In our previous episode, we talked about the importance of visualizing your current work-in-progress to uncover bottlenecks, enhance decision-making, and provide clarity on your team's workload. Now, let's tackle what often comes next: realizing you have too much work in progress.
Why does this happen so often to development teams, and what can we do about it? In this episode, we're diving into strategies to manage and prevent this overload. We’ll cover setting WIP limits, staying responsive, and juggling organizational demands effectively.
Tune in to hear how to avoid overcommitting, the perks of prioritizing and finishing tasks before jumping into new ones, and how to use Lean principles to keep your workflow sustainable.
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25:57
Visualizing Your WIP
When the kind of work we do is invisible (like software development), it can be a challenge to keep track of what work is going on at any given time. That's where visualization can be a great tool for understanding your team's work in progress.
Building on last episode's discussion on creating workflow visualizations, in this episode, host Phil Ledgerwood explores the importance of visualizing work in progress to uncover current projects in flight and find hidden bottlenecks and inefficiencies. I discuss the pros and cons of common WIP visualizations (lists, Kanban boards, etc.) so that you can decide on a visualization that fits your unique workflow, even if it means thinking outside the box.
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23:32
Agile Team Management and Visualization (It's Not What You Think)
A lot of what we do in software development is invisible. If someone is typing furiously on their keyboard, you don't know if they're about to finish that new feature or if they're complaining to their state representative.
One of the things that tends to be invisible is the actual process of getting something from “request” to “deliverable.”
Everybody kind of knows what that process is, but they typically only know their piece of it, and they probably haven't thought critically about it in years.
Creating a visualization of this process can:
Spotlight potential weak points
Improve communication
Reveal the complexities of your team's workflow
Uncover hidden opportunities for optimization
In this episode I'm sharing practical tips for mapping out your processes, understanding team dynamics, and setting the stage for continuous improvement.
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17:42
Day One of Managing Agile Teams
When managing a new team, it's tempting to come in guns blazing with new ideas and changes. Not only can this cause resistance, however, but you might be heading the wrong direction to begin with.
Start with Fact-Finding and Reason-Finding before Recommendation-Making. In other words, one of your first moves should be to ask a lot of questions—"why" being one of the most prominent of them.
This sets you up for success with your team because:
You may discover there are good reasons for their current practices that are not immediately apparent to you
It lays the foundation for future discussions, focusing on the reasons behind the practices rather than the practices themselves—making the conversation ego-agnostic.
In this episode, learn how to create a safe environment to gear up your operations for change and set you and your team up for future success.
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25:36
How To Manage Software Teams - Fundamentals
Many of us who were thrown into management positions over development teams had to learn on the job. And when that happens, it can be easy to fall into the role of what you THINK a manager should do—be the rule enforcer and hold the team accountable.
But as a dev team manager, your primary role should be to enable your team to deliver value effectively and efficiently.
In other words, get out of your team's way and empower them to do their best work. How does this actually play out, though?
In this episode, I'm sharing the lessons I've learned and things I wish I had understood when I first started managing dev teams. Whether you're a new manager or a seasoned veteran, this episode provides practical tips for keeping you and your team on the same side working towards a common goal.
There is a lot of material on how a team should operate in an agile manner. There is also a lot of material for leadership as to the benefits of agility, the mindset, etc. But there is not a lot of material directed towards those folks who sit in between.
Agile Bites breaks down key Lean and Agile concepts and practices for the people who are often tasked with supporting these things. People who may have to be redefining their roles in a world of incremental delivery. Or maybe they’ve been put in the middle of an “agile transformation” and things are not going as well as promised.
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