The secret to delivering on time when doing agile

[#1]

Hi all,

I work as a freelance consultant helping organizations to be more effective and using the Atlassian ecosystem in the best way.

I often get engaged when there is a perceived problem with the deliveries.

Common problem are:

• Deliveries are later than expected
• The organization does not know when things will be delivered
• Deliveries does not reach the expected value or result.
• The deliveries are of low quality

This is the simple model I use to investigate the problem:

Let't start with the yellow bubble since it's there the problems are manifested and move backwards.

Delivery
Investigate what the deviation actually is (quality, time, functionality etc.). Remember that this is just a result, you do not need to have a opinion if it is good or bad, it is just the result based on your past actions. When you agree upon what the result actually is and what you expected it to be lets move further backwards.

Progress
Do we have good way to follow up on the progress? Do we look at the Version report, and Sprint burndown to early spot deviations and blockers? Do we have a good practices in place to handle delays and communicate this between teams. Do we need additional radiators or dashboards to spot deviations. Do we monitor test results to see that we are not pushing low quality code to the next level. If we cant measure progress in a good way we need to take one step further back.

Commitment
Commitment is for some people a very strong word but it is not a promise written in stone. It is rather a goal or common understanding more like "Based on what we know right now, we are aiming to deliver this in sprint X, this in sprint Y" "We plan to deliver this during October, and work on that in November". If there are no commitments from anyone it will be very hard to do any form of coordinated planning and everything is just "best effort". (and it will be hard to follow up on progress). This is often caused by a lack of priority so let's move another step backwards.

Priority
Prioritization shouldn't be hard but will be if you jump directly to prioritizing a long list of ideas, features and wishes. Constant re-prioritization comes with a cost even if you are agile and work in small batches. Context switching comes with a cost as well as all the preparations, investigations and research that will be wasted. To be able to do realistic commitments a reasonable amount of preparations needs to be done. Not everything needs to be defined in detail but an agreed level of quality needs to be achieved.

And don't fall for the trap by skipping the preparations "You know what I mean, just do your best.." will result in a no-blame culture where no one is committing to anything because it was just a "best effort" (and progress and delivery will suffer).

Last but lost least we come to 

Strategy
With a clear strategy and clearly communicated goals you will have a easier job prioritizing the work ahead. It will also be easier for everyone to connect the dots and prioritize the work on all levels. 

This is note a framework, it is just the mental model I always work with and it applies to all levels in the organization.

The key is to always analyze the current result and ask yourself "Is this where I want to be or intended to go?" If yes, continue in the same way, if not, look for the feedback that would give you another result.

Happy to hear your thoughts on this!

Best regards,
/Staffan