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cross-functional enough? (from old article by @henrikkniberg)

“Cross-functional team doesn’t mean everybody has to know everything – this seems to be a common misinterpretation though. Cross-functional just means that the team as a whole has all skills needed to build the product, and that each team member is willing to do more than just their own thing.”

(my emphasis)

star map – interesting tool from Henrik Kniberg: Is your team cross-functional enough…

do this excercise against your top backlog items.

….

I like this exercise because:

It’s quick & easy.

It triggers valuable discussions.

It helps visualize the team’s strengths and weaknesses.

It encourages teamwork (“how can we help each other succeed”)

It counteracts pidgeon-holing (attitudes such as “I’m the Java guy and you’re the DB guy, so the DB stuff is your job!”).

It helps people get to know each other better.

It takes into account the fact that people can (and often like to) broaden their skills.

Kanban – Core Concepts and Practices

(Also posted to my main blog.)

Kanban Core Concepts

Visualize work; items, process/ flow, policies
Limit work-in-progress (WIP), but don’t be too ambitious at first

Basic Kanban is a lightweight framework for change management.
Starting with the core concepts on top of your present process should meet little resistance, at least when coupled with focus on improving quality.

Btw, I talked at a lokal meetup earlier this year (slides here), mostly on the core concepts – why they work and how to start.

A few Kanban Practices

Flow; encourage, cultivate, transform towards
Classes of Service (CoS); visualize and track different types of work, with different demands on them
Gradually limit WIP to improve flow and to uncover your next improvement opportunity
Cadence; regular rythm of things like backlog replenishment and deployment, separate from development
Metrics; to manage flow over time
Pull; instead of mostly work with deadlines
Slack, swarming – doing it consciously

There’s more, but this illustrates the relation between the core concepts and a set of recommended practices.

You’re likely to start with a simple version of some practices, f.ex. the work types (CoS) critical items, work with deadlines, bugs. More practices can be utilized as your organization matures, and more sofisticated use of practices, like setting different target lead times for different CoS, f.ex. 50% of bugs should be fixed within a week.

kanban and the perfect job

-by Dennis Stevens

“Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done.”

This is the 5th principle behind the Agile Manifesto.

….
The Motivating Potential of Kanban

When implemented well, Kanban creates a work setting where the job design delivers on the five core dimensions of the job characteristics model.

Skill Variety: In Kanban, the team members are involved in the daily planning of their work, engage in discussions around how to get the work done, perform their specific work, and may swarm on other related work.
Task Identity: In Kanban, the entire focus is on the flow of work. The team members see the work flow from start to end.
Task Significance: One of the focuses of Kanban is to improve the lives of the team members themselves. The focus on flow of value also helps the team understand how they are improving the the work of the customer and/or the people their organization.
Autonomy: Kanban allows teams to schedule their work through the pull mechanism. The self-organizing nature of the work also helps them decide how to care it out.
Feedback: Managing Cycle Times, explicitly tracking defects, and the rapid feedback cycles associated with the limited WIP create feedback on effectiveness at multiple levels.

Kanban inherently results in job design that improves intrinsic motivation and the resulting high levels of performance.

via dennisstevens.com