowledge. Work is much different than the physical work.
21:57:39 But we evolved in the physical world for millions of years of mental evolution.
21:57:42 So we're very good at the physical world and we default to the physical world.
21:57:46 As a result, and because of that we have to be careful of the metaphors that we bring from the physical world into the intellectual, complex world.
21:57:56 And and one of them is this this concept that we can just have recipes and complexity.
21:58:03 We have to do things differently. But building a house is not complex.
21:58:10 Designing house is complex, and I would want to use agile to design the house.
21:58:15 In fact. there's a gentleman it was a good friend of mine who teaches, add on scrum, too, architectural groups.
21:58:24 But the building of it is not complex it's complicated so I wouldn't apply apply waterfall techniques because I can't.
21:58:34 The problem was waterfall, as it relates to software development is not that you couldn't apply it to it.
21:58:38 It's just when you did apply it to it it didn't work very well, because it's not the thing that you should apply to the complex world.
21:58:43 It's just to me. it's that simple There is one direct message, so I won't read it but I I can't answer it, not The person who gave it to me directly wants to ask it.
21:58:58 In the in the public. in the back over there's value effort?
21:59:04 How are the value points evaluator is the ceiling or relative to the backlog items.
21:59:08 It's it's just relative number usually We have 9 columns of Fibonacci sequence for the highest value is generally 100.
21:59:14 If you use all. not you don't have to use all 9 columns, and you don't have to use a Fibonacci sequence.
21:59:20 If you don't want to I I always tell people 9 or fewer columns, because when i'm doing this exercise in the real world, I'm not talking about numbers or columns i'm just talking about this is bigger than this so
21:59:27 I might have 18 columns. I need to kind of squish it down a bit, because it's just too many
21:59:39 And inches It's because the unit drives from the old English instance, which is turned up from the Latin unit unco, which is 1 12 of the Roman foot.
21:59:46 It's not arbitrary what is the roman foot is that I don't know if we know the history of that.
21:59:53 But I I would assume that somewhere along the line we're pretty arbitrary in our distance.
21:59:57 I mean I I don't know what is a mile it's it's the amount of things I could plow a field one day.
22:00:02 Well, what if I plot a field more my mile bigger or smaller?
22:00:05 We agreed on 5, 5, 52 80.
22:00:08 I think it is to the to me it's still arbitrary.
22:00:15 All measurements are arbitrary. Is it the kings risk to the forearm, or is it my risk for them?
22:00:20 I tend to be a little bit bigger. Do I get more bread when I go to the store.
22:00:26 That kind of thing. I don't know I just make the one question one more question: What are we doing on time?
22:00:33 Shoot I gotta go it's 5 o'clock I got a meeting.
22:00:36 I'm like i'm gonna be late for here in a second I'm sorry I just wanted to get to as many as I could.
22:00:41 Thank you.
22:00:46 I appreciate it. guys, I really do thank you for taking the time Hopefully, this was very helpful for you.
22:00:52 I know you invested some time so hopefully. The the payoff was bigger than the investment of time.
22:00:59 Thank you, Larry. Thank you. thank you I appreciate it. guys. I'll see you on later.