Project to Product | Software Process and Measurement
Re-Read Saturday, Project to Product, Week 9 – Chapter 8: Specialized Tools and the Value Stream
This week, Chapter 8 of Project to Product https://amzn.to/2WzvPac (Amazon Affiliate Link). I was presented with a scenario this week in which product, UX, development, testing, and security operated within their own boundaries with their own goals and tools — silos. Even though this was a discussion scenario it is easily one of the most common problems I observe in organizations once they begin to scale from start-up mode. Disconnected tools are both the result of silos and the cause of silos. This siloed behavior between departments can easily cascade into functions within departments. I often see teams that have different development tools, code repositories, and testing tools trying to work together to deliver a single product. A few years ago, a colleague and I identified five separate development and testing environments on a single release train. Trying to periodically create a single working version of the application for testing and review was a nightmare (the systems engineer in charge used different words). Every specialty and function wants to use the newest and shiniest tool leading to local optimization and fragmentation.
Re-Read Saturday, Project to Product, Week 8, Chapter 7: The Ground Truth of Enterprise Tool Networks
Before we dive in I would like to share an observation. I have re-read any number of books over the years. Some have not held up well and I just moved on; others reinforced the ideas and excitement I garnered during the first read and that is great. The really exciting re-reads are those that for whatever reason deliver new revelations. Project to Product is one of the later re-reads. This week is one of those big jumps for me — it did not start that way but a few things came together and there it was. We will wrap this re-read up in three or four entries and I will expand on a pattern I am seeing in how I synthesize information (hopefully it will be useful for you also). Now back to your previously scheduled re-read.
Re-Read Saturday, Project to Product, Week 7, Chapter 6: Tracking Disruption
Posted by tcagley under Re-read Saturday | Tags: Kersten, Measurement, Project to Product, Re-read Saturday |
This week, the PC version of the Kindle software I use seems to have lost its copy of Project to Product — I have gotten reasonably adept at reading on all of my devices therefore got the re-reading done. While not the end of the world, it makes this week’s chapter on disruption and the role of technical debt in some of the stories shared by Kersten even more poignant. In the chapter the author tells four stories of disruption — they are interesting in their own right. Still, if we look for a common thread I would suggest the communication needed to manage the balance between flow items (features, defects, risks, and debts). The right balance requires knowledge of external contexts such as changes in business dynamics and market risks and internal context, such as the amount of work required to support a product and the level of technical debt accumulated. Getting the balance right is a strategic portfolio decision that requires a broad range of parties at the table.
Re-Read Saturday, Project to Product, Week 5, Chapter 4: Capturing Flow Metrics
As a reminder, the Flow Framework defines four flow items (things we are interested in measuring in this framework). They are:
Using the framework is premised on a lot of things, however, two of the most critical are value streams and goals for how those value streams are going to operate. Everything starts with value streams. Without a clear understanding of how work is organized to deliver value to the market, organizations are operating blindly.
Posted by tcagley under Re-read Saturday | Tags: Flow, Project to Product, Re-read Saturday |
When I started writing this blog entry I tried to remember all of the books that we have re-read (or read for the first time) on a weekly basis. I couldn’t remember. When I look at the statistics for the Re-read Saturday entries they are almost always in the top ten, month after month so it doesn’t matter whether I remember each of the entries (I added a task to my backlog to find them all) because you find and read them. Two weeks ago I went on holiday, backpacking on Isle Royale. It was a total unplug. During that time I ran a poll to select the next two books to re-read. The answer is: