Burnup looking like a Hockey Stick?

When was the last time you looked at the burnup chart? This burnup chart draws a good portrait of how the team is handling the work and creating value. Are you worried that your burnup chart is morphing into a Hockey stick? Go ahead.. grab a copy of the burnup chart!

Burn up chart-Hockey Stick-individual sprint

Burnup Chart – Hockey Stick for an individual sprint

Burn up chart-Hockey Stick-for a release

Burnup chart-Hockey Stick for a release

Burn up chart-Stepping Stone-for a release

Burn up chart-Stepping Stone-for a release

Let us pause for a moment and look at your Story Burnup chart. This chart can take on many forms, as beautifully described by ScrumDesk in this article. How does it look? Does it look like a straight horizontal line (showing no progress)? Does it look like a Hockey stick as depicted in the two charts above, or Stepping Stones as depicted in the last chart? Or, perhaps, in between!

You have to pay close attention to this chart on a regular basis. The Story burnup chart can tell you a lot about your teams’ mentality and mode of operation.

If your chart looks like a hockey stick, then it is telling that the teams are scrambling to close the stories and burning midnight oil. This hockey stick can hurt you, a lot!

Quality is the first one to take the hit!

It hurts you in multiple ways! To begin with, I would question the quality of work completed (or at least, marked as completed) as a result of this 11th hour scrambling. Apart from quality, you have several other issues such as:

  • overworked team members
  • frustrated teams
  • frustrated business and Product Owner (PO) becuse they are not getting what they want.  They are giving acceptance at the last minute and not satisfied with the quality
  • dejected, demoralized teams

Burnup and Root Causes

There are several reasons why your Burnup morphs into a Hockey Stick, such as:

  • Team members working in silos
  • having too much stuff open or too many User Stories open and in progress,
  • The team is spread too thin across many User Stories, too many balls in the air!
  • Team not clearly about the end state for the stories. Do they have Acceptance Criteria listed?
  • Missing definitions of READY (DoR)  and DONE (DoD)
  • This hockey stick is an indicator of poor quality (or absence) of Backlog grooming activity.

Product Owner (PO) should be able to give you clear Acceptance Criteria. You can also focus on improving the quality of backlog grooming sessions, to come out with better stories, with better understanding of the functionality sought and the end state, the validation criteria.

Red Pill and Blue Pill

burnup

 

The hockey stick chart also suggests that there are lot of delays in closing the stories. These delays could also be caused by impediments not being reported or not being worked on agressively. Trade this hockey stick for stepping stones that lead you to the top line!

[bctt tweet=”Pick your Pill! Hockey stick or Stepping Stone style Story Burnup Chart http://www.nimeshsoni.com/burnup-looking-like-a-hockey-stick/ “]

If this Hockey stick is so painful for the team, then what can we do to change it to turn into more favorable Stepping Stone chart (on the right above)? We can approach this in multiple ways. Below are the Top 5 ways you can prevent your burnup chart from morphing into a Hockey stick.

1. Change the question

It starts with mindset change, shift in the thinking, shift in the way team approaches the work. We have to shift our focus from completing tasks to completing and getting acceptance on the User Stories that deliver Value to our customers.

(Accepted) User Story = You serving up slice of VALUE to your CUSTOMER 🙂

If we tweak the questions a little bit, it will help us shift the mindset. At the After Party (after Daily Scrum has just finished), ask the team: What stories can we drive to completion and Product Owner Acceptance? What is stopping us from getting acceptance on the stories?

This will help you shift the focus to completing the stories. As you discuss this at the After Party, ask for volunteers to own and act as steward for individual user stories. The steward is someone whose primary job is to continue to drive that user story to PO acceptance.

2. Story Swarming

Encourage the Story Steward to use Story Swarming to drive the story to completion and acceptance.

Swarming: A small teamlet, smaller sub group within the team to swarm on the story and drive it to acceptance.

Remember, just completing story is not enough, you want to get PO acceptance on them for you to mark it as DONE.

3. WIP limits:

Ensure that the WIP limits are adhered to, and adjust WIP limits (with team’s consensus) that ‘forces’ team to focus on User Story acceptance, before that start working on another story.
Restrict your team to few stories open at a time and challenge them to finish the story before they start working on new one. Ask them to stop starting and start finishing!

4. Visible Progress (or lack there of)

Above all, make and regularly update the Story burnup chart. This chart can be an invaluable tool for the team to showcase their progress. Make it visible to the team, and discuss it with the team at a regular frequency. Even if you are using electronic tool (such as Rally or Version One), ensure that you have a printed copy of the chart displayed prominently to the team.

5. Impediment List

Encourage team members to report any impediments as soon as they are known. Keep a running list of these Impediments, and aggressively work towards resolution or alternatives to ensure that the team can continue to make progress. Make the list itself visible to the team, as well as the progress being made on resolution of them.
These steps will help you slowly bend the hockey stick into the shape of steps leading you towards the top line. It is a chart that shows that team is getting small number of stories accepted every few days during the sprint. It is a proof that there is no 11th hour scramble. It’s a proof that team is swarming and working collaboratively towards closing the User Stories.

[bctt tweet=”5 things to do before this hockey stick hurts you. Warning: This hockey stick can hurt YOU! http://www.nimeshsoni.com/burnup-looking-like-a-hockey-stick/”]

Switch, Transformation,GetHyper, Agile, Get hyper

Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard

Involved in any kind of transformation effort? Be it Personal or Profession, trying to influence behavior of any person is hard. You have to work with both sides of the brain: Emotional as well as Analytical side, of the person as well as the herds/he belongs to.

This book is a MUST read if you are involved in any kind of transformation effort.

Three Quotes from the book
  • Change = People behaving in new way
  • Resistance = (often happens due to ) lack of clarity
  • Direct the Rider, Motivate the Elephant, Shape the path
Three Tips on the book Switch
  • Three steps to any Transformation: Change the Situation (provide them new environment) + Address their Hearts + Address their Minds (emotional and Rational side)
  • Find the Bright Spot = successful efforts worth emulating, identify successes and figure out how to clone them / What is working and how can we replicate it
  • Script Critical move

[bctt tweet=”Put the first two stamps (highlight on what progress has already been made to instill sense of progress) – Heath brothers in Switch http://amzn.to/20QhwVQ”]

Scrum Team and Standard of Work

Standardized work is a collection and implementation of the best practices known at that moment. We discussed Standard of Work for Product Owner and Scrum Master in earlier articles. I also gave you a template of the checklist with activities for these two important players of Scrum.

Third leg of Scrum stool

As we all know, Scrum is often referred to as three-legged stool. The three legs being the Product Owner, Scrum Master, and the Team. The third leg, the Scrum Team, is charged with the responsibility to build and deliver the product functionality. Everyone on the Scrum team must be rowing in one direction to deliver this in a timely fashion to the customers.

Scrum team

Rowing Team – every effort in one direction

Let’s look at the typical activities that the team must carry out.

[tabby title=”Daily”]

  • Attend the daily Scrum, on time and in person.
  • Come prepared at the daily scrum with your updates.
  • Provide you updates at the daily scrum and listen to others’ updates.
  • All team members should answer “the three questions”.
  • If, for some reason, you can not attend the daily scrum, please reach out to a ‘buddy’ and ask her to take your updates to the team. [Do not send you updates in an email, that should be the last resort! ]
  • Adhere to the Office Hours agreed upon as a Team. Let the team know if you are unavailable during those office hours for any reason.
  • Work (swarm) on the highest priority stories.
  • Show all work on the Scrum board.
  • Update tasks with hours remaining.
  • Seek out opportunities to help your team members and/or swarm on driving the Stories to completion.
  • Ensure development standards are followed.
  • As soon as a Story is Done, demonstrate it to Product Owner to get her Acceptance and mark it as ‘DONE’.
  • Adhere to DoD before marking a Story as Done.
  • Learn to say ‘No’. Use the ‘No’ repertoire.
  • Ensure that the WIP limits are followed.
  • Make it Fun 🙂

[tabby title=”Weekly”]

  • Identify ways to get better. Collect ideas for Sprint Retrospective or create improvement stories. Seek out opportunities to get that 1% improvement [ The Rich Employee by James Altucher ]
  • If required, represent your team at the Scrum of Scrum event, bringing team’s updates and challenges to the community.

[tabby title=”Each Sprint”]

  • Participate in Sprint Planning. Push back if the Story is not READY; not allowing it to get into a Sprint.
  • Get into sprint. Participate in Backlog Refinement.
  • Avoid the group thinking and provide your honest, unbiased estimate based on your knowledge and experience. Be comfortable with confrontation and agree to disagree.
  • In the daily standup. Participate in the Demo and Retrospective.
  • Identify opportunities for improving how work is done. Less with more done.
  • Create stories for improvements to be undertaken by the team.
  • Communicate improvements to Agile Coach or Process Owner for improvements beyond the control of the team.
  • Ensure all stories & tasks have a good description and validation.
  • Ensure all stories/features/epics have sizes.
  • Make a sprint commitment that you believe in. Work to achieve the commitment.

[tabby title=”Each Release”]

  • Participate in the Release planning activities
  • Identify enabling work.
  • Provide estimates for all work
  • Identify dependencies and risks.
  • Collaborate on the “Definition of Done” for the team.

[tabbyending]

[bctt tweet=” Standardized work answers the 5W+1H of a process – the who, what, when, where, why, and how”]

Is your scrum team following this checklist? What is your team doing differently, that is working for them? Share your thoughts and comments below.

Standard work

Get your FREE copy of Standard Work Today! 

In essence, Standard Work helps you in minimizing waste and maximizing value delivery
Click here to Download your FREE copy

How to stand up new Scrum teams

Use this toolbox and put your teams on path to Success

Recently, I was training an entire division of a client in OH area. To begin their Agile Transformation journey, we wanted to stand up several Scrum teams. The first logical step was to take them into a formal training on Agile concepts. We also wanted to come out of the workshop so that teams can start their first sprint the very next week.

Gamify to help Scrum Teams

The challenge was to introduce them to agile concepts quickly while involving as well as challenging them. We also wanted them to ‘discover’ and validate the concepts through a series of activities. To achieve these objectives,  we used several worksheets, templates, and tools to help them. We wanted to make these activities fun and interesting.

Keeping game theory in mind,  we came up with an ‘Agile Bingo‘ – a set of activities that each team has to do, and the first one to finish the sheet wins the ‘Bingo’.

We also came up with Event Canvas to make bring everyone on the same page, regarding their understanding of various events in Scrum, and do this while keeping it fun, interesting, and engaging. As we say, in an Agile team, everyone should be rowing in the same direction. In other words, everyone should be driving towards the common goals. This simple worksheet helped eliminate the myths and bring everyone’s understanding on the same page!

Another wildly popular ideas was that of Scrum Calendar; to help them get to a consensus on a calendar with events, time, and location. This is especially useful when you have geographically dispersed teams involving multiple time zones.

Complete this bingo to jump start your Agile Journey

Complete this bingo to jump start your Agile Journey

The toolbox for the workshop

As a trainer and facilitator, I also used several of my ‘home grown’ worksheets and templates; such as:

These workshops were a huge success! Everyone loved these activities and felt they got a lot of useful information out of these activities. Here are some pictures from these workshops.

Your team will thank you!

Help your Scrum Team help you! Check out Improve Your Scrum Ceremonies as a first step towards uncovering these hidden gems. Your Scrum Team will thank you for finding these gems!

Scrum Teams - Tool box for improving your scrum ceremonies

Scrum Teams – Tool box for improving your scrum ceremonies

[bctt tweet=”We got a Bingo! Shouted one Team http://bit.ly/agileBingo”]

Essentialism, Agile, transformation, getHyper

Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

Book-Essentialism

Essentialism by Greg McKeown @GregoryMcKeown

If you want to de-clutter your everyday life, if you want to be able to focus on things that are important to YOU, if you want to get more done with less effort THIS is the book. Read it, digest it, implement it and YOU will find more joy and happiness in the journey where you are headed. It will give you more clarity as to where you want to go.

Three Quotes from the book

  • The Wisdom of Life Consists in the Elimination of Non-Essentials
  • STOP Majoring in minor activities
  • If you don’t prioritize your life, some one else will

Three tips from the book

  • Less but better = Essentialism
  • Constantly asking: Am I investing in the RIGHT activities? Is this the most important or valuable thing I could be doing right now?
  • If you don’t prioritize your life, some one else will

[bctt tweet=”Practice ‘load the Tape’, ‘Think Week’ and ‘Monk Mode’ – inspired by Essentialism by @GregoryMcKeown http://amzn.to/23kviSW #Transformation #getHyper”]