Patterns

Problems

Solutions

Refinement

• Replaced with adhoc refinement
• Sometimes too late to refine
• No consistent level of refinement quality

• Keep normal team refinement times (reduce once pattern is defined)
• Have strict policies on refined stories and a clear Definition of Ready

Continued Focus on managing people and not the work

• Example - Standup still person by person (not work focused)
• Example - Boards had Swim Lanes by person

• Changed standup to go card-by-card from right to left across the board
• Coached teams to change their board focus to classes of service

Continuous Improvement

• Fell to the wayside because of the lack of regular cadence

• Brought Retrospectives back to the teams and simultaneously promoted a culture of continuous improvement and “On the Field” innovation

Flow

• WIP limits continually maxed out and/or exceeded
• Teams were accustomed to push mentality that encouraged picking up blocks of work at the same time

• Coached the teams about WIP, Little’s Law and why we limit WIP. Eventually the teams were holding those conversations on their own

Team Norms

• The new way of visualizing our work led to a lot of conversations/confusion about how we worked as a team – the “devils were in the details”
• Team had multiple conversations about what exactly needed to be done to move to the next state (often the same conversation was had more than once for a team).

• Discuss the “Policy Definition” meeting to get to clear exit/entrance criteria for each state
• Discuss the creation of the “Discovery Board”