Accelerating Value Delivery
The Journey of a University IT Department
Mark stared at the mountain of project requests piling up on his desk. As the Director of Technology Transformation at a large public university's IT department, he knew his team was overwhelmed. Students complained about slow response times on the portal, faculty needed new features for online classes, and administrative departments clamored for system upgrades. Despite his team's hard work, they seemed to be spinning their wheels.
For months, Mark spearheaded an initiative to shift the department towards scaling their lean-agile methodologies. He believed embracing agility could help them respond faster to the university's needs. However, the transition was proving more challenging than anticipated.
One morning, during their weekly team meeting, Mark decided it was time to address the elephant in the room.
"Folks," he began, "we're all working hard but not delivering the value our university needs. We need to rethink how we're approaching our projects."
Linda, a senior software developer and one of the early adopters of agile practices, nodded. "I've been juggling five different projects, and it feels like I'm not making meaningful progress on any of them. Our sprint goals keep getting derailed."
Shonda, the Scrum Master, added, "We also keep getting sidetracked by urgent but low-impact requests. It's hard to prioritize, and our backlog is a mess."
Mark realized they needed a new strategy. He recalled a workshop he attended about optimizing workflow using Goldratt's principles and decided to introduce some of those concepts to his team.
1. Triage for Prioritization
"First," Mark said, "we need to make sure we're working on the right things. Let's triage our projects and backlog items."
Ted, the systems engineer, raised an eyebrow. "Like in a medical emergency?"
"Exactly," Mark replied. "We need to assess which projects and user stories bring the most value to the university and focus on those. Our Product Owners need to help us refine the backlog."
The team spent the next few days collaborating with stakeholders to reevaluate all ongoing and pending projects. They considered factors like impact on student experience, regulatory compliance, and alignment with the university's strategic objectives.
They discovered that several projects were "nice-to-haves" requested by individual departments but didn't contribute significantly to the university's goals. Mark made the tough call to postpone or cancel these low-value initiatives.
Benefit: By focusing on high-value projects, the team could allocate their resources more effectively, ensuring they worked on initiatives that truly benefited the university community.
2. Controlling Work in Progress (WIP)
With priorities clear, Linda pointed out another issue. "Even with fewer projects, we're still multitasking too much. I switch contexts so often that I spend more time remembering where I left off than actually coding. Our sprints are overloaded."
Mark agreed. "Let's control our WIP. From now on, we'll limit the number of concurrent tasks each team member has during a sprint. Let's adopt a Kanban approach to visualize our workflow and set WIP limits."
Shonda updated the team's boards, setting explicit WIP limits for each stage of their process. They also implemented daily stand-ups focused on blockers and flow.
Benefit: The team's productivity increased as they spent more time on focused work and less on context switching. Projects started moving forward at a noticeable pace, and sprint goals became more attainable.
3. Ensuring Full-Kit Before Starting
Despite the improvements, Ted noticed they often hit delays waiting for approvals or missing information. "We keep getting stuck because we don't have everything we need when we start," he said. "Our stories aren't 'ready' when we pull them into a sprint."
"Good point," Mark replied. "Let's implement a 'full-kit' or 'Definition of Ready' check before beginning any task."
They collaborated to define clear criteria for when a user story was ready to be worked on, including complete acceptance criteria, necessary approvals, and all required resources available. Shonda, as the Scrum Master, took on the role of gatekeeper, ensuring no work entered the sprint backlog without meeting these criteria.
Benefit: This proactive approach minimized stoppages, allowing the team to maintain momentum and meet their sprint commitments more reliably.
4. Synchronizing Tasks and Resources
Kiara, the business analyst, brought up another concern. "Our projects often depend on input from other departments, but we're not aligning our schedules. This causes delays and impacts our sprint deliverables."
Mark realized that poor synchronization was hindering progress. They began coordinating with other departments through shared calendars and joint planning sessions. For critical projects, they established cross-functional teams that included stakeholders from relevant areas.
Benefit: Improved coordination reduced waiting times for external inputs, and projects progressed smoothly without unexpected interruptions, aligning better with the university's academic calendar.
5. Increasing the Dosage of Work
Despite these improvements, some issues persisted. The team found themselves revisiting the same problems without resolution.
"We're not spending enough time on root causes," Linda observed. "Maybe we need to increase the 'dosage' of our efforts. Instead of patching symptoms, let's fix the underlying issues."
Mark agreed. "Let's allocate time in our sprints for technical debt and continuous improvement. Perhaps we can use a portion of each sprint for these activities."
They introduced dedicated time for addressing technical debt and implemented regular retrospectives to identify and act on improvement opportunities.
Benefit: By resolving underlying issues more comprehensively, they reduced recurring problems, leading to sustained improvements in system stability and performance.
6. Avoiding Unnecessary Rework
However, rework was still consuming valuable time. Ted noted, "We often have to redo work because of miscommunications or unclear requirements. Our user stories change mid-sprint."
Kiara proposed a solution. "Let's enhance our collaboration with stakeholders during the sprint planning and review meetings. We should also adopt Behavior-Driven Development (BDD) practices to clarify requirements."
They started holding detailed backlog refinement sessions and involved end-users early in the process. Acceptance criteria became more precise, and they used example mapping to ensure everyone had a shared understanding.
Benefit: Clearer communication and early detection of issues significantly reduced the need for rework, saving time and resources. The quality of deliverables improved, and stakeholder satisfaction increased.
7. Standardizing Processes
Shonda pointed out that improvisation was causing inconsistencies. "We all have our own ways of doing things, which leads to confusion and errors. Our deployment processes, in particular, are all over the place."
"Standardization might help," Mark suggested. "Let's develop standard procedures and automate where possible."
The team collaborated to create a Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) pipeline. They established coding standards, code review protocols, and automated testing suites.
Benefit: Standard processes and automation reduced errors and variability, making the team's work more predictable and efficient. Deployments became smoother, and incidents related to releases decreased significantly.
8. Focusing on Global Optimization
Despite individual improvements, Mark sensed they were still missing something. "I think we're optimizing parts of our process but not looking at the whole picture. Our system is only as strong as its weakest link."
He encouraged the team to consider the overall flow of work through the department rather than just their individual tasks. They started using mapping exercises to identify bottlenecks and areas of waste in their processes.
They also embraced the Theory of Constraints by identifying their most critical resource—the database administrator, who was often overbooked—and reorganized work to ensure this bottleneck was addressed.
Benefit: By focusing on global optimization, they improved the overall efficiency of the department, ensuring that efforts in one area didn't negatively impact another. Throughput increased, and lead times decreased.
Conclusion: Delivering Value Faster
Over the next few months, the IT department transformed its way of working.
Triage for Prioritization ensured they worked on projects that delivered the most value.
Controlling WIP reduced multitasking, increasing productivity and focus.
Ensuring Full-Kit minimized delays due to missing resources and unclear requirements.
Synchronizing Tasks and Resources improved coordination with other departments and within agile teams.
Increasing Dosage of Work allowed for deeper problem-solving and addressing technical debt.
Avoiding Unnecessary Rework saved time through better communication and stakeholder engagement.
Standardizing Processes and automation reduced errors and improved efficiency.
Focusing on Global Optimization enhanced overall departmental performance by addressing systemic bottlenecks.
The results were tangible. Student satisfaction with the online portal increased, faculty received new features on time, and administrative systems ran more smoothly. The IT team felt less stressed and more accomplished.
One afternoon, as the team gathered to celebrate their latest successful sprint review, Mark reflected on their journey.
"Great job, everyone," he said, raising his coffee mug. "By changing how we work and embracing both lean-agile and flow principles, we've made a real difference for our university."
Linda smiled. "And we've shown that even in a busy IT department, we can deliver value faster when we focus on what truly matters."
Ted chimed in, "It's been a learning curve, but seeing the positive impact on our users makes it all worth it."
Shonda added, "Our transformation isn't just about processes; it's about a mindset shift. We're collaborating better than ever."
The team toasted to their success, ready to tackle future challenges with their new approach.
Afterward
I wrote this semifictional story to explain how we can talk about outcomes faster without focusing on talking about implementing Flow. Of course, this was heavily influenced by Goldratt’s Rules of Flow, which is the only book I recommend to understand Flow.
My hope is that you can see how to apply these concepts to your situation, no matter how similar or different it may be.
Great newsletter! It's clear and easy to follow, presented in a storytelling format