Actionable Agile Metrics Review - Part 8: Service Level Agreements
A delivery commitment should be expressed as date range. The closer you are to a stable process, the less data points you need. Service Level Agreements can and should be used in place of planning and estimation. Pick a starting and an ending percentile line to represent your MMR buffer.
Actionable Agile Metrics Review - Part 7: Scatterplots
Scatterplots give a temporal view and can uncover trends over time. You cannot identify special/common causes simply by looking at a Scatterplot. Figure out if any variability is self-imposed rather than being out of control; and if it is internal or external.
Actionable Agile Metrics Review - Part 5: Conservation of Flow
In order not to overload the process you simply need to control how much work is allowed to enter it across the arrival point. Getting a balanced process is the single most important step towards predictability; and how WIP is limited is less important than actually doing it. In Tameflow, the amount of work that is allowed to enter into the process is limited to the amount of work that can be handled by the constraint. All and any prioritization is done only when capacity is available and only to the extent that can be handled by the Constraint. The state of the process must be taken considered when making prioritization and pull decisions.
Actionable Agile Metrics Review - Part 4: Cumulative Flow Diagrams
With actionable agile metrics, you can run experiments with your process and see what gives the best measured outcome in your context. Cumulative Flow Diagrams should not be used to identify bottlenecks, but simply to trigger the right questions.
Actionable Agile Metrics Review - Part 3: Little’s Law
Little’s Law can be applied exactly between the start and end points of an MMR/MOVE. When process policies warrant the assumptions of Little’s Law, the entire process will become more predictable. Predictability is more about having a system that performs according to expectation, rather than making exact forecasts.
Actionable Agile Metrics Review - Part 2: Flow Metrics
Striving to reduce Cycle Time (i.e. elapsed time) goes in the same direction of decreasing Operating Expense in terms of Throughput Accounting.
Actionable Agile Metrics Review - Part 1: Flow and Predictability
By employing actionable metrics, the Unity of Purpose and the Community of Trust patterns of TameFlow can expand beyond the boundaries of your own organization, and touches the customer too.
Management of Extra Work
Unplanned work will always come our way; and because it is “unplanned” it will always disrupt our plans. How can we manage it? Let’s find out.
Visual Portfolio Management
Visuals that busy exectutives wil love; while teams will be more in control.
Kanban Column WIP Limits: Good or Bad?
Improvement by happenstance is better than no improvement at all. If used at all, they can serve as training wheels; then they should be taken off once the organization has found the balance and is ready to speed up!