As a coach, I spend a lot of time helping people communicate. Having been involved in helping teams and teams of teams get stuff done I am amazed at the amount of effort that goes into “communication,” how much of that effort is directed to messaging, and how little to actually coordinate and improve products. I recently got an email from a new reader of the blog. The question boiled down to whether it was normal for a whole team to spend three days generating slides and practicing for a sprint review. I will share a version of the response in a few weeks, but the basic answer was no. In that organization, the Sprint Review had stopped being a tool for collaboration and communication and a high-pressure messaging event. Unfortunately, while this might be a bit extreme, messaging and talking at people is often confused with communication.
In Chapter 9 of Why Limit WIP: We Are Drowning In Work, the author extols the virtues of transparency. The Kanban board provides a platform for everyone (I am not being hyperbolic) to understand how much work is in process. It is also useful for highlighting blocked items, showing overloaded individuals (or the team), and what is being completed. I love Kanban and Scrum boards they are an incredible wealth of information. If, this is a BIG if, anyone other than the team gets to see them. In 2022, the majority of teams at all levels of the organization are using tools that put the boards behind walls of security, require expensive licenses, and some level of software knowledge barriers. Heck, the barriers to entry are so high I know team members that don’t use the board as an information radiator. A solution that one team had to the “it’s in the tool” problem was to buy a large TV screen and show the board continually in their common area.
Transparency requires both making information available and making it easy to find and consume. Looking back to when agile was young (agile’s late Cretaceous Period 🙂 ), the concept of information radiators was important for transparency and communication. As agile has matured, supported by integrated tools and subject general organizational politics information radiators have become far rarer replaced by highly crafted status reports and presentations. This behavior loses much of the communication value.
WIP and communication are intertwined. WIP limits foster flow. Visible boards let everyone see that flow. The combination of transparency and communication builds trust which reduces the overhead any team needs to spend on statusing and messaging. Mr. Benson does point out that not all status information is unnecessary. Instead focus on sharing a status on things that are out of the ordinary, which should be FEW AND FAR BETWEEN. For everything else, the team’s information radiators will more than suffice.
In about a week we will choose the top three books for Re-read Saturday. Please let me know your preference by voting in the poll below.
Remember to buy a copy and read along. Amazon Affiliate LInk: https://amzn.to/36Rq3p5
Previous Entries
Week 1: Preface, Foreword, Introduction, and Logistics – https://bit.ly/3iDezbp
Week 2: Processing and Memory – https://bit.ly/3qYR4yg
Week 3: Completion – https://bit.ly/3usMiLm
Week 4: Multitasking – https://bit.ly/37hUh5z
Week 5: Context Switching – https://bit.ly/3K8KADF
Week 6: Creating An Economy – https://bit.ly/3F1XKkZ
Week 7: Healthy Constraints – https://bit.ly/3kM8xqh
Week 8: Focus – https://bit.ly/3PkE0hg
Week 9: Awareness – https://bit.ly/3LBZfIl
