Bob asked, “Is the project on schedule?” Will said, “We do Agile. We don’t follow a schedule.”Bob was left wondering how he might report this to the governance teams. Cathy asked, “What scope will be delivered in the next 2 months?” Joe answered, “We are agile. We do not estimate all work upfront. All I […]
A Practical Step-By-Step Guide: Implementing Monte Carlo Simulation for Beginners
Monte Carlo Simulation is a powerful statistical method for predicting the probability of various outcomes. This guide walks beginners through the steps to implement it for forecasting project delivery dates, using Python for practical examples and offering insights into interpreting results to improve project management.
Decoding Agility: Transforming Agile Teams into a Culture of Continuous Improvement
Achieving a culture of continuous improvement is a critical objective for agile teams. With a comprehensive understanding of cycle times, your teams can embark on a journey of incremental enhancements that drive significant business value while also changing your culture into that of continuous improvement. By embracing the journey towards continuous improvement you will see a notable reduction on your times and overall workflow efficiency, transforming into high performing teams and of course increasing margins.
Decoding Agility: The Critical Role of Cycle Time in Efficient Workflows
It’s widely recognized that just strict adherence to agile methodologies such as Sprint huddles, Backlog grooming, Sprint planning, and Sprint retrospectives doesn’t automatically ensure agility. The first step involves conducting a simple statistical analysis of your Cycle Time data. Once obtained, basic statistical calculations can help establish a baseline.
Unlocking the secret to accurately forecast product releases
Are you using Monte Carlo analysis to project deliverables? At its core, forecasting represents a sophisticated optimization challenge, one that seeks to minimize schedule subject to budgetary constraints. This equation is subject to myriad of variables including understanding and prioritization of work, order of execution, allocation of skilled personnel, and the ever present spectre of risks. Agile, while attempting to be nimble, often side-steps the intricate dance of optimization in favour of adaptability and speed. Practiced well, organizations have benefited strategically from this speed and adaptability as is evidenced by modern technology organizations. Enterprise ITs, however, in an attempt to reinvent themselves are failing miserably at becoming good at either.
Implement Kanban: Implement virtuous cycle of ongoing improvement
The hardest thing about implementing the Kanban is the paradigm shift in policies it leads to. “How can just visualizing work and limiting work improve throughput?” It’s so counter-intuitive. However, the very act of visualizing and limiting work highlights bottlenecks as they appear, giving you a chance to fix things before they become big issues. Implementing Kanban enterprise-wide, however, will need the blessing of senior management, specially if organization has been following traditional methods for a very long time. When going about leading the change, chances are that the people actual doing the work would absolutely love it since they get to see what’s within their queue. It is convincing the middle and the senior management that will be challenging. There’s also this perception of relinquishing control by the middle management. A paradigm shift indeed.