written, illustrated and performed by

Claudio Perrone

agilesensei.com

@agilesensei

Evolve & Disrupt

Popcorn flow & JTBD in action

This…

… Is jim

He wants to get things done

Grow

Be part of a high-performance team

He dreams of changing the world

BUT IT’S Just A dream

His company keeps going through many reorganizations, only to stay the same

Organization chart Blame flow

Rule makers

Controllers

Enforcers

Victims Organization chart God

Losers

They are all victims of A system they cannot defeat

in 2001, I discovered the true nature of the problem

We had focused on speed & efficiency through specialization…

... But what if the actual world looked like this?

Agile Enabled unprecedented collaboration among people…

…and leveraged intrinsic motivators such as - Autonomy - Mastery - Purpose

But ORGANIZATIONs CAN’t BE AGILE IF ONLY THE DEVELOPMENT TEAMS ARE DOING AGILE

SMs

Typical “Agile” Enterprise

... besides, agile is about rapid evolution, Not mindless conformance to “agile ceremonies”

LEAN (BEYOND VALUE

STREAMS)

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@agilesensei

And we are reducing that timeline by removing the non-value-added wastes.

-­‐-­‐-­‐  Taiichi  Ohno,  Founder  of  TPS  

“ All we are doing is looking at the timeline from the moment the customer gives us an order to the point we can collect the cash.

“but that’s only part of the story…”

In lean, managers are servant leaders.

Value Stream (from concept to cash)

WITH GUIDANCE AND METHOD, MANAGERS grow to become problem solverS, critical thinkers and mentorS

www.a3thinker.com  

“ -- Claudio Perrone

It’s not what you do but rather what you learn by doing it that matters.

As a consequence…

My (validated) Hypothesis: By bringing learning streams to the surface, companies Evolve and reward the real heroes

Value Stream (from concept to cash)

Learning Stream(s) (from question to knowledge base)

Arguably, an A3 report “surfaces” a learning stream around a problem…

But can we accelerate our rate of learning?

CONTINUOUS EVOLUTION

(with Popcorn Flow)

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Do you remember…

…what was it like before continuous integration reached mainstream?

Hello?

Today, most of us think about

change as A big scary thing

… But what if We could evolve the way we work as fast as some of the most adaptive microorganisms on earth?

“ 1st Popcorn Flow Principle

If change is hard, make it continuous.

Here is a “mad” thought…

A while ago, I worked with a team who had not deployed in months

With the motto “Hard on systems, soft on people”, We worked together and evolved using the kanban method

The Kanban board triggered insights and captured our flow of work -- our value stream…

… But that’s only the outcome of our thinking

the real “secret” was how we defined and negotiated a rapid stream of traceable change experiments…

Problems & observations

Options Possible experiments

Committed

Next Review Ongoing

... A powerful learning stream that I call “popcorn Flow”...

Popcorn Flow

So, we captured our learning journey on a parallel “Popcorn board”

It starts with Problems & Observations (E.g. “the quality of our code sucks”)

I want to instill Kaizen urgency…

“ Everybody is entitled to their own opinion, but… A shared opinion is a fact.

…and I’m happy to Make progress even with imperfect information. As a consequence…

-- Popcorn Flow Principle

...I use shared observations to create/elicit options (“rule of three”).

Promising options lead to a backlog of possible experiments.

experiments that we Commit to pursue have an action, reason, expectation and Review date.

At Each retrospective, we ask exactly these questions:

Some people fear “failure”…

Gap = Frustration

Reality

Expectation

…but we only really “fail” when we limit our opportunities to learn

Gap = Frustration

Reality

Expectation

Learning

“ -- Popcorn Flow Principle

Any change is good change.

Inertia is our enemy, so in popcorn flow…

It’s Not “fail fast, fail often”...

… It’s “Learn fast, learn often”.

Right from the beginning, I knew this was different.

... Because the team COULD easily handle 5-10 change experiments each week, rapidly enabling it to DELIVER multiple times a day

Experiment: "Fix as you go": If found small bugs (less than 20mins), just branch and fix them. Do a pull request and mark the id on the card. Reason: too much bureaucracy for small bugs. Expectation: - developer happy to fix things as needed without lengthy triages. - steadily improving quality. - low bureaucracy, but still able to track it if things go wrong. - at least 3 bugs fixed like this by due date.

Experiment: Pair on JIT analysis Reason: We are moving towards JIT analysis to reduce sprint planning and moving to continuous flow. Expectation: - DoD created - Team agrees that analysis goes smoothly - No significant bottlenecks created

Experiment: Do an Analytics meet-up to show how analytics work in <new

kanban tool> Reason: <product owner> needs some form of predictability.

Expectation: - Po/Team are aware of what’s possible now with the current level of

analytics - We have better understanding of if, how, when we can improve

forecasting with minimum amount of estimation.

…and then it spread. Popcorn boards started to appear in other parts of the organization.

Imagine a continuous flow of experiments to dramatically accelerate the rate of change in every corner of your organization...

... How far would you go?

Today, popcorn flow is entering more organizations...

It is helping families...

... And (soon) even schools.

Projects under active development include a lightweight “Action Deck” to facilitate face-to-face conversations...

... A book

h:p://discuss.popcornflow.com  

NEW!  Join  us!  

… A brand-new discussion forum

... And even a “secret” online platform.

But how can we increase the likelihood that anything we create is of real customer value?

BREAKTHROUGH INNOVATION

(with Jobs To Be Done)

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“How do you create customer value?”

Through the development of people

Attend to folks’ needs

Listen to the “Voice of the Customer”

Get out of the building

Just do it

Growth hack it

Operational excellence is not enough

Customer

12 min

16.5 min

73%

5.5 min 0.5 min 1.0 min 5.0 min

2.0 min 0.5 min 2.0 min

Value Adding Time (VAT)

Non VAT Proc. Lead Time::

Total Cycle Time:

Proc. Efficiency:

No matter how hard we try, We are still wide open to disruption

faster

cheaper

better quality

(incrementally) innovative

Customer

“Different” Competition

the Traditional approaches are not that effective

we have one fundamental assumption

Customers don’t know what they want!

What causes people to buy?

They “hire” a product or service to get the job done.

Prof  Clayton  Christensen  

People encounter situations that drive the need to accomplish a job.

The job – not the customer – is the fundamental unit of analysis.

Pull of the new solution

4 forces affect purchasing decisions

Push of the situation

Drive FORWARD New way

Habit of the present

Anxiety of the new choice

Hold back Business as usual

Based on the work Of the re-wired group

(jobstobedone.org)

#JTBD

Forces evolve over time Based on the work

Of the re-wired group (jobstobedone.org)

#JTBD

First Thought

Passive Looking

Active Looking

Deciding

Consuming Satisfaction

“Finished” or Experienced

Event #1

Event #2

Buying

Or

Bob  Moesta  The  Re-­‐Wired  Group  

We only talk to people who have bought because embedded in their choice set is the value code of what they are willing to switch from and to.

How do we capture it?

First Thought

Active Looking Deciding

Buying

Consuming

Event #1 Event #2 “Finished” or Experienced

Satisfaction Passive Looking

Climax (and Hook)

Moment of struggle

Time bomb Inciting

incident

Resolution Documentary: “The Switch”

Anthony  Ulwick  Strategyn  

Before you can determine what solutions they’ll want, figure out: •  What jobs customers want to get

done •  What metrics they use to define

the successful execution of a job

Can we go even further?

Anatomy of a story

As a mobile user, I want a longer antenna so that I can have a better reception

I want to minimise the likelihood that the conversation drops

Context, situation, job, or job step

Outcome, need, or measure of improvement

Warning: early assumptions

V.S.

When I’m calling a friend

User story

Job story/outcome

Job Stories Selected Options Product Backlog (User stories) 2

Once you have job stories (problem space), you can easily get to user stories (solution space)

Are you competing like any other product on a pharmacy shelf?

Disrupt or die

Final Thoughts

Claudio  Perrone  

claudio@agilesensei.com  www.agilesensei.com  @agilesensei  

These  slides!    h:p://agilesensei.com/shared/agileee15.pdf  

h:p://discuss.popcornflow.com  

Next is now