Keep the Agile Groove Alive!

Dave Cornelius, DM Scrum Alliance, Agile Alliance 5Saturdays.org, KnolShare.org

Costa Mesa, USA DrDave@5Saturdays.org

Abstract—The frameworks of Agile and lean, specifically ScrumXP and Kanban with the emphasis on planning, collaboration, teamwork, and frequent releases, provide a vehicle for application in life activities beyond the business world. Limited research has explored the areas in which ScrumXP and Kanban can contribute the same level of success experienced in business activities to life projects. An example of a life project is building a tree house for our children. The emphasis of this paper is to illuminate the experiences of 13 agility practitioners in Southern California and the application of ScrumXP and Kanban in life projects. Data for the research was gathered through interviews with 13 agile practitioners. Permission was requested and granted from the participants. Purposeful sampling enabled the intentional selection of individuals that would provide the most information under investigation. The participants identified several life projects that were applicable for ScrumXP and Kanban. Positive experiences and results from the participants were captured and analyzed. The seven emergent themes were (a) applied to schools and academic environments, (b) planned family vacations and holidays, (c) organized kids’ school work and activities, (d) improved family relationships, (e) improved home projects and chores, (f) transformed my life, leadership, and career skills, and (h) learned to do things at a sustainable pace.

Keywords—Scrum, XP, lean, Kanban, agile, agility, transparency, inspect, adapt, commitment, innovation, empiricism

I. INTRODUCTION When groove is used to describe a specific experience, it

often denotes a rhythmic feel or sense of moving to a specific cadence. The agile groove is a cadence that consists of people collaborating to innovate products and solutions to meet customer demands. The cadence is a crescendo of prioritized work equalized by a diminuendo of conflict between team members and other stakeholders. Cadence is ingrained in the following areas: (1) a rhythm of fixed delivery time based on a common industry 1- or 2-week time-box, (2) commitment to finish work with the highest customer value, (3) frequent transparent reviews of progress, (4) inspection of progress and learnings through a frequent feedback loop with all stakeholders, (5) adaptation by continually improving on agreed upon areas of learning, and (6) reflective growth by empirical experiences during each 1- or 2-week cycle through retrospectives. People work at a cadence of a 1- or 2-week time-box to deliver prioritized work that meets customer demands and enables a consistent expectation to review the progress of the individual or team. The 1- or 2-week time-box is called a sprint. Predictability is achieved by a consistent

time-box and review cycle by stakeholders, which supports the translation of challenges into opportunities. The commitments to finish work that provides the highest customer value eliminate the distraction of doing things that do not add value. Distractions are often introduced when people do not focus on the highest priorities that produce the highest value. At the end of each sprint, customers and teams work together to conduct a transparent review of the outcome of the completed work performed by the team. The feedback provided to the teams allows for actions to inspect and adapt according to the information received. Continual learning and improvements are created through empiricism and the wisdom of people sharing knowledge. The practice of agility certainly provides a groove for the practitioners and enables work to be completed through an ensemble of players. Like a jazz ensemble, people collaborate to create an outcome that is pleasing and that changes the atmosphere to one of great expectation and possibilities. A certain amount of expectation is associated with agility to get things done with higher quality and at a faster pace. The shift is certainly positive, and the sustainability of the practice is important to all who have had experience with that approach of getting work done. The sustainable longevity of the agile practice has a reliance on individuals and organizations adopting the new way of completing work. A nonprofit organization seeking to sustain the agile practice is 5Saturdays.org. The program uses agile concepts to introduce collaborative and project-based learning for high school students and facilitators. The planned outcome is to establish a future generation of knowledge workers capable of self-organizing and producing value at a sustainable pace.

In 2001, a group of 17 technologists came together and created the Agile Manifesto. Since then, the agile practice has become a global phenomenon with over 350,000 certified practitioners. However, the adoption of agile practices has been limited to software and product development. Over the decades, we have experienced the explosion of new applications on the Internet for the common person and the shift in the way we share, communicate, and conduct commerce. The same experience should occur for people adapting agility and lean practices in life projects. Life projects are the activities we do for ourself and others. An example is building a tree house for your children.

The agile practice espouses five key tenets:

Transparency: Provides visibility to the stakeholders responsible for the outcome of the product or project.

Inspect: Involves a frequent review of a project’s progress toward achieving the promised goal.

Adapt: Adjusting the process or activities to meet the demand of change.

Commitment: A decision to devote time, energy, and resources to complete a task.

Empiricism: Knowledge derived from experience.

Empiricism enables teams to learn from experience [1]. Organizations and individuals thrive when culture includes transparency, inspect, adapt, and commitment as core enablers. Transparency allows people to share information openly to create an opportunity for new knowledge. The practice of inspecting or evaluating the outcomes of work enables course correction or celebration as needed. The ability to adapt or innovate changes the lens of our approach to pivot to an alternative or to create the next opportunity. Finally, we shift to the courage to make a commitment to go forward and complete what is needed to ensure the success of the organization or individual.

II. SCRUM AND KANBAN The agile practice consists of several frameworks, but

Scrum is the most commonly used by companies. Scrum is an agile project management framework for teams and organizations to create finished products or services that add the greatest value in the shortest time. Scrum practitioners evaluated conditions and empirically decided the next course of action [1]. A recent study concluded the perceived value of Scrum to organizations included (1) team empowerment and collaboration, (2) teams that achieved strategic alignment and transparency, (3) efficiency and waste elimination, (4) delivered software that improved customer experiences, and (5) customer demands met with finished software faster to market [2]. Furthermore, several studies ([1], [3]-[9]) described positive results from the application of Scrum. The same ScrumXP techniques and practices can be applied to individuals and teams at home or in the community. If we could apply the practice of agility to our daily lives, 3M stock would go through the roof because of the high demand for Post-It notes.

Kanban is the mash-up of two Japanese words. Kan is the word for card and ban is the word for signal. The meaning of Kanban translates to card signal or signal card. Imagine if your mate’shoney-do lists are placed on a Kanban board. Think of the assigned cards on the board signaling the flow of tasks being completed and your mate provides feedback to help you be more productive. Table I illustrates the honey-do list in the Kanban board. I can only imagine the comments about the value stream from “to-do” to “in progress” to “done.” Another example of a signal card is the movie ticket. At the movie theater, your movie ticket tells you the name of the movie, the theater your movie is playing in, the time of the movie, and the price of the ticket. The movie ticket in your possession is a signal to check the time of day, look for the sign that displays your theater number and movie name, and find the attendant to take your ticket, which indicates that you paid. Kanban is also an alternative lean tool that allows individuals and teams working on other activities outside of software and product

development to ensure a predictable outcome by working transparently.

TABLE I. HONEY-DO LIST KANBAN BOARD

To-­‐Do   In  Progress   Done  Wash the cars Mow the lawn Take out the garbage

The Kanban board plays an essential role in my daily activities. Figure 1 illustrates the Kanban board that enables the planning and execution of my daily activities for family, community, professional development, and business development. My home Kanban board has four distinct columns, which include (1) bull pen, (2) to do, (3) work in progress (WIP), and (4) done. The bull pen houses all incoming work that is not prioritized and committed to be worked on. The to-do lists are the prioritized work committed for the current week. The WIP column contains the activities that are being worked on and is given the highest priorities. The “done” column lists all the finished work. Each day, work is pulled based on demand from my family, community, professional development associates, and business activities. The key to managing WIP is to remain within the constraints of time and other resources. The WIP constraint enables a steady flow of work to ensure a sustainable work pace.

Fig. 1. Kanban board used to plan family, community, professional development, and business development activities.

III. RESEARCH DESIGN A description of the application of agile practices to

improve our personal projects was lacking. The emphasis of this paper is to illuminate the experiences of 13 agility practitioners in Southern California and the application of ScrumXP and Kanban in life projects. The research questions that informed this research were as follow:

1. What are the applications of agile practices for personal or nonbusiness use?

2. What were the benefits experienced? The research was a multicase qualitative study that

consisted of six key interview questions administered through face-to-face conversations with 13 agile practitioners at an agile open-space conference in Southern California. The research participants were informed of the intent of the research and signed a permission form to grant permission for

an interview without compensation. A handheld audio recorder captured the interviews. The data collected in the interviews underwent transcription, coding, and preparation for interpretation.

The interview questions included the following:

• Q1: Outside of the business world, can you identify other areas to use the agile (ScrumXP or Kanban) practice for a better outcome?

• Q2: Do you have a life-changing experience or story to share after using the agile (ScrumXP or Kanban) practice?

IV. DEMOGRAPHICS The composite of the 13 participants included 31% women

and 69% men. The roles of the interviewees included three Scrum trainers, one Scrum coach, one Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) coach, three Scrum masters, three Scrum team members, and two limited agile practitioners in Southern California. Table II describes the roles of the agile practitioners. The interviewees attended an agile open space conference and participated in face-to-face interviews after granting permission. Participants were selected randomly based on availability and willingness to participate in the research. The study participant received a code based on a unique identifier after the study participant provided a signed informed consent form. The coded participant and associated data were identified with the unique identifier for the duration of the study. The unique identifier would have supported the removal of data if a study participant withdrew from the study. The security of personal contact information protected the participants’ identities, data collected, thematic analysis, and findings and included the use of code identifiers. The audio recordings, transcriptions, and coded data were stored on an encrypted portable memory drive. The data from the drive will be erased 3 years after completion of the study, and only the researcher will have access to the drives.

TABLE II. AGILE PRACTITIONERS ROLE

Role   Description  Scrum trainers Train individuals and organizations in the Scrum

framework and practices. Scrum coach Coach individuals and organizations in the most

effective way to obtain the maximum value. Scrum masters Remove roadblocks that limit the team’s success.

Coach team members in the Scrum process and framework. Provide the conduit to integrate cross-functional teams.

Scrum team members Engage in design, build, and test activities to produce a high-quality product to meet the needs of customers.

V. INTERVIEW QUESTION RESULTS Seven themes emerged from the analysis. The emergent

themes were (a) applied to schools and academic environments, (b) planned family vacations and holidays, (c) organized kids’ school work and activities, (d) improved family relationships, (e) improved home projects and chores, (f) transformed my life, leadership, and career skills, and (h) learned to do things at a sustainable pace. Table III contains descriptions from participants that supported each theme.

TABLE III. APPLICATION OF SCRUMXP AND KANBAN

Participant   Example  School and academic environments

R2SBV Education and teaching. R2SGB Academia—professional skills development. R2SGB Improves communications in academic program cohorts. R2SDS It would be great for schools. R2SUA This is a great fit for the education world, especially in

math classes. R2SBR Education has more potential for self-organizing teams

and cooperative decision making. R2SBR Students would say my class changed their lives.

Family vacations and holidays R2SUA Plan my family vacations and Thanksgiving dinner.

Schoolwork and activities R2SDJ A tool to help kids become organized and visualize the

outcome by prioritizing. R2SDS Used it to organize my kids schoolwork. R2SMK Helped my kids plan homework, when it was due, and

when it was done. R2SMK “the end of the school year we do a retrospective to

identify what worked well, what didn't, and what will we do differently.

Home projects and chores RS2UC Organizing life activities at home and with our children. RS2BD Managed projects at home to satisfy the ‘honey-dos,’ a

beautiful thing adding value. RS2BD Helped my spouse manage priorities. R2SDS My spouse and I have planning meetings to prioritize our

house work. Family relationships

R2SDS Used retrospective to improve our relationship. R2SFL Used by families to help each other know what each other

is doing. R2SFL Obtain collective family ownership to make their living

environment better. R2SFL Focus on improving our family and place of work. R2SDS My kids chore time was cut in half, which was life

changing for my family. R2SDS Retrospectives with my kids help me to grow as a parent

to learn more about my kids. R2SJJ It changed my life and perception with my son, I don't nag

him or remind him to do things. Leadership and career transformation

R2SBV Agile changed my life. R2SGB Changed my career to work on the business side. R2SBD Became an agile guy versus a PMO guy. R2SBD Helped me develop the right kind of leadership skills

versus managing. R2SBD It has been career changing. R2SDJ It has been life changing and the way I approached work. R2SMK As a Scrum Master I have more fun and freedom.

Doing things at a sustainable pace R2SFL Learned to climb a mountain at a sustainable pace. R2SBR I used Principle #8, Sustainable Pace, to help my team get

work-life balance for my team so they won't quit. R2SRS I was able develop a sustainable pace and bring joy back

into work.

VI. LIMITATIONS OF THE FINDINGS The results of the study are subject to a few limitations.

One limitation of the study was that the study participants were from California and did not include participants from other areas of the United States. A second limitation of the study was the small sample size. The findings of the study may not be generalizable across people from other counties, states, and countries. The results are, however, suggestive.

VII. CONCLUSION The results of the study indicate that the use of ScrumXP

and Kanban need not be limited to software and product development. The groove that each participant found was a positive experience in the application and benefit of ScrumXP and Kanban in education, family, career, and home projects. The diverse group of people provided various context that highlight seven emergent themes: (a) applied to schools and academic environments, (b) planned family vacations and holidays, (c) organized kids’ school work and activities, (d) improved family relationships, (e) improved home projects and chores, (f) changed my life and career, and (h) learned to do things at a sustainable pace.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT Dr. Dave Cornelius is the founder of 5 Saturdays and leads

the group’s Leadership Council. In addition to being a published author and speaker, Dave is an experienced IT and business professional and a globally recognized lean and agile catalyst who empowers others to achieve their very best. He specializes in coaching, training, and leading collocated and distributed teams to deliver quality innovations from concept to cash. Dave also has held several leadership roles where he helped transform IT into a partner with other groups within an organization. Dave holds a doctorate in management (IS/IT emphasis), a master’s degree in business administration, and a bachelor’s degree in computer science. His professional certifications include public speaking (Toastmasters DTM), product management (PMC II), project management (PMP), agility practices (PMI-ACP, CSP, SPC), IT service

management (ITIL v3), and process optimization (SSBB). Learn more about Dave by visiting Dave-Cornelius.com or on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/daveauck/. You also can follow Dave on Twitter @DrCorneliusInfo.

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