Agile in the waterfall -- again

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Remember guys, I'm busy writing the second edition to Project Management the Agile Way: Making it work in the enterprise. This slideshare.net presentation is a glimpse into some of the new content in the book:

Agile in the waterfall from John Goodpasture

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Our man Juran

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Agile people may have had their first real quality thinker and champion almost 70 years ago with Joseph Juran (should I say three score and 10 years ago?)

More in line with Agile thinking, Juran began the quality shift away from W. Edwards Deming’s product focus and toward a customer focus. He -- Juran -- is known for his advocacy of the Juran trilogy:

• Quality improvement,
• Planning, and
• Control.

But, here comes the Agile part:
Juran stressed the quality concept of fitness for use. He believed that meeting a specification is a necessary condition, but insufficient without fitness to use—that is, honoring the customer’s idea of product value and utility. In a word, features are not valuable unless they are everyday useful.

Juran’s ideas are what agile practitioners think of as favoring customer value over following a plan.

Juran defined five parameters that make up fitness to use:

1. Quality of design, a judgmental parameter with grades of goodness
2. Conformance to standards and customary expectations of the market
3. Safety in use
4. Usability in a customer’s setting
5. Availability, a consequence of frequency of breakdown and rapidity of  repair

Among tools, Juran popularized the Pareto chart, which he named after Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto. Pareto recognized the phenomenon of the 80-20 rule in his study of business activity, though the chart etc came from Juran

 

 

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Analysis for the decision maker

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I'm always amazed by the quantities of analysis and the collection of data that goes nowhere. Managers and customers all want to get in on the data revolution --- measure this; collect that; report this other thing.

I ask: to what end? If I give you the numbers, what are you going to do with them? Is there a decision you can make because you have the data? And, is the decision material to project objectives?

I am always astonished at the "deer in the headlights" reaction: No answer in many cases. Just data for data's sake. Nonsense. That's not lean, and it's not smart.

If you can't go to a decision maker and say: "This will make a difference", then what's the point?

On the other hand:
A good and talented analyst, paired with a decision maker who knows good input when it's presented, is a formidable pair. Hard to beat.

About that bias:
Ooops, what if the analyst has an agenda? Can the decision maker be duped? And, what if the decision maker has an agenda? Will the analyst go along?

That, ladies and gentleman is corruption. Malcom Gladwell recently opined about what powers a system that works well in spite of relatively few sheriffs (translation: lean governance):

• Fair to all: the little guy can get a fair hearing. In project terms, this often means either open door policies, flat organizations, or extraordinary transparency in decision making
• Respectful of opinion: the messenger is safe; and, the message is listened to; and the message could have real leverage in a decision, even from the little guy
• Trustworthy: the rules don't change to fit the circumstances. In statistical speak: stationary in time and place.

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Speaking with persuasion

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This month is the 150th anniversary of the end of the American civil war, at least the fighting part, with the surrender of the troops under General Robert E. Lee to General Grant at Appomattox in Virginia.

But, a couple of years ago was the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the end. The beginning of the end came at the battle at Gettysburg, PA. in July, 1863. A few months later, in November, Lincoln gave his celebrated Gettysburg Address

Project managers would do well to look at the address from the point of view of speaking with persuasion:

• It is set in a narrative context;
• It begins with facts we can all agree to;
• It is not narcissistic; "we" and "our" throughout
• It gives compelling reasons;
• It is short;
• It is commonly understandable; and
• It has stickiness.

Would that everything we say to a decision maker have those qualities.

Do you know the Address? (everyone in my generation had to memorize it)
Tim David explains it all in his posting:

Opening with a narrative we can all agree has facts:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal

Follow-up with compelling reasoning:

Why? “The proposition that all men are created equal.”
Why? “To see whether that nation, or any nation so conceived can long endure.”
Why? “For those who here gave their lives that that nation might live.”
Why? “For us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.”
Why? “[So] that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Of course, persuasion works right along side motivation and self-interests. There's nothing so easy as to persuade someone of something that is also in their self-interest, and it's also self-evident on the face. But in 1863, that was not the case on either side of the question. Fortunately, the Address was masterfully persuasive, motivating, uplifting, and, as I said, put a capstone on the beginning of the end.
(And, I'm a Southerner)

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Team diversity -- a different wrinkle

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I've read a lot about teams, and written more than a few words, so it was that I realized Carson Tate has an idea I've not thought much about:

".... differences in work style — or the way in which we think about, organize, and complete tasks.
In any office you will find four basic types of people:

• Logical, analytical, and data-oriented
• Organized, plan-focused, and detail-oriented
• Supportive, expressive, and emotionally oriented
• Strategic, integrative, and idea-oriented"

Of course, this is nice to know, but what does a PM do about it?

Tate suggests two actions that are available to managers

1. Organize tasks and parse the work statement according to who is good at what.
2. Coach performance according to the native capabilities or dispositions

Actually, I think I do something like that routinely. In my words, it would be:

1. Let the planners do the planning, and keep the blue sky types away from the details
2. Don't try to push a round peg into a square hole. One size and shape does not fit all, so work assignments are tailored to skills and disposition

Of course, sometimes you have to get the work done. In that case, it's simple:
All hands on deck!

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Uncertainty revisited (again, and again)

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How many ways can you spell uncertainty? More than you might imagine. Here are a couple more for the project dictionary from eight2late:

I don't know what I don't know, a.k.a. "State space uncertainty'
The standard view of uncertainty assumes that all possible states are given as a part of the problem definition ...   In real life, however, this is often not the case.

Bradley and Drechsler identify two distinct cases of state space uncertainty. The first one is when we are unaware that we’re missing states and/or consequences. For example, organisations that embark on a restructuring program are so focused on the cost-related consequences that they may overlook factors such as loss of morale and/or loss of talent (and the consequent loss of productivity).

The second, somewhat rarer, case is when we are aware that we might be missing something but we don’t quite know what it is. All one can do here, is make appropriate contingency plans based on  guesses regarding possible consequences.

Did this cause that!?, a.k.a Option uncertainty
The standard approach to tackling uncertainty assumes that the connection between actions and consequences is well defined. This is often not the case, particularly for wicked problems. 

For example, as I have discussed in this post, enterprise transformation programs with well-defined and articulated objectives often end up having a host of unintended consequences. At an even more basic level, in some situations it can be difficult to identify sensible options.

I can't make up my mind, a.k.a Preference uncertainty
An implicit assumption .... is once states and consequences are known, people will be able to figure out their relative preferences for these unambiguously. This assumption is incorrect, as there are at least two situations in which people will not be able to determine their preferences.

Firstly, there may be  a lack of factual information about one or more of the states. Secondly, even when one is able to get the required facts, it is hard to figure out how we would value the consequences.
 

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The worthless metric: percent complete

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Perhaps I've said this before. I certainly intended to. But, percent complete is a worthless metric

Percent complete is not a measure of value; it’s really not even a measure of completeness, even if some things are completed at less than 100%. 

I say this because, as a ratio, both the denominator and numerator are in play. Thus, “percent complete” is a moving baseline.

The ratio is dimensionless, whereas value has a dimension; it can be measured.
In the Agile space, percent complete is replaced entirely with “remaining effort”. In other words, the Agile management focus is on three questions:

1. How much do I have to do—to wit: backlog for the iteration, release, or project
2. How much have I done already—backlog burned and done, and
3. How much do I have left to do? Note: how much left includes the WIP.

Since the backlog is dynamic—some new things added, some things abandoned, some things left over as debt from prior iterations—you can see that percent complete is meaningless.

The backlog at any given moment is the denominator (burned, WIP, and not started); the numerator is the backlog burned. Both numerator and denominator change from moment to moment, rendering the metric useless for management purposes.

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Customer success

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Is there anything more to say than this about making your customer successful?

If the customer is not satisfied, he may not want to pay for our efforts. If the customer is not successful, he may not be able to pay. If he is not more successful than he al¬ready was, why should he pay?

Niels Malotaux

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Rookies v experience

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Liz Wiseman has an interesting post on the different approaches to coaching a rookie and coaching an experienced hand.

My first reaction: fall back to situational leadership

• S1: be directive with the rookie
• S4: be delegating to the experienced hand

But, Wiseman says: No so fast. There's bit more to it.

"Experienced professionals have deep knowledge, credibility, and confidence. But their knowledge can interfere with their learning. They can miss important shifts in the market simply because the telltale signs don’t fit nicely within their models. Having seen the patterns, they can easily overlook errors or dismiss aberrant results. They also receive little feedback because they’re performing relatively well and others assume they’ll figure out how to improve the less-than-effective portions of their work on their own."

She goes on:

" ....rookies tend to outperform experienced staff in innovation and speed. But, they necessitate very different coaching styles. For example, your inexperienced people need support to channel their efforts, while your more experienced team might need encouragement to get out of a rut. "

The rest of her post are some specific practices for handling each situation. Good stuff; have a read.

Certainly, we've all experienced the rookie disrupter; that's the fuel of technology innovation. And, then there are the experts steeped in their field. Not to trash experience, because it's certainly of great value, and overall lower risk. If I'm a PM guy with a budget and a mission, I'm going to take experience every time.

But sometimes harnessing experience to the innovation business model is something else: one has to wonder what IBM and Microsoft get from their $5B+ annually, each, in research. Perhaps AI and natural language speech recognition really are around the corner, or better yet: quantum computing.

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The expected value of losing a key

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Late model cars these days come with a keyless fob that is really an active communicator with not only the door but also the ignition. Get close to the car and the doors unlock. Get close to the ignition and you can either start the car from the fob or from a button on the dash panel.

All swell stuff.

Until you get to price v value, and the expected value of  losing the key. Fobs like this can set you back $300 to $400, and some are more. One might ask--I certainly do--"can I opt out if I don't find that value exceeds price?" Answer, of course, is no. If you want the car, you have to pay for someone else's value.

Is that Agile? I'm the customer and I can't influence directly price and value

Now comes the expected value of the loss. I've had key fobs of one kind or another for 20 years; I've never lost one, but others in my family have lost one or two over the years. Thus, in my situation there have been two incidents; but how many opportunities?

Incidents/opportunities is the likelihood of the risk. 20 years is about 7000 days, and certainly the car is driven almost every day, and on the days it is driven, there are multiple stops where the key is taken out of the ignition and temporarily stored. But, let's make it simple:

Probability of losing a fob: 2 / 7000, a vanishingly small number.
Expected value: $400 * 2 / 7000; essentially $0 for all practical purposes.

Now comes transferring the risk of the loss to someone else. As project managers accustomed to the risk register concept, we would think of transferring the expected value out of our domain and into someone else's. Of course, in this case, in theory anyway, there is no practical expected value to transfer

Nonetheless, an industry has sprung up to insure fobs. With such small probability, and such an affordable loss even if it happens, you would think the industry would charge a very low premium in line with its likely losses, and a low premium to attract people away from self-insuring the loss.

But no, one offer I recently ran across was for nearly $300 to insure a $400 key! Is that company making money?

Hello! Either I am the exception and most people lose their fob so the premium has to be high, or this insurance plan is a gold mine for the underwriter: cost is almost $0; price is $300. The price all but drops to the bottom line!

Price in excess of expected value is what drives the insurance industry. Does it drive your risk register?

My rule: don't buy insurance for a loss you can afford, and if you do consider insurance, consider the expected value only.

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