Category Archives: Transformation

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Pomodoro is the best productivity tool that you can ask for in today’s world filled with all distractions we love to call iPads, iPhones, Text and SMS, the Facebook, the Twitter and all other Social Media updates that we can not get enough of. They are hinderance when we are trying to get things done. They are distractions that derail our focus taking away our attention to non-value add tasks.Get Hyper Tip

The concept of pomodoro is very simple. Timebox yourself going into an activity; typically 25 minutes at a time. Set aside the timebox of  25 minutes and commit to doing one thing and one thing only during that 25 minutes.

[bctt tweet=”An apple a day, keeps a doctor away! A tomato (Pomodoro) each time, keeps the waste away! #getHyper #Agile”]

 

#makeTheShift to ignite the transformation

Our actions are controlled by the thoughts we carry in our minds. And, the thoughts are influenced by the words we choose. Transformation, at the core of it, is about mental shift, about changing our approach. And, no transformation can be achieved without changing our vocabulary and shifting the focus to the new way of doing things.

Strike out the old vocabulary, the old approach, and start embracing the new vocabulary, the new approach.

Let’s pledge to take the first step!

[bctt tweet=”Out with old vocabulary, old approach and In with new vocabulary, new approach #makeTheShift https://goo.gl/P8atRW “]

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Unlearn What You Have Learned

Ten Habits You Must Break To Be Successful with Scrum

In the Star Wars movie The Empire Strikes Back when Luke Skywalker tries unsuccessfully to rescue his X-wing fighter from the swamp and gives up, Jedi Master Yoda has these words of wisdom for him:

Do or Do not, there is no try! You must unlearn what you have learned!

Scrum is no different! It is a new approach to building and delivering Products and Services. It is an approach that is relentless in creating VALUE for customers. In Scrum, you go to your Customers with a Product Increment, often and with regular frequency.

At the core of it, Scrum requires mental shift! The successful adoption starts with us unlearning the old habits and approaching with new, fresh eyes! You have to be willing to step out of the box, step out of your comfort zone, and be willing to try and form new habits.

Here are ten habits that I believe we must unlearn to be successful at adopting scrum:

  1. Create email trailsunlearn what you have learned - make the shift - makeTheShift
  2. Use Command and Control
  3. Create disciplines and silos
  4. Be a Hero
  5. Sign off on a detailed requirements document
  6. Stick to the iron triangle
  7. Be plan driven
  8. Be IT driven
  9. Have a big bang delivery
  10. Tell teams “How,” not “What”

Remember, these are the ‘bad’ behaviors, bad habits that we must break! We must unlearn what we have learned over the years, flush them out, and start on Scrum journey with a fresh approach!

[tweetthis twitter_handles=”@beyondCSM”  remove_hidden_urls=”true”]Succeed at #scrum? Step out of comfort zone & unlearn what we have learned! #makeTheShift[/tweetthis]

The original article that I wrote and is published by Scrum Alliance can be accessed here

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Who else wants to shrink their Time to Market?

Use Agile - the 'shrinking' Agent!

Time to market refers to the time it takes for an organization to take a raw Idea, build the product or service and take it to market. We all want to shrink ‘Time to Market’, and Agile can be a big ‘shrinking’ agent.

Reduce Time to Market by focusing on Concept to Cash - illustration by Nimesh Soni

Use Agile and shrink your Time to Market
illustration by Nimesh Soni

The illustration above shows this ‘Concept to Cash cycle’ in Agile landscape. Let’s visit each one in little more details.

  1. Idea

    Everything starts with an idea!  It could be an idea for a new product/service offering, or it could be a new market opportunity that you want to pursue, or it could be that you want to fix all the ‘holes’ in your existing product in order to gain better market share. Bottom line is that it all starts with a seed that we call Idea!

  2. Visioning

    Remember, you are not alone working on this idea! You will have teams working on this idea to drive it towards (becoming) a reality. You should be able to convey your vision about the product/service. We use this special format to describe your vision.

  3. Story mapping/brainstorming

    Now, armed with your Vision statement, you can start pulling all the right parties, the stakeholders into a conversation. You can lead a brainstorming session to uncover, unearth the work that needs to be completed in order to make this vision a reality. Don’t overwhelm yourself with a lot of details. Key here is to stay at 50K ft and capture high level (slices of) work that would need to be completed (don’t worry about how, when, who does it. For now, the focus is on WHAT.

  4. Roadmap

    Now that we know what work needs to be completed (based on the Story mapping exercise), we can start putting them together on a roadmap that will help us make the product a reality. At this point, we want to focus on next 6 to 12 months, and create a product roadmap; what features would be built, and when we would like to release them to the market. As we do this, stay focused on creating value with each product increment that we push to market.

  5. Release Plan

    With the roadmap in place, we can start pulling in all the teams that would be working on them. Complete some dependency analysis, identify all the teams, and get them into release planning session. Here, we are focusing on next two to three months, and what product increment we can work on and get it out to market. All the teams can discuss these features and functionalities, what it will take (effort) for them to make it a reality, what are the dependencies, and how they may impact the “Push to Production” effort. At the end of this session, these teams come out with an intended plan of HOW they will build this product increment.

  6. Sprints / Iterations

    Based on the intended plan that came out of the release planning session, teams go into individual sprints, get into more details as to what tasks need to be completed. Here, we focus on next two to three weeks at a time.

The key to success here is not to get hung up on getting the product to be ‘perfect’ before you go to market. WE focus on creating a version, an increment of the (ideal) product and push it to market; identify the minimum viable product (MVP) with which we can go to market. And, then repeat this cycle on a smaller feature sets, smaller increment of the product (that builds on the increment that we released to market earlier).
 
[tweetthis hidden_urls=”pic.twitter.com/0CPiBFi5Mb”]Identify appropriate MVP & shrink your Time to Market!  #Agile[/tweetthis]
 
How long is your Idea to Market cycle? How long does it take for your organization to take an idea to market?
 

Republished with updates. Original post was published on April 2014.