1. Continuous Visibility
Souvik Basu
(Senior Consultant, ThoughtWorks)
2012 September

2. “I never knew we have such a huge hangover until the end of iteration”
WHY IS VISIBILITY SO IMPORTANT IN ANY
PROJECT?
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3. Why is Visibility so important in any Project?
• Without Visibility, team members do not have
any idea of where they are in the iteration
• At the end of the iteration, nothing much can be
done
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4. “Do we foresee a hangover in this iteration?”
NEED FOR CONTINUOUS VISIBILITY
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5. Need for Continuous Visibility
• To give a sense of where we are in the iteration,
on a continuous basis
• To take necessary steps ahead of time
• To reduce surprises to stakeholders at the end
of iteration
• Taking corrective action on time is a
responsibility of the whole team and not just the
iteration manager
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6. “We are not interested in what you worked on”
HOW WE ACHIEVED IT – WALK THE WALL
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7. How we achieved it – Walk the Wall
• Change the stand up pattern
• Instead of Round Robin, do Walk the Wall
• Walk the card wall right to left
• Give updates on the progress, issues and status of
cards which are “in-progress”
• Talk about blocking issues about cards and how to
address them
• Talk about learning the team had while working on
a card
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8. “It’s difficult for the team to gather around the physical wall for stand up”
ADDRESSING ISSUES WITH STANDUPS
AROUND A PHYSICAL WALL
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9. Addressing issues with Standups around a
Physical wall
• Typically for larger teams, having stand up
around a physical wall is difficult
• A virtual wall also maintains history that can be
helpful during retro
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10. Addressing issues with Standups around a
Physical wall
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11. “Why the virtual wall?”
THE PROS AND CONS OF A VIRTUAL WALL
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12. The Pros and Cons of a Virtual Wall
• Pros
o Can record history of wall status over days
o Can record time taken for stand ups
o Good to show number of days remaining in iteration
• Cons
o Does not have the “feeling” of physical cards on a wall
o Needs a room with projector
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13. “How else did the virtual wall help us”
GOOD SIDE EFFECTS: PAIRING MATRIX AND
ICE CREAM METER
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14. Good side effects: Pairing Matrix and Ice Cream
Meter
• Pairing Matrix: to keep track of whom to pair with and whom to avoid
pairing with
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15. Good side effects: Pairing Matrix and Ice Cream
Meter
• Ice Cream meter: fun way to enforce discipline to attend stand ups on
time
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16. “In QA means not yet Done”
TAKING IT A STEP FURTHER
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17. Taking it a step further
• Have only 3 lanes in Wall
o New
o In Progress
o Done
• Allow 5 max cards in-progress and do not allow any more card to
be picked up until cards are moved out
• A Card in-Dev and in-QA are “In Progress”
• A Card goes to “Done” lane only after QA is complete
• This encourages the team to take efforts to move cards beyond
QA and not just leave them in QA
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18. “OK, where can I get the tool from?”
REFERENCES
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19. References
• http://martinfowler.com/articles/itsNotJustStan
dingUp.html
• The virtual wall tool available at
http://xptools.codeplex.com/
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20. QnA
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