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212 - A Refinement Resolution
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Episode 212
212 - A Refinement Resolution
It's that time of year again. Time for everyone to make a resolution, or five. On our podcast, we're going to walk you through the ONE THING that everyone can get better at, as we did into your refinements and how to make them world-class. Have you improved your refinements recently, or are they stagnant? Let's discuss!
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Transcript
Do you, sprechen
Bob: 00:00:03only in the morning.
Josh: 00:00:16That's
Bob: 00:00:24oh, no,
Josh: 00:00:26no, you don't recognize
Bob: 00:00:28spread again.
Josh: 00:01:05We are at the end of 21, heading into 22 is the end.
Josh: 00:01:10Isn't it.
Josh: 00:01:11And so many times people do new year's resolutions.
Josh: 00:01:14Is that something you do?
Josh: 00:01:16Like, do you do that personally?
Josh: 00:01:17You know, I
Bob: 00:01:17used to.
Bob: 00:01:18Yeah, but I'm so.
Bob: 00:01:22Oh, I'm so old that I could, I, you know, I stopped even making it up anymore.
Bob: 00:01:28Right.
Bob: 00:01:28It's like, you know, I, I'm not gonna yeah.
Josh: 00:01:31Same, same here.
Josh: 00:01:32Well actually the thing that got me is like, well, why, why should it, why should
Josh: 00:01:36I strive to only change once per year?
Josh: 00:01:38I know.
Josh: 00:01:38Like, why don't I just.
Bob: 00:01:40I had that.
Bob: 00:01:40My thing is like dice.
Bob: 00:01:41Like last year during the holidays, I started a diet and I lost some
Bob: 00:01:45weight and stuff like that, but it's not under the banner of a resolution.
Bob: 00:01:50It's just, it's just holy cow ate a lot.
Bob: 00:01:52And I'm, you know, as you get older, I think everyone's heard.
Bob: 00:01:57You get more entrenched in your ways?
Bob: 00:01:59I, it gets harder and harder to change.
Bob: 00:02:01That might be a medic cast, uhhh, episode sometime like how to relubricate yourself.
Bob: 00:02:08So that you're more,
Josh: 00:02:10I don't think we're going to name the episode that, yeah, that's not a, you
Josh: 00:02:16know, we're not going to do that now, but
Bob: 00:02:19yes, but to be more changed, friendly,
Josh: 00:02:21right.
Josh: 00:02:22I agree.
Josh: 00:02:24We're going to talk about the thing that we think if every agile team
Josh: 00:02:30did better in 22, at the end of the year, they would be super proud.
Josh: 00:02:36The one thing, the one thing, the singular thing that we think every
Josh: 00:02:40agile team has room to improve, and many teams have like a lot of
Bob: 00:02:46room to improve.
Bob: 00:02:47I would, I would buy that, you know, I think what the spring it on him.
Bob: 00:02:52Oh, okay.
Bob: 00:02:53Go back to
Josh: 00:02:54waterfall.
Josh: 00:02:57Surprise, surprise
Bob: 00:02:59waterfall.
Bob: 00:03:00Bob's back too hard.
Bob: 00:03:02Get the hell out.
Bob: 00:03:03Get out of it.
Bob: 00:03:04He can't cook.
Bob: 00:03:05Get out of the damn kitchen.
Bob: 00:03:07Go, go back to the living room and start running the waterfall.
Josh: 00:03:11But seriously, what
Bob: 00:03:13assignment?
Bob: 00:03:16Oh, you're going old school back.
Bob: 00:03:17Well, no, I mean, you used to be backlog grooming, backlog, refinement.
Bob: 00:03:22Josh and I were talking before the medic cast that I've, I've encountered, almost
Bob: 00:03:26every client I've encountered for the last few years is it's not the only thing they
Bob: 00:03:32struggle with, but they're not, they're not refining well, and it's not even that.
Bob: 00:03:39I don't think people understand.
Bob: 00:03:41The point of backlog refinement, like how powerful it can be.
Bob: 00:03:45So this is a nice episode.
Bob: 00:03:48Yeah.
Josh: 00:03:49The frustrating thing I see is it's just indifference
Josh: 00:03:55about the event and people.
Josh: 00:03:57I feel like they have to be there,
Bob: 00:04:01so they show up.
Bob: 00:04:02So that's the first one.
Bob: 00:04:03Actually, I actually I'll I'll even undercut what you just said, Josh.
Bob: 00:04:07It's like, they don't even think it's necessary.
Bob: 00:04:10Right.
Bob: 00:04:10So, so if they do show up, they're mailing it in.
Bob: 00:04:14Right.
Bob: 00:04:15But a lot of teams, they look at the out of all of the events I
Bob: 00:04:19think they look at and I don't think we're fine is one of the events.
Bob: 00:04:24I forget the context of.
Bob: 00:04:26In the scrum guide, but it's not one of the core events.
Bob: 00:04:29It's like an option, not optional, but it's a recommended event and it's
Bob: 00:04:33rec and you have to figure it out.
Bob: 00:04:35So it's, it's highlighted as a really good idea.
Bob: 00:04:38So a lot of people don't do it, or, or they do it at the last possible.
Bob: 00:04:45You know, the latest irresponsible moment or they show up and
Bob: 00:04:51then they do it really poorly.
Bob: 00:04:53Like they don't even engage.
Bob: 00:04:54Right.
Josh: 00:04:54Have you ever been anywhere you felt like refinement was
Josh: 00:04:59necessary or like, wasn't sorry, like, you know, he should abandoned
Bob: 00:05:03this it's now I, you know what?
Bob: 00:05:05I know that I'm going to change that if you're, and I mean, this,
Bob: 00:05:09if you're kicking ass, If you are, if you're executing and this is what
Bob: 00:05:13bugs me, people argue themselves.
Bob: 00:05:15A lot of folks push back and they, oh, it's waste.
Bob: 00:05:18It's, you know, we're wasting our time.
Bob: 00:05:19Right.
Bob: 00:05:20And it's not agile.
Bob: 00:05:21You hear?
Bob: 00:05:21I mean, God, I've had a dive for every argument I heard, but, but
Bob: 00:05:25a lot of folks are like, like they're complaining about it, but.
Bob: 00:05:30I've seen it.
Bob: 00:05:31If you embrace it, you don't ultimately you'd like mature
Bob: 00:05:34teams don't need to do it right.
Bob: 00:05:36Or they need to do it very fair.
Bob: 00:05:38It's it's super quick and super fast.
Bob: 00:05:40If you need to do it at all, like for example, it would be like, no estimates.
Bob: 00:05:44Remember we were in the Medicus we were, you were big on the NOAA
Bob: 00:05:47or you were talking about Ryan.
Bob: 00:05:49Yeah.
Bob: 00:05:49Ryan, Ryan Ripley.
Bob: 00:05:50And you were re riffing on that at one point then no estimates.
Bob: 00:05:54And to me, no estimates is not for the.
Bob: 00:05:57You know, for a lazy team or for, you know, an immature team or, you know,
Bob: 00:06:00a shoot team it's for a mature team.
Bob: 00:06:04And yeah, I've seen, I've seen folks that actually they don't ever totally
Bob: 00:06:08stop it, but it becomes, it becomes less frequent and less necessary.
Josh: 00:06:15
Josh:
00:06:15
The closest I ever got to that was we had a total rockstar
Josh: 00:06:17team and we were just rolling.
Josh: 00:06:21That's what
Bob: 00:06:21I'm doing and to right.
Josh: 00:06:23And it was funny.
Josh: 00:06:24
Josh:
00:06:26
Came back from lunch one day and we had a, we had a refinement and I
Josh: 00:06:30said, do we need to do this anymore?
Josh: 00:06:33And they all started laughing because they apparently all went to lunch together.
Josh: 00:06:38And they felt like they didn't need to do it, but, but they were like, Josh will
Josh: 00:06:42never let us not do this, but I'm like, but you guys are a different breed here
Josh: 00:06:47and that's not necessary in the end.
Josh: 00:06:50I said, okay, let's all think about it for a week and come back.
Josh: 00:06:53And you guys decide what you think is right in the end.
Josh: 00:06:57They valued it so much that it wasn't worth giving up because they
Josh: 00:07:02knew was like, yeah, it's kind of annoying, but like, it drives us to
Josh: 00:07:04get to where we need to be to win.
Josh: 00:07:07So they still retained it even though they could've maybe gone without it.
Josh: 00:07:12
Josh:
00:07:13
Okay.
Josh: 00:07:13So number one, the number one hurdle is getting people to actually invest in it.
Josh: 00:07:22What can listeners do out there?
Josh: 00:07:24If, if they're stuck with the team that they've tried everything and
Josh: 00:07:28they can't get them to invest, they don't show up or they do show
Josh: 00:07:32up and they're on their laptop.
Josh: 00:07:34They don't pay attention.
Josh: 00:07:36They don't care.
Josh: 00:07:37Like all will be painfully obvious.
Bob: 00:07:40I mean, I would look at results you know, it's the end of the year and I'm
Bob: 00:07:45getting Chris, I'm always crispy and, and, I'm like, You know, if you're driving the
Bob: 00:07:49results, like we're at home on a mature team, then I don't care what you do.
Bob: 00:07:53You can go tip two through the tulips.
Bob: 00:07:55If you want, you can do whatever you want.
Bob: 00:07:57If you're delivering great results as a team.
Bob: 00:08:00If then, then do that.
Bob: 00:08:02What, what really gets me going is, no one shows up, but we
Bob: 00:08:07have crappy results, right?
Bob: 00:08:09We're not hitting our sprinkles.
Bob: 00:08:10We're having carry over stories up the wazoo.
Bob: 00:08:13We're having serialized execution.
Bob: 00:08:15we, you know, we're not, you know, we're being lazy and retrospectives, et cetera.
Bob: 00:08:19There's no commitment.
Bob: 00:08:20So to me, I don't think there's any silver bullet for that.
Bob: 00:08:24I think, I think it goes back to like a bootcamp kind of.
Bob: 00:08:27It's like I would kick a little butt as a coach and say, look, we haven't earned
Bob: 00:08:31the right to ignore backlog refinement.
Bob: 00:08:35Show me the results.
Bob: 00:08:37Show me the outcomes and the results that we have as a team that give us the
Bob: 00:08:41right to be, to show up where we are.
Bob: 00:08:44And if it's there, that's fine.
Bob: 00:08:45And if it's not there, then we ha we have to look in the mirror and we need,
Bob: 00:08:49I think a little bit of a butt-kicking and I, I would run it as an experiment.
Bob: 00:08:52So I think that, you know, the, the conversation would be that's, that's
Bob: 00:08:57tried to really do it well and see if that makes a difference in our
Bob: 00:09:01outcomes and our results in our work, in our behavior, et cetera.
Bob: 00:09:06But I, I think you have to kick the, you know, kick the team's ass a little
Bob: 00:09:10bit or something and will prescribe it.
Bob: 00:09:12it's one of the reasons I like putting new teams through bootcamp kinds of things
Bob: 00:09:16where there's not an option to opt out.
Bob: 00:09:18Right, right.
Bob: 00:09:19Like we're going to do.
Bob: 00:09:21Right.
Bob: 00:09:21We're you know, and we're going to try to do it well.
Bob: 00:09:24So we're going to start with, this is how these are the activities or the,
Bob: 00:09:28the things we're going to do to start.
Bob: 00:09:29A lot of people don't want to confront the team.
Bob: 00:09:31There's still a lot of runaway teams.
Bob: 00:09:34I think there's more runaway teams nowadays, even than there used to be
Bob: 00:09:37where teams think of, you know, agile as being to get out of jail, free
Bob: 00:09:42card to do whatever the hell they are.
Bob: 00:09:44I know, I'm sorry.
Bob: 00:09:45I sound like a grumpy old man.
Bob: 00:09:47
Josh:
00:09:47
was thinking, and I do believe you're right, because I
Josh: 00:09:52think agile has become, and we've talked about this a myriad of times.
Josh: 00:09:57It's now mainstream.
Josh: 00:10:00So everybody just kind of thinks they know what it is, but they're not totally
Josh: 00:10:05sure because they've never really done it.
Josh: 00:10:08Well, But harp is terribly distracted since got distracted.
Josh: 00:10:15
Bob:
00:10:15
just noticed that there's another, so Walter Raleigh in the
Bob: 00:10:19room and he's, I think you stared
Josh: 00:10:23at me there.
Josh: 00:10:25Is there a two.
Josh: 00:10:26
Bob:
00:10:27
I think his eyes are following me.
Josh: 00:10:31Oh, listen there.
Josh: 00:10:32So listeners, this is, oh
Bob: 00:10:33my God.
Bob: 00:10:35I can't help it.
Bob: 00:10:36And sir, Walter is right over Josh, his head.
Bob: 00:10:38So I'm like looking at Josh and now I'm looking at sir Walter at the same time,
Josh: 00:10:44Bobby got to connect.
Josh: 00:10:45We got to, I'm trying,
Bob: 00:10:47I'll look at your chest.
Bob: 00:10:49
Josh:
00:10:49
looking at your chest.
Josh: 00:10:52Oh, Okay.
Josh: 00:10:54So, but you're not that sorry.
Josh: 00:10:58It's fault listeners.
Josh: 00:11:00I wish you could've seen his eyes while I was trying to talk about teams.
Bob: 00:11:05And the strange thing was it's been there the whole time.
Bob: 00:11:08I just, I just like looked up and I'm like, what the hell was that?
Josh: 00:11:12
Josh:
00:11:12
So I think because.
Josh: 00:11:15Agile has become mainstream.
Josh: 00:11:16Many people believe they know what it is.
Josh: 00:11:19So they like wield that very broadly.
Josh: 00:11:23And so that gives people this like belief that, oh, I know what it is.
Josh: 00:11:27You don't, that's not like you're right.
Josh: 00:11:30The number of times we've heard, that's not agile.
Josh: 00:11:33It's pretty amazing.
Josh: 00:11:34But, but that's, again, I agree and support with the approach you had
Josh: 00:11:39of like, okay, like let's just stop and let's look at the scoreboard.
Josh: 00:11:43Are we winning or are we losing right.
Josh: 00:11:45And most likely they're losing.
Josh: 00:11:47And then just say like, do you actually want to win?
Josh: 00:11:50Or are you happy?
Josh: 00:11:52Losing as a week.
Josh: 00:11:53Exactly.
Bob: 00:11:54Yeah.
Bob: 00:11:54And if you want to play the game, I think for beginning teams, there's
Bob: 00:11:58this, if you want to play the game of agile, like trust your coach to some
Bob: 00:12:02or trust, trust the people who have experienced or your scrum master or
Bob: 00:12:05whatever, they may not be perfect, but they have, they have some experience.
Bob: 00:12:09There's, you know, there's a lot of people that they, they
Bob: 00:12:12think they know what agile is.
Bob: 00:12:14I mean it's, what's convenient.
Bob: 00:12:16I think they forget the rigor of it.
Bob: 00:12:18Right?
Bob: 00:12:18It's it's not it's actual dumped well is rigorous.
Bob: 00:12:23I can't help.
Bob: 00:12:24But think of it has, it has a game plan.
Bob: 00:12:27It has a playbook right there.
Bob: 00:12:29There are, there are things like backlog refinement.
Bob: 00:12:33There's there's a reason it's not these pointy headed managers have a meeting
Bob: 00:12:38that drives you crazy and over again.
Bob: 00:12:41What is backlog refinement?
Bob: 00:12:42It's about.
Bob: 00:12:44Team the whole team collaborating around the backlog, the whole team,
Bob: 00:12:48understanding what the stories are and what the themes are.
Bob: 00:12:51The whole team providing input on size complexity, risk, the
Bob: 00:12:56whole team via estimation.
Bob: 00:12:58It's look ahead so that you can be more efficient.
Bob: 00:13:01One of the things most recently I was, I was talking to a client.
Bob: 00:13:06And, they're, they're living in the moment of a sprint and they're
Bob: 00:13:09having a lot of waste downstream.
Bob: 00:13:12Like they do something in sprint one.
Bob: 00:13:14And it gets undone or has to be ripped out in sprint two or three.
Bob: 00:13:19And I'm talking about refinement.
Bob: 00:13:21One of the ways to help with that is to look, look ahead a little bit.
Bob: 00:13:26And, and it's not, not just preventing.
Bob: 00:13:29I think it would about like efficiency.
Bob: 00:13:31Yeah.
Bob: 00:13:32It wasn't just look ahead like you can, you do spiking as part of
Bob: 00:13:36refinements and spikes and research and prototypes and experimentation.
Bob: 00:13:41But the other thing I was talking to them just a few days ago,
Bob: 00:13:44I said, it's the efficiency.
Bob: 00:13:46I said, the pro as a product owner, you want to listen to your team and
Bob: 00:13:49encourage them to tell you, you know, what the, if you, if you change the
Bob: 00:13:53order of these stores, I can do it better or we can do it better or
Bob: 00:13:57faster, or we can reduce test time.
Bob: 00:14:00Do you know what I'm saying?
Bob: 00:14:01Like those efficiency discussions, that's how you actually accelerate.
Bob: 00:14:05You can accelerate and stuff.
Bob: 00:14:06Yeah.
Bob: 00:14:07The, the,
Josh: 00:14:11some of the more common pushbacks that I've received to what I call
Josh: 00:14:16just in time planning and that just in time planning leads to all of the.
Josh: 00:14:22Symptomatic issues.
Josh: 00:14:23Have you have a lot of architecture, rework, all these things, just
Josh: 00:14:27like you end up with a ton of debt.
Josh: 00:14:29So there's two things that end up getting in the way in people's brains.
Josh: 00:14:33The first one is like, they don't have time.
Josh: 00:14:37Yeah.
Josh: 00:14:37Right.
Josh: 00:14:37So it's, it's that circle of, we don't have time to plan,
Josh: 00:14:42but we don't, we don't play.
Josh: 00:14:44Right.
Josh: 00:14:44It's just, it just becomes this vicious cycle.
Josh: 00:14:47And then the second is the number of places that I've been.
Josh: 00:14:52Where teams, I think from management or something, I'm not sure.
Josh: 00:14:56Or maybe their history have this belief that if they're not typing
Josh: 00:15:02code in the feature in that sprint, they're not adding value.
Josh: 00:15:08Whereas you have to understand to build it.
Josh: 00:15:11Well, there's a ton of work that has to be done so that when the
Josh: 00:15:16time comes to put your fingers on the keys that you actually.
Josh: 00:15:20Well, and accurately, and don't have a ton of rework, but there's so many places
Josh: 00:15:24where if I'm not typing, I'm not doing my
Bob: 00:15:26
Bob:
00:15:28
I think, you know, I agree with you, but it's, I, I've never seen the logic to it.
Bob: 00:15:34I think there's this false understanding of like the
Bob: 00:15:37efficiency of writing software.
Bob: 00:15:41'cause, you know, I'm like, I was talking to this to another team and
Bob: 00:15:46I was talking to them about this curve of, you know, what is the story
Bob: 00:15:49maturity entering the spread, you, and I've talked about the percent of
Bob: 00:15:52clarity you have around stories coming.
Bob: 00:15:54Let's say that's part of refinement, a big part of it, the clarity
Bob: 00:15:57we have around the story flow.
Bob: 00:16:00And I was like, you know, there are some coaches that say you only need 20 to 30%.
Bob: 00:16:05Pre sprint entry, then you get another 20, 30%, even 40% clarity
Bob: 00:16:10by sprint planning, right?
Bob: 00:16:12And then you get another 30% or whatever by execution.
Bob: 00:16:17So that there's this curve of you're getting clarity on the stories,
Bob: 00:16:21you know, sort of pre sprint planning, sprint planning is a big.
Bob: 00:16:25Right.
Bob: 00:16:25You're getting clarity there around it.
Bob: 00:16:28And that's just in time.
Bob: 00:16:29That's, that's not in advance that's during sprint planning
Bob: 00:16:32the way some people do it.
Bob: 00:16:33Yeah.
Bob: 00:16:34Right.
Bob: 00:16:34And then it's, and then it's there during the execution.
Bob: 00:16:37So my point is right.
Bob: 00:16:39We're talking about like getting whatever it is, 20 to 30% clear.
Bob: 00:16:44I'm not saying planning.
Bob: 00:16:46It's not like exhaustive planning.
Bob: 00:16:48It's it's very quick.
Bob: 00:16:50I like the teams that I've seen that do refinement with.
Bob: 00:16:54They do it.
Bob: 00:16:55They do a quick, we have like eight, 10.
Bob: 00:16:57One of my recommendations is like, do it Nick timer.
Bob: 00:16:59Right?
Bob: 00:17:00Have like an eight timer per story.
Bob: 00:17:02Have quick, have quick estimation estimate.
Bob: 00:17:04Multiple times have quick conversations, put it on the shelf.
Bob: 00:17:07Talk about it the next time you can, you can get two or
Bob: 00:17:11three sprints worth of stories.
Bob: 00:17:13Refined.
Bob: 00:17:15You know, I dunno in a month and then you're cruising then it's like, like you
Bob: 00:17:20hit the, you hit, what is it in your car?
Bob: 00:17:22Do you hit the I'm blanking the cruise, the cruise control.
Bob: 00:17:27And you think you're welcome?
Josh: 00:17:29And it's a reason it's not like a new test.
Bob: 00:17:34Thank you for not busting my chops.
Bob: 00:17:36Yeah.
Bob: 00:17:37But you hit cruise control and then, and then you're just, then you're in the
Bob: 00:17:41moment and it's incredibly efficient.
Bob: 00:17:44So, so it's it.
Bob: 00:17:45I don't know.
Bob: 00:17:46I'm not buying the fact that it, yeah, if you plan it out to a hundred
Bob: 00:17:50percent clarity in every story and you beat it to death, or you do all
Bob: 00:17:53this dysfunction, then, then yeah.
Bob: 00:17:55Jettison that.
Bob: 00:17:56But the
Josh: 00:17:59biggest hurdle that I've seen teams stumble over, or
Josh: 00:18:03like completely fake Facebook.
Josh: 00:18:06With is you can't go from zero to a hundred speed-wise
Josh: 00:18:13without having to accelerate.
Josh: 00:18:15And the acceleration is the work.
Josh: 00:18:17So you have to invest a lot early because you're going from zero backlog effect.
Josh: 00:18:23And you want to get to like two or three sprints.
Bob: 00:18:26So the upfront penalty is there and you're paying more up front.
Bob: 00:18:30And I think folks are maybe reacting to that.
Bob: 00:18:34I have a question for you.
Bob: 00:18:35Yeah.
Bob: 00:18:36Teams are really struggling.
Bob: 00:18:37You've seen them in, in the job or when you've been traveling around.
Bob: 00:18:41I can.
Bob: 00:18:42And I don't think I'm exaggerating.
Bob: 00:18:44I look at teams, Carrie, I'll use Carrie over stories.
Bob: 00:18:47They're committing to 10 and they're typically carrying over five.
Bob: 00:18:51Per sprint, which is not a good thing, right.
Bob: 00:18:53From a commit, execute perspective.
Bob: 00:18:56I look at it and I look at their, the refinement and I see a direct correlation.
Bob: 00:19:01Almost always.
Bob: 00:19:02There's a direct, you can, you can tell it's not the only thing, but
Bob: 00:19:06probably 80% of the time when I see teams struggling to me in my head, I
Bob: 00:19:11may not even share it with them because they're not, they don't want to.
Bob: 00:19:14But I'm like, you know, if you invest it in, in kick ass refinement,
Bob: 00:19:19you would see totally different results during the execution.
Bob: 00:19:23So it's like a pay me now pay me later.
Bob: 00:19:26And everyone wants to pay later with the pain.
Bob: 00:19:28I think it's
Josh: 00:19:30the, you know, you don't want to.
Josh: 00:19:34It's like investing, you know, you don't want to put the, you know,
Josh: 00:19:38however many hundred bucks in a week or whatever your number is to do that.
Josh: 00:19:43And then at the end you're like, oh shit.
Josh: 00:19:44Why, why did I not have very
Bob: 00:19:46good number for looking at stories in the bag?
Bob: 00:19:49What do you think?
Bob: 00:19:49Like sprints stories in the bag before you stop refining, you
Bob: 00:19:54don't want to continually do as
Josh: 00:19:56I've you healthy as.
Josh: 00:19:58Two to three sprints kind of depends on the team.
Josh: 00:20:01I aspire for three and I've had a lot of.
Josh: 00:20:04Get there with work that is ready to be pulled into a sprint.
Bob: 00:20:09So that's, that's my bench, somewhere in there, two to three
Bob: 00:20:12sprints, like one is not enough.
Bob: 00:20:14Right?
Bob: 00:20:14There's some and five is too many.
Bob: 00:20:16So there's some that there's some horizon.
Bob: 00:20:18That's just, you're wasting your time on that horizon.
Bob: 00:20:21And you're, you're just being silly on the other one.
Bob: 00:20:24You're going to have things blow up.
Bob: 00:20:25So it's like to right.
Bob: 00:20:27But it doesn't.
Bob: 00:20:27So let's say you have 10 stories.
Bob: 00:20:29Velocity's not, so we're not talking.
Bob: 00:20:33I get the upfront argument, but we're talking about what
Bob: 00:20:36for one team, like 10 stories.
Bob: 00:20:38Yeah.
Bob: 00:20:39Right.
Josh: 00:20:40And, and you're working on 10 stories that are like
Josh: 00:20:44two or three sprints away.
Josh: 00:20:45So you'll have to do all 10 stories.
Josh: 00:20:47You basically have to do like three stories a week to like, keep your pace.
Josh: 00:20:51Exactly.
Bob: 00:20:52It's not, it's not that arduous of investment.
Bob: 00:20:56If you sort of stick with it, I get having them in the bag.
Bob: 00:21:00I have 10 stories, maybe at eight 20 in the bag for two, but, but
Bob: 00:21:03again, then, then I do five a week or something like that.
Bob: 00:21:07The minute I catch up, then I start throttling.
Josh: 00:21:09Yeah.
Josh: 00:21:09And it's another one of those things.
Josh: 00:21:12And this is just always works in my brain.
Josh: 00:21:15The more you do something the better you get at it.
Josh: 00:21:20So if you do it once a week, you're going to get really good.
Josh: 00:21:24If you actually invest, you're going to get good at it.
Josh: 00:21:26And you can probably do, you know, two or three stories in an hour
Bob: 00:21:31easy.
Bob: 00:21:32I'll see, I've seen with some of the techniques I recommend we
Bob: 00:21:35should link a link to a couple of,
Josh: 00:21:37well, I think you and I have different expectations for what a story.
Josh: 00:21:42Being ready for sprint.
Bob: 00:21:44So S probably, yeah.
Bob: 00:21:47You think you're more robust than I am?
Bob: 00:21:49Really?
Bob: 00:21:50Yeah.
Bob: 00:21:51Oh, okay.
Bob: 00:21:52Yeah.
Josh: 00:21:52All right.
Josh: 00:21:53This is why I think fewer per hour,
Bob: 00:21:56but I still think of velocity.
Bob: 00:21:57I mean, I've seen this a team again, if you're not trying to get this,
Bob: 00:22:01if your goal was not to beat it to death in one, one hour, right.
Bob: 00:22:05Beat them into two to death.
Bob: 00:22:07If you can otherwise punt them and get to sample.
Bob: 00:22:10Yeah,
Josh: 00:22:11because you're not because you don't have to do it the next sprint.
Bob: 00:22:13Yeah.
Bob: 00:22:14So if you're doing that, I've seen teams like comfortably do five or six stories.
Bob: 00:22:18So, so the sample rate is five to six, somewhere in the five to six.
Bob: 00:22:23That's the velocity and look at.
Josh: 00:22:26
Josh:
00:22:27
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Josh: 00:22:28I agree.
Josh: 00:22:28So to me, a healthy cadence is like, you get three ready?
Josh: 00:22:33
Josh:
00:22:33
might
Bob: 00:22:33look at others.
Bob: 00:22:35Yeah.
Bob: 00:22:35I'm with
Josh: 00:22:35
Josh:
00:22:36
Yeah.
Josh: 00:22:36So to me, But I agree with you completely, whatever.
Josh: 00:22:40I go into some someplace where somebody has called one of us in,
Josh: 00:22:45because something's going wrong.
Josh: 00:22:48You know, you always look at the backlog.
Josh: 00:22:50
Josh:
00:22:51
And it's a, it's a mess.
Josh: 00:22:52So what, what is a mess?
Josh: 00:22:54A mess is they all kind of look the same.
Josh: 00:22:59
Josh:
00:22:59
And so then you asked the question of the team, how many of these
Josh: 00:23:05are ready for like the next.
Josh: 00:23:07And they have no way of knowing.
Josh: 00:23:09The only way they know is if somebody remembers, oh yeah, we've talked
Josh: 00:23:11about that story like two weeks ago and it's good, but like no one knows.
Josh: 00:23:17So I actually add two statuses to work items, whatever system that you use, where
Josh: 00:23:25it's ready for refinement is a state.
Josh: 00:23:29So like the product owner gets it to a spot and does work.
Josh: 00:23:32It's like, oh, like here's, here's things we can look at.
Josh: 00:23:36Refinement and you might get to a refinement and there's only one
Josh: 00:23:39because that's all the product owner has been able to get done.
Josh: 00:23:41And you just do that.
Josh: 00:23:42Then we have a status that's ready for sprint.
Josh: 00:23:45So that means we've done whatever work that we think
Josh: 00:23:48is the right work to get done.
Josh: 00:23:49That we, yes, these are actually things that could get pulled into
Josh: 00:23:52a sprint whenever we are ready.
Josh: 00:23:53So then it gets really easy to say, yeah, we average about 10
Josh: 00:23:57points or whatever the number is.
Josh: 00:23:59Do we have.
Josh: 00:24:00Do we have three X that ready to go?
Josh: 00:24:02If so, maybe we don't need to refine if we have 35, just because
Josh: 00:24:05the way it worked out, let's
Bob: 00:24:07take break this week.
Bob: 00:24:08I do think there were too, when I, when I even last week when I was talking to these
Bob: 00:24:12folks I coupled readiness or definition ready and definition of done or whatever.
Bob: 00:24:19You're talking about readiness.
Bob: 00:24:20I coupled those two concepts with refinement.
Bob: 00:24:24Ready.
Bob: 00:24:25Just the way you talk about it, right?
Bob: 00:24:27You, you having some checklist or some clarity around what is ready?
Bob: 00:24:32What is ready for refinement and what is ready for the sprint?
Bob: 00:24:36What is ready for a spike could be something, right.
Bob: 00:24:39It doesn't be a checklist, but then done.
Bob: 00:24:41This is helping you with the estimation and helping you with the discussion,
Bob: 00:24:45like keeping definition of done.
Bob: 00:24:47I don't think you like tattoo it on everyone, but it's like you
Bob: 00:24:50have it in the back of your mind.
Bob: 00:24:52But when we're thinking about level of effort, when we're thinking about
Bob: 00:24:55risk and complexity, we're thinking about getting this story done and
Bob: 00:24:59being very crisp in that definition.
Bob: 00:25:01So those two things are coupled, I think, right.
Bob: 00:25:04That's why, when I was talking about discipline, I think in terms of a
Bob: 00:25:06rigor, you know, you've rigorously defined a definition of ready.
Bob: 00:25:10Some people don't like that and then definition down as well.
Josh: 00:25:15My, my assumption is that step one, then everybody should do.
Josh: 00:25:18Yeah.
Josh: 00:25:19Starting in 2022 is make sure you have clear.
Josh: 00:25:22Around what ready looks like in these various states so that
Josh: 00:25:26everybody can look each other in the eye and say like, yep, we did it.
Josh: 00:25:29Yeah.
Josh: 00:25:29Or like, no, Bob, we haven't done that yet.
Josh: 00:25:31Like let's, let's hit the pause button and talk about this thing.
Josh: 00:25:34And then.
Josh: 00:25:36Done really matters because that way everybody in their
Josh: 00:25:40mind has the same destination
Bob: 00:25:41in mind.
Bob: 00:25:42Well, when you're say 13, or when you say five, what are you, what
Bob: 00:25:47are you thinking of doing right.
Bob: 00:25:48I don't know how you can, I don't know how you can estimate something
Bob: 00:25:51if you don't know what done is.
Bob: 00:25:54I don't care.
Bob: 00:25:55It's even been written down, but if we don't have a clear idea of what, what
Bob: 00:26:00encompasses getting a piece of work done?
Bob: 00:26:02Yeah, I think.
Josh: 00:26:05Welcome to our diversity and inclusion minute.
Bob: 00:26:07Hey, so I have something there's a, in the last medic
Bob: 00:26:11cast, I talked about a group.
Bob: 00:26:14God, I can't remember.
Bob: 00:26:16I think it's like the agile, disciples and a bunch of about eight African-American.
Bob: 00:26:25Coaches and they wanted guidance to become CTCs certified team coach.
Josh: 00:26:30Everybody listened to the last episode.
Josh: 00:26:32Right?
Josh: 00:26:33You did didn't you?
Josh: 00:26:35Yeah, you did.
Josh: 00:26:35So if you didn't, you're going to go do it right now.
Josh: 00:26:37So I've
Bob: 00:26:38reached, so we've been working with them.
Bob: 00:26:40We set up slack I've sent them some information about mentoring and
Bob: 00:26:44things and They're talking about setting up a, a meeting like a
Bob: 00:26:49meetup group meeting in January.
Bob: 00:26:52So I'll make sure we get it out to the Medi-Cal to let
Bob: 00:26:55people know I'm going to speak.
Bob: 00:26:56They've invited me to be the, like the they're trying to, if you remember, from
Bob: 00:27:01the last episode, there's two things.
Bob: 00:27:03What can we do to become team coaches?
Bob: 00:27:05And we need mentoring and training around that, et cetera, can you help us?
Bob: 00:27:08But also we want to give back to the community.
Bob: 00:27:10So, so the meetup group, I think is there.
Bob: 00:27:13What can we do to start creating some community on our own around that?
Bob: 00:27:18I would like to link those folks to, to the Medi-Cal like Agilent
Bob: 00:27:22color and things like that.
Bob: 00:27:23We might not now, but we, we can do that, like a landing page or something that's
Bob: 00:27:29related to links, et cetera, around that.
Bob: 00:27:32Right.
Bob: 00:27:32Because agile and colors there.
Bob: 00:27:34I like it.
Bob: 00:27:35Yeah.
Bob: 00:27:35We need to do something like that.
Bob: 00:27:36So that's my, that's my update.
Bob: 00:27:38Yeah.
Bob: 00:27:38
Josh:
00:27:39
mine is.
Josh: 00:27:40I'm ready to help.
Bob: 00:27:41I need your, I need your help because I'm on the little they need.
Bob: 00:27:45They're pulling on me quite a bit.
Bob: 00:27:47So if we can include it, if we can pair on that, that would be wonderful.
Bob: 00:27:51A hundred percent.
Bob: 00:27:51All right.
Bob: 00:27:52Back to the episode.
Bob: 00:27:53
Bob:
00:27:53
Cool.
Bob: 00:27:54Okay.
Bob: 00:27:55The other thing I saw last week, or I heard from folks who said, there's an,
Bob: 00:28:00I, I heard this like more than 10 years ago and I was just ranting about it.
Bob: 00:28:04I ran into a client 10 more than a decade ago, and they were, there was like a
Bob: 00:28:08one-shot estimate where you could, the minute you estimated you got one chance.
Bob: 00:28:15I re I forget the company, but you had one chance to get your numbers that many.
Bob: 00:28:21Had a number from the team and planning poker.
Bob: 00:28:24You could never revisit it.
Bob: 00:28:25
Bob:
00:28:26
It was like, it was.
Bob: 00:28:28Just that was a fixed number.
Bob: 00:28:30So for the, and you can never re estimate if something, if someone
Bob: 00:28:34said, oh, we forgot about this.
Bob: 00:28:35You could tell them, no, you, you had a five it's it's too late.
Bob: 00:28:40And these, these folks were talking about the same thing.
Bob: 00:28:42Refinement was a one-shot exercise to them.
Bob: 00:28:45I think if they did.
Bob: 00:28:47It was, we look at the story, we write the story, we have an estimate, we
Bob: 00:28:51get th we, we average it or whatever.
Bob: 00:28:53We get a number and then we move on.
Bob: 00:28:55It's done.
Bob: 00:28:56It's like a, we land a story.
Bob: 00:28:59We never met a story that we couldn't land.
Bob: 00:29:01We just don't do very many of them, but we landed.
Bob: 00:29:03And I was like, my head blew up.
Bob: 00:29:05I was like, I, I encourage people to ask.
Bob: 00:29:09You know, like for one story, if it's a complex story estimate 10 times, right.
Bob: 00:29:12Over, over a period of meetings or whatever, and I'm like, the
Bob: 00:29:15estimates can drive the decision.
Bob: 00:29:16If it's a trivial story estimate one or once or twice, that's fine,
Bob: 00:29:19but I'm not stuck on like the one.
Bob: 00:29:21And what they were saying is, you know, there's this, you could hear fiddly
Bob: 00:29:25oppression, like we have to get it.
Bob: 00:29:26Right.
Bob: 00:29:27Right.
Bob: 00:29:28So it was driving like story perfectionism, like the story, right.
Bob: 00:29:31Because there's only one shot to get to the waterfall.
Bob: 00:29:34Refinement.
Bob: 00:29:34Yeah.
Bob: 00:29:35Yeah.
Bob: 00:29:36It was weird.
Bob: 00:29:37So I would medic Hester's the point is if you, for falling into, if you're
Bob: 00:29:41limiting estimates, look at estimated.
Bob: 00:29:44As more of a conversation driving activity than a number generation activity.
Bob: 00:29:49And, and if it requires, if the story requires it, like in backlog
Bob: 00:29:54refinement, I'll do a timer for like a story for maybe five to seven minutes.
Bob: 00:30:00In five to seven minutes, we could ask that we could do planning poker
Bob: 00:30:04estimation two or three times just in one refinement just to drive out some
Bob: 00:30:09of the nuance so that, and we could do.
Bob: 00:30:12Across to meetings.
Bob: 00:30:13Yeah.
Bob: 00:30:14Yeah.
Bob: 00:30:14And, and I, I want to hear you tell me if you think know the crap.
Josh: 00:30:18Yes, I do.
Josh: 00:30:19But not on this topic.
Josh: 00:30:21Exactly.
Josh: 00:30:23No, I mean, I, I, I agree 100% on all of those things and a likely
Josh: 00:30:29struggle that you have is the team.
Josh: 00:30:31Is it willing to engage in that?
Josh: 00:30:33
Josh:
00:30:34
Right?
Josh: 00:30:34So that goes back to the bootcamp of like, we are losing every
Josh: 00:30:37time we do you like losing or not like, do you actually want to win?
Josh: 00:30:44So if you want to win, here are the things we need to do and we need
Josh: 00:30:47you to engage and it will be hard.
Josh: 00:30:50You will be required to push people and they might be annoyed at you
Josh: 00:30:53pushing, but it's that that's coaching.
Josh: 00:30:55
Josh:
00:30:55
That that's what coaching is coaching.
Josh: 00:30:57Isn't just saying like, Hey, we're going to do it my way.
Josh: 00:31:01And then when people push back, you.
Josh: 00:31:03Turn a blind eye.
Josh: 00:31:04No, that's where you do the hard work of saying, okay, I hear you.
Josh: 00:31:08But remember, this is what we're trying for three sprints
Josh: 00:31:10or whatever the number is.
Josh: 00:31:11And like, we're going to engage.
Josh: 00:31:13I need to be a part of this and we're off and running.
Josh: 00:31:15And then what happens is the team starts doing it for you, but they
Josh: 00:31:20don't start doing it for you.
Josh: 00:31:21If you don't set the example and the expectation, do you think we have
Bob: 00:31:25
Bob:
00:31:26
You just inspired me another thing that I'm sensing, maybe
Bob: 00:31:29this is another Medi-Cal is I think coaches are getting softer.
Bob: 00:31:33
Josh:
00:31:34
That's already in my brain of another one
Bob: 00:31:36over time.
Bob: 00:31:36Yeah.
Bob: 00:31:37And, and I'm not making this, I think coaches for some,
Bob: 00:31:40maybe for a variety of reasons.
Bob: 00:31:42Are getting softer.
Bob: 00:31:44
Josh:
00:31:44
think agile coaching and scrum mastering has become diluted.
Josh: 00:31:48And I believe that's an issue, but that is a whole nother tight.
Josh: 00:31:51Yeah, yeah.
Josh: 00:31:52Yeah.
Josh: 00:31:52Cause I thought about bringing that up.
Josh: 00:31:53Like, boy, we'll get really distracted.
Josh: 00:31:55We go down that path,
Bob: 00:31:55but no, no, but that's, that's a worthy other episode,
Josh: 00:31:59which will be a good follow-up to this because there's, that's going to
Josh: 00:32:01take tough love and you're going to do to tail off as a coach to make this happen.
Josh: 00:32:06There's a reason that's not happening.
Josh: 00:32:08Right.
Josh: 00:32:08And as a coach, It's your responsibility to make this happen.
Josh: 00:32:12So you need to look at yourself and say, holy crap, I've not been doing
Josh: 00:32:15my job to help this get better.
Josh: 00:32:17So like, what do I need to do?
Josh: 00:32:19That's that resolution that you need to make and not a new year's, but there's
Josh: 00:32:23a resolution within like your heart and soul that you have to make this.
Josh: 00:32:27I'm going to do this and I'm going to make it happen.
Bob: 00:32:29I agree.
Bob: 00:32:30I have a really nice blog post.
Bob: 00:32:32I think just one I have multiples, but one is coming to mind like patterns
Bob: 00:32:37for successful backlog refinement.
Bob: 00:32:39I'll I'll shoot that to you.
Bob: 00:32:40And we could include it with this episode.
Bob: 00:32:42How did we land this?
Bob: 00:32:43Do you any more from your point of view?
Bob: 00:32:45I feel that
Josh: 00:32:45okay.
Josh: 00:32:45There, there's a ton of nuance that we'll get into the episode
Josh: 00:32:49about coaching getting soft.
Josh: 00:32:51Yeah.
Josh: 00:32:52On the execution and dealing with people that don't want to engage,
Josh: 00:32:55like we can do episodes about that.
Josh: 00:32:57I am sure.
Josh: 00:32:59But we try to give you the framework of just look in the mirror and
Josh: 00:33:03are you doing these things?
Josh: 00:33:04And if not, you need to, and here are some tips and tricks
Josh: 00:33:07on how to make that a reality.
Josh: 00:33:09Next episode will be more tactical on like, okay, you're in refinements and
Josh: 00:33:15three of your engineers don't engage.
Bob: 00:33:19What do you do?
Bob: 00:33:20So, yeah.
Bob: 00:33:21Cool.
Bob: 00:33:22So from beautiful downtown North Carolina, I'm Bob Gale and
Bob: 00:33:26I'm Josh Anderson shake and take care of y'all by Walter..
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