Produced and presented by Craig Smith and Renee Troughton at the Agile Australia 2013 20 June.
Using task boards or story walls is a key Agile practice, but are you making the most of it? Visual Management is more than just putting cards on a wall, it is a growing style of management that focuses on managing work only by what you can see rather than reports or paper being shuffled around. Visual Management allows you to understand the constraints in the system, mitigate risks before they become issues, report on progress from the micro to the macro. Visual Management can also be used to demonstrate to customers and clients where the work they care about is at. This presentation is all about taking the management of your work to the next stage of transparency.
Discover:
How to identify when your story wall isn't telling you everything and how to adjust it
* What the three different types of story walls are and which one is more suitable to certain circumstances
* Different ways to visualise your product backlog
Why queue columns and limiting work in progress is so important regardless of whether you are using Scrum or Kanban
* How symbols and tokens can be used to give more information
* What else can you use other than story walls to visualise information
* How to ingrain Visual Management into both the team and management structures of your organisation
* Visualising Your Quality, Testing and Team
* What is systemic flow mapping and why is it important
6. Why It Is Important
Effective
retention
3 days after
a meeting
Spoken word only
Visual + Oral
Visual
Hearing
Smell Taste Touch
Human Learning Retention
C
9. To Do Analysis Develop Test Done
The Basic Flow
Agile
101 tells
us to
build a
wall like
this
C
10. Clear Instructions
Development Done:
• Code complete & reviewed
• Unit Tests pass & complete
• Acceptance Tests pass &
complete
• Checked in & build success
• Documentation updated
Instructions
for adding a
card
Instructions
for pushing
a card to
next queueR
23. LEGO Portfolio Board
DUPLO colour = Business
domain
DUPLO holes = Expected size
(people)
LEGO
colour =
Skill
type
Lower level =
Number of
people
needed
Upper level =
Number of
people
allocated
Divider
height =
control
level for
gate
DUPLO height = Expected
value/ROI
R/C
24. Lego Portfolio ManagementLEGO Portfolio Board
Why
Are
Doing
This?
Why
Are
Doing
This?
Idle
People
High
Depend,
High Risk
Under
Resource
R
28. The Team
The Customer
Management
What do I need to
work on now?
Where is my work at?
Which teams need my
support to remove
blockers and waste?
Who Cares About
Transparency?
R
41. At Home
La Marzocco
• Predictable
• No Expert
Required
Simple
• Predictable
• Expert
Required
Complicated
• Unpredictable
• Expert
Required
ComplexWorld Barista
Championships
Complex Coffee
RR
42. At Home
• Predictable
• No Expert
Required
Simple
Is Visual
Management
needed?
Coffee At Home
C
43. La Marzocco
• Predictable
• Expert
Required
Complicated
Is Visual Management needed?
To Do Doing Done
Large Latte
2 sugars
Macchiato
1 Sugar
Flat White
Large Latte
2 sugars
Cappuccino
2 Sugars
Expresso
Coffee At A Coffee Shop
Variability
is Small
R
44. To Do Doing Done
Large Latte
2 sugars
Macchiato
1 Sugar
Flat White
Large Latte
2 sugars
Cappuccino
2 Sugars
Expresso
Coffee At A Coffee Shop
Variability
is Small
R
45. Is Visual Management needed?
To Do Doing Done
Get
tablecloth
Order
cups
Test new
roast (day
7)
Test
Kenyan
Roast
Test new
roast (day
8)
Test new
roast (day
9)
Diffuser
delivery
Waiting
World Barista
Championships
• Unpredictable
• Expert
Required
Complex
Stop
Championship Coffee
Dependency
Management
Events Block
Flow
Significant
Variability
Extended
Flow
R
51. As a creator of user stories
I want to use the right coloured
pen
So that it is quicker for the
brain to read
As a creator of user stories
I want to use the right coloured
pen
So that it is quicker for the
brain to read
Colour Contrast
Use a strong
contrast of pen to
index colour
Use a pen that
works!
C
52. As a creator of user stories
I want to write neatly
So that it is quicker for the
brain to read and recognise the
work
Asa creatorofuser stories
Iwant towrite neatly
Sothat it is quickerfor thebrainto
readandrecognise thework
Writing Style
Write neatly or print
cards.
Size does matter!
Although…
Research shows
hard to read fonts
promote better
recall.
Go figure…
R
53. Avatars
Use real photos not
characters or
images
Although, balance
this with fun or
team theme.
Renee T
Tokens to
determine status
R
54. As Craig
I want my picture used for my persona
So that it is quicker to recognise all the
work for me
In order for it to be quicker to recognise
all the work for me
As Craig
I want my picture used for my persona
User Story Templates
Use pictures / graphics
for personas
Use bold / underline to
emphasise quick searching
Be consistent with layout
and template
Think different
Put the value first
Don’t write two words or
the solution!C
55. Board Size
Can you stand back and
see the whole flow?
Can you zoom in on an
area of interest?
Continuous Delivery
is looking left and
right!
Avoid Water-Scrum-
Fall
C
56. Board Contrast
Ensure that flow lines
are not higher in
contrast than the work
items
Have a strong contrast
between the work
items and the surface
behind them
Painters tape
R
61. Achievements Wall
.
.
I don’t mind a good game
of blackjack too
All cards on the team’s flow
board have estimates
against them
The only way is up!
The Cumulative Flow
Diagram has been
consistently updated
each day for four weeks
RR
63. Back At
Work?
Make work fun!
Image: http://www.agent-x.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Pacman_on_twitter-0723634-218bc0c.jpg
Choose your
gaming to the
environment and
the people
Intrinsic
motivation trumps
extrinsic driven
goals
R
65. Is my
wall
telling
me the
whole
story?
Probably not!
Start by mapping the
flow
Keep adjusting
Image: http://ctparentingclass.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/lets-talk-post-it-notes-300x199.jpgC
66. Reinforce
the
zone
Always go back to the
zone for discussions
about work
Lead others by
example and take all
meetings or status
updates to the wall
Image: http://www.romanpichler.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/iStock_000014624446Medium.jpg
R
67. But my team is distributed…
Like distributed
Agile, it takes
more work!
You need an
electronic zone
The default tool
dashboards are
average
Image: http://ezylearn.com.au/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Lonely-office-man-003.jpgC
Q&A 5 minsIntro – 2 minsFlow Management – 8 minsThe Zone – 8 mins Usability – 5 minsComplexity thinking – 5 minsGamification – 3 minsOther – 4 mins
Moststorywalls look like this...
Which is really this
HorizonQueue columns - why
Feature Map one too?Craigs story map
A real example of a Value Tree at play. In this particular instance it is representing just a single feature. The bottom of the tree is the foundation and it needs to be worked on bottom up. Parallel processing or lack of time dependencies are the branches going out from the sides. The feature is shippable when the saw point is reached.
Employed in situations where a team has multiple Product Owners, a flow for managing and organising priority is critical. How do you go about this?New items (from anyone in the organisation) gets added to the new column. The card colour represents the type of work. Owners are designated for the types of work – if anyone wants their work to be made higher in priority they know who they need to appeal to. The type of work owners prioritise their own queue. Before the team’s stand-up there is a Product Owner Standup where collectively the Product Owners agree to what the next top 5 items are to be done. This means that the team doesn’t need to worry about competing priorities and that the risk of one person holding up priority across the whole organisation is also mitigated. It also has the additional benefit of a shared understanding across the Product Owners about what is occurring within the organisation and enables greater tolerance.
In some ways this is a Gantt chart wall, but length of task is not represented visually. When cards are done they are crossed off. The line represents “now”. Elements near the line are discussed if they are not done.
Normal done column
First will likely finish, second will not. Note that there is also more variability when things get “done” in the second example – this makes it more difficult to be able to accurately predict whether all the work will be finished by the end of the Sprint.
Winner ofThoughtworks Studio’s 2013 Best Card Wall, this visual management flow zone, created by @CraigStrongBacklog up the top, then task ready, task work in progress, task done and user story done. Note there is no distinction between ‘developer’ and ‘tester’ roles within this model. And Craig Strong’s actual board in play based on a four developers and 2/3 tester team. Note that because they had only three hourglass lanes it meant that the fourth developer was forced to help out where needed within the whole flow. This resulted in getting work done quicker and enabling knowledge sharing.
Another Craig Strong, this was a predecessor to the Hourglass board. Potentially a little less functional in implementation based on your team size (there is quite a bit of wall space waste in it), but this particular configuration allows for eight items to be in progress in the flow at any point in time. And it in action. Note the backlog to the left and it looks like deployment flow to the right (confirmation in progress atm).
Inspired by Rodrigo Yoshima’s work overflow demonstration where for each task you have on you blow up a balloon, this trades cards for balloons. There are two great upsides and one bad downside to this approach: you can use the size of the balloon to represent a element of the work – such as its value, you also have the added fun of being able to blow up the balloon when done. The downside is being able to attach them to a wall
Kenny and Pawel never addressed the problem ofBig systems (>100+ systems)Services (eg networking, telephony, etc)Risk by resource visibilityHow much do big organisations spend on tooling?Why not spend it on Lego?Skill type example – red could be business analysts, blue are developers, white are quality assurance and yellow is infrastructure support. This doesn’t mean that t-shaped skills are not desirable. If you had well balanced teams then it would just be one colour.
What we can see here:Low value work is still on the boardDependencies can be visualised as a single line of workThe biggest set of work has the first project under resourced – this should be the most important focus of the organisation as the whole program provides the greatest value and has the highest risk. Idle people are displayed at the bottom, why aren’t they helping out in the top high value project in delivery. Overall there are too few Developers and Infrastructure people (compared to the levels of other roles)Easy to visually see weaknesses in resourcing – both incorrect allocations based on risk and in not enough people on deck. Easy to see risk areas by dependenciesEasy to see low value work that should be stopped
Visual Management zone is not just about a task board, in fact the terms “task board”, “story wall”, “kanban board” may be counter productive to vismgmt as work items may not be called tasks or user stories or cards… could be called ticketsIf you are going to call it anything – call it a Flow Board.Additional elements may include metrics, environmental availability, design elements eg state transition diagramsReally wonder whether it should be called “Visual Management System” of which the Flow Board is one element in the system.Leader: But what is in a Visual Management Zone?
But who is this transparency for?Where are “stakeholders” – they could be in any of these three areas.
Flow Status = the work the team is doingMetrics = the work, the people, the environmentPeople status = Niko-niko board or mood chart, capability plans, leave plans, rainbow slider (confidence)Environment status = status of the area where work is being done – eg traffic light environments, could be the latest health inspection resultsKnowledge artifacts = information that is important to be transparent – eg design thinking, statusWant to flash through a series of slides here of examplesLeader:Its all about transparency.
Stress charts, capability and development plan, leave calendars and important date events.
Client mood chart. Environment status chart (manually done vs automatec CRAIG).
Knowledge artifacts = information that is important to be transparent – eg design thinking, status
Or corflute or shower curtain card wall.
Let’s go through some Visual Management Heuristics associated with complexity thinking…
Leader: so what about our Complicated example?
Leader: So what about our complex example?
In a very literal sense this is what happens within a café.Here is Kelsey. Kelsey works at one of the busiest and most prestigous coffee brew bars in Brisbane – Dandelion and Driftwood.
Could also need to visualise dates, blockersNotice that the example has been limited to only one or two people involved. Do you think if a larger team was using Visual Management that it would impact their Cynefin category?
Plug Matthew.As a community we are realising the benefit of good usability design. Visual Management is just an extention of this – lets ensure that the way in which we visualise our work is designed well.
To ease pattern recognition* The brain will automatically attempt to cluster shapes that are similar and intuit the rationale for the differences, even if there is none.Lip Service Contrast to good design
It is not just size but also consistency. The key lesson is, we probably all write user stories in haste, but there is value in ensuring you take the time to write neatly or re-write later when time is less imperative.
It is not just size but also consistency. The key lesson is, we probably all write user stories in haste, but there is value in ensuring you take the time to write neatly or re-write later when time is less imperitive. Size matters because the cards will be read at about a meter away, not 30cm (book reading distance).http://hbr.org/2012/03/hard-to-read-fonts-promote-better-recall/ar/1
We are hard wired to recognise faces. By using a photo over a symbolic image we are allowing for faster recognition of card ownership and potentially easier Daily Standups.But the difficulty here can be balancing this with “fun”. Self appointed avatars are fun, Coach afflicted photos can potentially not be.
We look for patterns.
Your eye is immediately drawn to the visual disparity of the blue line. As most system cards are light pastel in colour this means that blue painters tape isn’t ideal. Join the bandwagon for better Visual Management tape other than what is available at hardware stores.
Colour can also create relatedness just as proximity does.Passive vs active zones - In this example, the shading/colour creates hot zones for the eye so that will create a specific visual flow (shading spots first then other colours) that is counterintuitive to the visual hierarchy (left to right).
Balance time spent vs value delived – you can waste a lot of time on this for not much gain
Don’t forget, we are here to deliver valuable outcomes