DZone
Thanks for visiting DZone today,
Edit Profile
  • Manage Email Subscriptions
  • How to Post to DZone
  • Article Submission Guidelines
Sign Out View Profile
  • Post an Article
  • Manage My Drafts
Over 2 million developers have joined DZone.
Log In / Join
Refcards Trend Reports
Events Video Library
Over 2 million developers have joined DZone. Join Today! Thanks for visiting DZone today,
Edit Profile Manage Email Subscriptions Moderation Admin Console How to Post to DZone Article Submission Guidelines
View Profile
Sign Out
Refcards
Trend Reports
Events
View Events Video Library
Zones
Culture and Methodologies Agile Career Development Methodologies Team Management
Data Engineering AI/ML Big Data Data Databases IoT
Software Design and Architecture Cloud Architecture Containers Integration Microservices Performance Security
Coding Frameworks Java JavaScript Languages Tools
Testing, Deployment, and Maintenance Deployment DevOps and CI/CD Maintenance Monitoring and Observability Testing, Tools, and Frameworks
Culture and Methodologies
Agile Career Development Methodologies Team Management
Data Engineering
AI/ML Big Data Data Databases IoT
Software Design and Architecture
Cloud Architecture Containers Integration Microservices Performance Security
Coding
Frameworks Java JavaScript Languages Tools
Testing, Deployment, and Maintenance
Deployment DevOps and CI/CD Maintenance Monitoring and Observability Testing, Tools, and Frameworks

Integrating PostgreSQL Databases with ANF: Join this workshop to learn how to create a PostgreSQL server using Instaclustr’s managed service

Mobile Database Essentials: Assess data needs, storage requirements, and more when leveraging databases for cloud and edge applications.

Monitoring and Observability for LLMs: Datadog and Google Cloud discuss how to achieve optimal AI model performance.

Automated Testing: The latest on architecture, TDD, and the benefits of AI and low-code tools.

Related

  • CI/CD Implementation: 5 Common Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
  • Pattern of the Month: Single Piece Flow
  • What's in the Metrics?
  • Adopting Agile Practices for Workforce Management: Benefits, Challenges, and Practices

Trending

  • How TIBCO Is Evolving Its Platform To Embrace Developers and Simplify Cloud Integration
  • Decoding Business Source Licensing: A New Software Licensing Model
  • Best Practices for Developing Cloud Applications
  • Four Ways for Developers To Limit Liability as Software Liability Laws Seem Poised for Change
  1. DZone
  2. Culture and Methodologies
  3. Agile
  4. Board Tyranny in Iterations and Flow

Board Tyranny in Iterations and Flow

As you think about how you use agile in your organization, know that there is no one right way for all teams. If you haven't yet, maybe you should give iterations a try.

Johanna Rothman user avatar by
Johanna Rothman
·
Aug. 28, 16 · Opinion
Like (2)
Save
Tweet
Share
3.30K Views

Join the DZone community and get the full member experience.

Join For Free

I was at an experience report at Agile 2016 last week, Scaling Without Frameworks-Ultimate Experience Report. One of the authors, Daniel Vacanti said this:

Flow focuses on unblocking work. Iterations (too often) focus on the person doing the work.

At the time, I did not know Daniel’s twitter handle. I now do. Sorry for not cc’ing you, Daniel.

Possible Scrum Board. Your first column might say “Ready”

Here’s the issue. Iteration-based agile, such as Scrum, limits work in progress by managing the scope of work the team commits to in an iteration. Scrum does not say, “Please pair, swarm or mob to get the best throughput.”

Image title

Possible Scrum Board. Your first column might say “Ready”

When the team walks the board asking the traditional three questions, it can feel as if people point fingers at them. “Why aren’t you done with your work?” Or, “You’ve been working on that forever…” Neither of those questions/comments is helpful. In Manage It! I suggested iteration-based teams change the questions to:

  • What did you complete today?
  • What are you working on now?
  • What impediments do you have?

Dan and Prakeet discussed the finger-pointing, blame, and inability to estimate properly as problems. The teams decided to move to flow-based agile.

Image title

Possible Kanban board. You might have a first column, “Analysis”


In flow-based agile, the team creates a board of their flow and WIP (work in progress) limits. The visualization of the work and the WIP limits manage the scope of work for the team.

Often—and not all the time—the team learns to pair, swarm, or mob because of the WIP limits.

Iteration-based agile and flow-based agile both manage the team’s work in progress. Sometimes, iteration-based agile is more helpful because the iterations provide a natural cadence for demos and retrospectives.

Sometimes, flow-based agile is more helpful because the team can manage interruptions to the project-based work.

Neither is better in all cases. Both have their uses. I use personal kanban inside one-week iterations to manage my work and make sure I reflect on a regular basis. (I recommend this approach in Manage Your Job Search.)

In the experience report, Daniel and Prateek Singh spoke about the problems they encountered with iteration-based agile. In iterations, the team focused on the person doing the work.  People took stories alone. The team had trouble estimating the work so that it would fit into one iteration. When the team moved to flow-based agile, the stories settled into a more normalized pattern. (Their report is so interesting. I suggest you read it. Page down to the attachment and read the paper.)

The tyranny was that the people in teams each took a story alone. One person was responsible for a story. That person might have several stories open. When they walked the board, it was about that one person’s progress. The team focused on the people, not on moving stories across the board.

When they moved to flow, they focused on moving stories across the board, not the person doing the stories. They moved from one person/one story to one team/a couple of stories. Huge change.

One of the people who read that tweet was concerned that it was an unfair comparison between bad iterations and good flow. What would bad flow look like?

I’ve seen bad flow look like waterfall: the team does analysis, architecture, design specs, functional specs, coding, testing in that order. No, that’s not agile. The team I’m thinking of had no WIP limits. The only good thing about their board was that they visualized the work. They did not have WIP limits. The architect laid down the law for every feature. The team felt as if they were straightjacketed. No fun in that team.

You can make agile work for you, regardless of whether you use iterations or kanban. You can also subvert agile regardless of what you use. It all depends on what you measure and what the management rewards. (Agile is a cultural change, not merely a project management framework.)

If you have fallen into the “everyone takes their own story” trap, consider a kanban board. If you have a  ton of work in progress, consider using iterations and WIP limits to see finished features more often. If you never retrospect as a team, consider using iterations to provide you a natural cadence for retrospectives.

As you think about how you use agile in your organization, know that there is no one right way for all teams. Each team needs the flexibility to design its own board and see how to manage the scope of work for a given time, and how to see the flow of finished features. I recommend you consider what iterations and flow will buy you.

agile Flow (web browser) scrum

Published at DZone with permission of Johanna Rothman, DZone MVB. See the original article here.

Opinions expressed by DZone contributors are their own.

Related

  • CI/CD Implementation: 5 Common Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
  • Pattern of the Month: Single Piece Flow
  • What's in the Metrics?
  • Adopting Agile Practices for Workforce Management: Benefits, Challenges, and Practices

Comments

Partner Resources

X

ABOUT US

  • About DZone
  • Send feedback
  • Careers
  • Sitemap

ADVERTISE

  • Advertise with DZone

CONTRIBUTE ON DZONE

  • Article Submission Guidelines
  • Become a Contributor
  • Visit the Writers' Zone

LEGAL

  • Terms of Service
  • Privacy Policy

CONTACT US

  • 3343 Perimeter Hill Drive
  • Suite 100
  • Nashville, TN 37211
  • support@dzone.com

Let's be friends: