The Rabbits of Agile

An agile coach can learn from a bunch of rabbits.

It is the Christian season of Easter in the United States.  I take this time and spend it with my aging parents and enjoy the simple miracles of daily life.  One example of the elegance of the everyday life are the rabbits which live in my yard.  The warren living under my retaining wall has survived brutal winters, scorching summers, and the attentions of my neighbor who does not like them eating her rose bushes.  They wander around the yard, snack on of blades of grass and enjoy some table scraps from my kitchen.  In a confusing world, I can count on the rabbits giving me a brief respite from the global economy.

The rabbits are more than a form of escapism.  They are a reminder of the natural world.  Each day the world is trying to destroy that warren of rabbits.  Each day they find a way to gather food, avoid predators, and make more rabbits.  These creatures are fluffy and adorable survivors; reflecting on this reality, it dawned on me as an agile coach I can learn plenty of lessons from these specimens living in my back yard.

Charles Darwin said the species most likely to survive are the ones most responsive to change.  I have lived in my home for over thirteen years.  In that time neighbors have come and gone.  Fences have gone up, and many pets have made efforts to hunt down the rabbits.  With each change, the rabbits have adapted.  They forage around the fences and make themselves hidden when people walk their dogs.  A parent accompanies young rabbits, and thy do not bother snacking on grass when I put fertilizer down.  My neighbor has gotten into the act and has decided to stop planting rose bushes.  Change and responding to change are an essential ingredient to survival.

My rabbits reminded me of engineer and lean management pioneer, W.E. Demming who said, “Survival is a choice.”  Each day the rabbits in the yard choose to do what is necessary to survive.  The minds of rabbits are not as developed as humans, but every brain cell in the rabbit skull is preoccupied with survival.  People for all our mental ability can be distracted.  Distractions pull us away from the necessary things we need to survive another day.  Our obsession with status in the office distracts us from our jobs.  Obsessing over the stock price distracts us from providing customer service.  Being the alpha dog on the development team neglects necessary software quality.  Humans are distractible creatures, and those distractions pull us away from what is needed.

So each day as a scrum master, coach or business person is a choice.  You can choose to survive, or you can pay attention to the distractions surrounding you.  From a distance the choice seems simple, people want survival and necessity.  At the moment we concentrate of distractions, and they undermine our survival.  Choose survival and change over distraction.  If a rabbit can do it, so can a human.

Until next time.

Say No to Ugly Metrics

One of the perks of my job it that I get to interact with plenty of talented and smart people.  One of them is Andrew Keener and I had the opportunity to spend a few hours with him over beer to discuss game theory, the philosophy of social contract theory and metrics to improve scrum teams.  It was heady stuff and I enjoyed every moment of it and wanted to share a little of the experience with you.

Keener has a very in depth discussion of scrum in metrics on his blog on linkedin.  I will let you read that on your own.  This week I wanted to discuss his notion of ugly metrics.  According to Keener, an ugly metric is one that reinforces the dysfunction of the organization rather than provide a means to improve performance.  Business people want to measure productivity and provide objective measures for how the people under them are doing.  The trouble is that for a creative endeavor like software development it is hard to come up with meaningful ways to do the measurement.

I try to track things which are concrete like bugs in production, how many story points successfully completed by the team, and number of stories flagged as technical debt by the team.  This way we have a means to see where we are and how we can improve. If I started using these metrics as a means of performance then my developers would begin to game the system to drive up their numbers. This inspired the famous 1995 comic strip from Scott Adams below.

So as a scrum master it is our duty to measure things which are relevant to our teams.  It is also important to use those measurements to inspire positive behavior and performance rather than encourage dysfunction in the team.  Otherwise, you are no different than the pointy haired boss Scott Adams loves to mock in his comic strip.

Until next time.

Disappointment is not the same as defeat

Learning a few lessons during the Easter week.

The life of the agilest is filled with manic depressive episodes.  This week what was supposed to be a client meeting and a possible business opportunity fell apart because a technical constraint I had not accounted.  It was a very bitter moment and it undermined over a year’s worth of development.  I was furious.  After settling down, I took some time to reflect.

One of the sayings of agile is, “fail early and often.”  This is easy to say when your business has regular customers and has steady billing.  It is not so easy when you have been working hand to mouth for five years writing code in your spare time and pitching clients when you get the chance.  Each pitch, opportunity feels like the last one that comes along.  So to call up a client and tell them that a product is not ready, is heartbreaking.

Failure hurts.  Failure is a deep blot of ink which covers up your reason and makes you feel defeated.  I have always been a sore looser so to fail always grates on me.  It made it hard for me to sleep and affected my mood.  I am still not over this failure this week.

I feel like a kid who was winning at Snakes and Ladders only to be denied in the last roll of the dice.  As the initial disappointment started to fade, I came to a realization.  I am not back to square one but rather few steps back.  I can choose to quit the game or I can pick up the dice and go again.  That is what I am doing.  The next few days are going to be learning new coding techniques and trying to build my product to accommodate the clients very particular technical specifications.

I am disappointed but I am not going to be defeated.  I think that is not a bad lesson to take into the Easter Weekend.

Until next time.

An Easter Wish for you

The Easter Holiday and the end of lent are a time of reflection.  All of us at E₃ systems have had a busy spring.  We have moved the office.  We have started a new marketing program and we have also spent time working with the local SCORE chapter to improve our business.  We want to take time out to wish everyone a Happy Easter and look forward to more adventures in the second quarter.

Have a good holiday and until next time.