One of the core principles of Lean is to eliminate waste. For those of us working in Agile, it\u2019s important to consider what this means for our Product Backlogs. What are the waste reduction concepts that are currently in practice? And probably most important, what waste reduction ideas are suitable for my backlogs?
While I\u2019m only scratching the surface of possible waste reduction ideas, here are my reflections on common efforts we do to keep our SVPM backlogs lean.<\/p>\n\n\n
Prioritization is the name of the game for keeping a lean product backlog. I doubt I\u2019m telling you anything new here. Product Backlog Items (PBIs) get prioritized by the value they bring to users, customers, and\/or other stakeholders. My preferred method for doing this is the MoSCoW technique. MoSCoW stands for:<\/p>\n\n\n
The Must Haves<\/em> essentially make up the Minimum Viable Product (MVP). If you leave out a Must Have, the product won\u2019t work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Should Haves<\/em> might not address core functionality, but they still add a lot of value for the users, customers, or stakeholders. Once we identify our Must Haves and Should Haves, we know where to focus our efforts, reducing the risk of working on the wrong thing or too much at once.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Could Haves<\/em> are a judgment call. While they still provide value, it\u2019s less valuable than the Should Haves. The Product Owner ultimately decides the line between the two after gathering opinions from appropriate stakeholders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Won\u2019t Haves<\/em> are out of scope and not included in the Product Backlog, at least not for now. Since Agile is about adapting to change, the perceived value of these PBIs could change and they might warrant reprioritization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Product Backlog Refinement is the process of the Product Owner meeting with the Development Team and possibly users and business stakeholders to make sure that the top PBIs are well understood and ready to become part of a Sprint Backlog. Since we\u2019re mostly concerned with the PBIs that could end up in an upcoming Sprint Backlog, there is no need to discuss every PBI on the list. We\u2019re being Lean here by not spending our valuable time and effort on PBIs that may never move on to a Sprint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By encouraging the Developers to collaboratively clarify the top PBIs with the Product Owner and other stakeholders, we reduce potential defects and rework that could arise during the Sprint. Problems and issues are uncovered and dealt with early before they become bigger problems later. The biggest benefit from this collaboration is the increased communication amongst the Developers, who will be doing the actual work, and the Product Owner, users, and other business stakeholders. Everyone is on the same page regarding the PBI objectives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As much as possible, we want to keep PBIs independent of each other. That means we don\u2019t have to finish one PBI before we can start another. Anytime there is a dependency, there is a hand-off. Hand-offs cost time. One person may need to spend time explaining the PBI they just finished and the other person may need time to come up to speed. However, we live and work in the real world, and sometimes we need to accept certain hand-offs during a Sprint. For example, when I finish writing this article, someone else will need to edit it. While it is unfortunate that we have this hand-off during the Sprint, we decided it was more important to publish new content each Sprint rather than write it one Sprint and edit it the next. But by drawing attention to the hand-off, we can streamline it as much as possible. As the writer, I see the editor as a collaboration partner and I try to provide her with something to edit as early in the Sprint as possible. This tactic might not be appropriate for every development team, but it seems to be working for our situation.<\/p>\n\n\n One lesson I recently learned and am attempting to put into practice is to ease up on perfectionism. I, like I\u2019m sure many of you, am a product of a perfectionist corporate culture. I\u2019ve had it drilled into me \u201cdon\u2019t make mistakes\u201d and \u201cget it right the first time\u201d. That mindset may be appropriate in certain situations, but in my Agile experience, more focus is on working with what\u2019s in front of you as best you can, moving on and doing the work, then taking what you\u2019ve learned to apply to the next thing. At SVPM, we have a number of reoccurring PBIs that show up Sprint after Sprint. These PBIs are evolving, they are getting more streamlined, and clearer, with fewer or simpler hand-offs. As the team matures, and we have more open discussions about these PBIs, we keep making them better, one small improvement at a time. Image adapted from photo by Christina Morillo.<\/sup><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One of the core principles of Lean is to eliminate waste. For those of us working in Agile, it\u2019s important […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1669,"featured_media":20660,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[202,412,1460,203,43,1392,925,1459],"class_list":["post-20655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-miscellaneous","tag-agile","tag-collaboration","tag-eliminate-waste","tag-lean","tag-prioritization","tag-product-backlog","tag-scrum","tag-sprint"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/Lean-Backlog-II-e1667389679803.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1669"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20655"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20744,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20655\/revisions\/20744"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Product Backlog Refinement<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Dependencies, Hand-offs, and Bottle Necks<\/h4>\n\n\n
Mindset<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n