From Divided to United – Aligning Technical & Business Teams

@dominicad ddegrandis.com

@dominicad

Dominica DeGrandis

Director, Learning & Development

www.leankit.com

@dominicad

Going from us/them to we….

started with a necessary argument

Alignment: a position of agreement/alliance

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Customers pleased?

Work transparent?

Communication effective?

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system limits + delayed delivery =

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high demand on application impacts architecture

and features not delivered as expected, results in sad panda

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Customers determine business goals

What are the priorities based on customer demand? feature

#1

feature #2

feature #3

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large customer affirms good experience

“you were a huge part of moving > 90% of our projects from waterfall to agile.”  

not everyone was happy

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more please •  ux enhancements •  new features •  better integrations •  faster loading  

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internal customers pressured

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marketing coordination cost is high

Will product feature be released in the timeframe

Marketing team expects?

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the need for change was self-evident

Unhappy business teams begin to have more influence

on roadmap decisions

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Ops team sacrifices go unnoticed

Business exec investigates

new technology

promising zero impact on tech

teams, but guess what happens?  

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Let’s talk about IT like it’s part of the business

 Apologies only go so far. need actions to improve the mindset

Customers pleased?

Work transparent?

Communication effective?

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transparency as a necessary factor

product development roadmap

done  work-­‐in-­‐progress  theme  next  up  

From theme to working software A3 the most valuable thing that fits within a 5 week timeframe

DIV: Deployed, Iterative, Value (≤ 5 days)

Task

DIV

Task Task

Task

A3

DIV

Task

DIV

Task Task

Task

   

product development roadmap

done  work-­‐in-­‐progress  theme  next  up  

A3  

A pull system optimizes for workflow efficiency

Goal - finish old projects

before starting new projects.  

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Sequence of DIVs add up to delivered A3 A3’s in live/done = value delivered

in  produc6on   live/done  

FSGD as a company wide thinking tool

All team boards roll up to the roadmap

Each team has a team board where work is broken down into smaller chunks.

roadmap team board

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Ops Team board Current DIVs

MKT MKT FIN

UX MKT

MKT MKT

SLS DEV UX UX

SLS CSS

QA UX

DEV OPS SLS

SLS

1

2

3

4

6

5

DEV

DEV

OPS

How the A3 is populated

Cost of Delay?

Impact to users? What benefits who?

What does feature do?

Sustainability impact? fine print /misc?

Customers pleased?

Work transparent?

Communication effective?

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Demo DIV – teams get 5 min to demo their DIV*  

What? So what? What now?

*DIV – Deployable Iterative Value    

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Demo DIV feedback from Biz teams

* DIV - deployed iterative value

“I just want to learn about the things I can sell.”

“I don’t want to listen to the technical stuff.”

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Forum for discussing A3’s

A3 reviews

A3 Wall •  all invited •  context provided

•  user perspective

•  why’s addressed •  goals explained

•  concerns heard

•  opinions aired •  feedback

welcome  

@dominicad http://leancoffee.org

Forum for retrospectives

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Forum for raising & solving problems

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What makes a great team?

Google two year study results: Who is on a team matters less than

how team members interact.

The willingness to talk about errors is by far the most important factor for a team

Amy Edmonson TED talk: 

h:ps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhoLuui9gX8  

Alignment requires absolute clarity

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Customers pleased?

Work transparent?

Communication effective?

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For the innovators

Generate ideas to

increase transparency

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For the doers

Investigate and study customer recommendation levels

Net Promoter Score = % promoters - detractors

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For the influencers

Acknowledge perceptions - then shift incentives toward transparency, safe measures, & listening.

Wired article - The science of why no one agrees on the color of this dress

@dominicad www.ddegrandis.com Dominica DeGrandis www.leankit.com

Questions

@dominicad                    www.ddegrandis.com                      Dominica  DeGrandis                    www.leankit.com