Rieks Visser, agile software development - vssr.nl

Liberating Structures for retrospectives

Mon, 04 Feb 2019 21:00:00 +0100

Refresh your retro with a liberating structure.

Agile gives you twelve principles and four core values. Scrum adds a framework, but conciously leaves room for additional practices. How to hold a retrospective is entirely up to the team. Liberating structures are a great way to change things up. Even sailboats can get a boring after a while. A nice thing about liberating structures is that you can string them together so one structure provides input for the next. Like this for example:

#1 - 1-2-4-All

At the start of the retrospective, employ 1-2-4-All to gather ideas. Use a suitable core question for gathering input. For instance ‘how can we deliver more value?’. In the final phase of gathering ‘All’ ideas, write them on index cards for the next phase.

#2 - 25/10 Crowd Sourcing

With the index cards ready, run a 25/10 Crowd Sourcing structure. Basically, attendees vote on ideas. With these scores, the most important ideas to the group can surface by ordering the index cards with the total vote score. Agree beforehand to address the top x ideas; three or five for instance.

#3 - What, So What, Now What? W³

The What, So What, Now What? W³ structure provides a way to dive deeper into the selected ideas. In the words of the Liberating Structures website:

After a shared experience, ask, “WHAT? What happened? What did you notice, what facts or observations stood out?” Then, after all the salient observations have been collected, ask, “SO WHAT? Why is that important? What patterns or conclusions are emerging? What hypotheses can you make?” Then, after the sense making is over, ask, “NOW WHAT? What actions make sense?”

This is the part where we connect observations with actions to take, experiments that can be run.

#4 - BONUS: 15% solutions

On many occassion, we can feel like we’re not in control. This is totally true. Life for a large part consists of things we can’t control. However, there’s always something we can do. When ideas arise that appear out the groups control or circle of influence, 15% solutions is a great structure for focussing on what options are available.

In closing

There are many, many options available. The chain above is but a simple example. Dive into the available structures to taylor a string of Liberating structures that suit your needs. Above all: have fun!

A personal rundown of 2018

Mon, 17 Dec 2018 20:11:10 +0100

off the top of my head

What did I learn? Did I even really learn stuff?
Let's find out!

I have more things to do, than I have time.
I am content not to know everything.
Many things that trouble me are things I can give up in an instance.
I can choose what bothers me.
Really, REALLY listening is very hard.
Transparency and continuous improvement are key in many things.
Giving a talk at a conference is a cool experience. Also boosts your professional network.
Coaching is much more ‘talk to the duck’ than giving great advice or insightful questions.
Everybody is winging it. Everybody.
The news makes me unhappy.
I need to think more about why I do things.
Money != happiness, but it’s very helpful.
There’s only so much you can do on your own.
Advocating something you believe in requires much repetition. Go far beyond being sick of yourself.
Logical in my mind doesn’t mean it’s logical in someone else’s.
Simplicity is a noble art worth striving for.
Life is always challenging, choose the challenges you want to have.
I often simultaneously over- and underestimate myself.
I need to exercise more.
Expectations can ruin a lot of things.
Knowing or feeling something is true doesn’t mean you can act accordingly.

I wonder what 2019 holds. Cheers!

LEGO SERIOUS PLAY materials

Sun, 27 May 2018 12:17:00 +0200

It may be “open”, but that doesn’t mean you can find it.

tl;dr: LEGO^® SERIOUS PLAY^® has been partly open sourced in June of 2010. The open PDF describing the basics, is rather difficult to find online. I therefore, once found, made it available on GitHub. Click here to get the open sourced LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® materials. Now, let the ranting begin.

Where's the material, man?

When giving a training, I like to break up teaching with some practical exercises. For my agile teams and Scrum workshop, I wanted an exercise that simulated creative thinking and complex product development. Having heard of using LEGO for this, I went looking for some examples. That wasn’t straightforward. It’s easy to find LEGO’s description of the methodology, which tells you it’s partly open-source and community developed. Wikipedia also knows about it. But that… that’s where the road kind of ends.
Where is this community, and where are the open source basic materials? I’ll save you a sweet two hours and sum it up for you:

It’s not available from the LEGO site. It points to seriousplay.com for the community and materials, but that url redirects you back to the page you were already on.
There’s no other link to any material on that site.
It’s not on GitHub or other well known open source hosting services.
Some asking around the agile community didn’t get results. It almost seemed like even people involved with Serious Play didn’t know there should be some open material available. I was actually told it didn’t exist.
One site claimed to have it. You needed to register, which didn’t feel really ‘open’, but I was desperate enough to try. Of course that site hastily rolled out a GDPR compliance functionality, that blocked any attempt to register.
More Google-foo didn’t seem to help. It just wasn’t to be found.

At this point I was pretty annoyed. I’d spent more than an hour looking for something that was supposedly open and community supported. Luckily, I gave it a last ditch effort and finally obtained the PDF via a blog, that tried to hide it away behind an iframe PDF reader kind of thing. The amount of effort it took me to find something ‘open’ sourced, made me decide to put it on GitHub.

Why is it so hard to find?

To me it’s weird that something that has been made ‘open’ to gain more traction, is so hard to find. It’s under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license, which is a very relaxed one. LEGO actually state themselves that they want a community to evolve around Serious Play. That’s pretty hard to do if the resources aren’t readily accesible. So… why? If I were to take a stab at it, I’d say the following:

LEGO open sourced two of three parts: the basic description and building blocks for purchase. The third part is the actual list of exercises, which is really the meat of Serious Play.
Until the open sourcing, the three parts were solely available by attending a training from LEGO, after which you became an official LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® facillitator.
With the open sourcing, as far as I can tell, LEGO stopped certifying new facilitators. They again hoped a community would evolve and the existing facillitators would teach new people.
By open sourcing two parts, without the exercises, people new to Serious Play don’t know what to actually do. They need a trained facillitator.
Existing facilitators are the only ones in the know. They have incentive to keep the open material locked away.

Or, it’s just a niche subject with consultancy websites overcrowding the search results, pushing the community efforts to the bottom. Less likely though. Google has a knack

What to do for actual exercises?

I hope this post and the GitHub repo will help people find the open materials. For actual exercises, I’ve been looking at some books written on the subject. They seem promising. Perhaps they can spark some ideas for an open exercises repository maintained by the community. My agenda’s almost to full to write this post, let alone create exercises for the world. That’s why I wanted examples in the first place = p But, who knows, I’m putting it on my ‘one day’ list. Reach me via Twitter or GitHub if you want to help!

I just wanted to end with acknowledging it’s very cool of LEGO to open-source the methodology. It’s sad to see the direction (if any) people have given it afterward. It’s uninviting to new people. Perhaps when I learn more, I can do better.

I love the word 'concise'

Thu, 13 Jul 2017 19:17:10 +0200

a word that perfectly describes itself

As a language, German is credited for having great words. Words that hit a certain nuance that isn't fully translatable. ‘Schadenfreude’ is a well known example. We Dutch have it too, we call it ‘leedvermaak’. To be fair, German and Dutch have a big advantage as they allow, or actually demand, that you ‘paste’ words together. ‘Schaden’ and ‘leed’ mean misfortune, ‘freude’ and ‘vermaak’ mean joy or entertainment. We simply glue them together.

But back to English and the word concise. I love it. It’s defined as: “giving a lot of information clearly and in a few words; brief but comprehensive.” In case you’re wondering, we don’t really have a word for that in Dutch. We use the literal translation of ‘brief but comprehensive’, ‘kort en bondig’.
What furthers my love, is that the word describes itself in a Droste effect kind of way. Using the word concise is a very concise way to describe conciseness. Apparently, that’s called ‘autological’, I learnt something today!

Conciseness, to me, is something of real virtue. Using just enough, while being wholly on point. Not only in writing, but also in building software, and just life in general. Being careful, deliberate, exactly on target, without producing waste. I guess that’s the link to my love for Agile, Lean, Kaizen and a minimum viable product. Just enough product, but also: exactly enough. Puritan conciness takes extraordinary effort. As people attribute Blaise Pascal ‘I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.’

If I ever start a business of my own and need an English name, I’ll call it concise. Be warned y’all, I’m sure this counts as prior art in some court, somewhere.

The big knife potato fallacy

Wed, 01 Mar 2017 20:41:45 +0100

an allegory on new technology and change in general

Andy walks into the kitchen and sees Dave at the counter, peeling potatoes. Dave is mumbling and everything about him shows that he’s not in a good mood. Andy walks over and asks Dave what’s up. “It’s taking ages to peel these potatoes, and I keep on peeling them to thick” says Dave.

“Well”, says Andy, “you’re using a very big knife, it’s unwieldy and not that suitable for peeling.” The look on Dave’s face is becoming more frustrated. “What might be a good idea”, says Andy, “is to use this smaller peeling knife with a curved blade”. “It’s sharp, easy to handle, and the curved blade makes it easier to follow the curves of the potato and peel it really thinly.”

Dave sighs. “Thanks Andy, that’s a great tip” he replies, “but at this time, I have lots and lots more potatoes to peel. I really don’t have the time to switch knives and learn how to handle this new knife. I’m used to this knife and know how to handle it.”

The last few months I’ve repeatedly been able to use this analogy to good effect. Usually in a stripped down version, without my buddies Andy and Dave. Though slightly off (new tech is usually complex and has more differences than two types of knife), it’s served me well. I’m a ‘stick to your guns’ kinda guy, but your guns do need to be working in an efficient manner. Switching to a better path usually pays out in the long run.

Reading fiction is important (to me)

Wed, 21 Dec 2016 22:35:10 +0100

Some time ago I decided to start reading fiction again. Even though I occasionaly read a work of fiction, doing it on a regular basis must have been more than ten years ago. What sparked my return to it, was a simple 'being sick of non-fiction reading'. Reading in general relaxes me, but I have pushed myself for a long time to have a 'return on investment'. I needed to learn something, be better at my job, expand my knowledge, et cetera.

Turns out, fiction reading has a different return on investment, which in many ways actually helps me out more. The unforced nature of it all has been like a breath of fresh air for my mind. Some observations:

It truly relaxes me. I don’t need to think or remember a lot. I don’t need to apply anything to my own situation. I can just enjoy the read.
It’s not forced. Yes, non-fiction shouldn’t be forced either, but it did. I forced myself.
Time passes more slowly. Especially when compared to other activities in the same veign, like watching a movie or playing a videogame. These activities seem to speed up my perception of time. Reading a book for two hours feels like an entire evening.
It stimulates my brain in a different way. My creative, problem solving side seems to benifit from reading stories. My mind feels more relaxed and open to all posibilities. The analytical part of my brain get’s more than enough exercise in a day’s work. Reading fiction gets the other parts going. Guess that’s also why it’s more relaxing, the strained part of my brain can sit back, while the underused part can take charge.

I'm quite sure there's a lot more to say about this and probably research backing it up. In any case, I'm a changed man for reading what I like, instead of what I think I should know about. And of course, reading to explicitly learn is good for you. As with most things, balance is key.

Panic mode - early detection is key

Wed, 11 May 2016 21:56:00 +0200

Developing mindfulness for early signs of panic

Panic's never helped anyone

It’s kind of instinctive: you’re late for an important meeting, so you go about your business like a madmen, making it in time, only to find out you forgot your all-important notes. It happens all the time and never pays off. You may have saved a few minutes, but ended up with an end-result far worse: you propbably have to redo the whole thing.

Haste makes waste

In software or any work situation, this stuff happens. Outside pressure to deliver faster, can cause a panic mode to engage. Not always literal panic, but a feeling of stress or slight overburden. Wether it’s you personally or a project as a whole, it should be detected and stopped as early as possible. Why? Because it’s damaging.

It’s bad for morale and personal wellbeing.
It causes sub-optimal decision making: ‘we’ll document this later’ or ‘I’ll hack this part for now’
Which leads to greater costs in the end. Having to meet again to finalize decisions, having to rewrite software which is made more difficult by accumulated technical debt.

This shouldn’t surprise anyone. However, that feeling still manages to rear it’s ugly head. It’s not full blown panic, but that uneasy feeling of inconstructive pressure, that fosters bad decisionmaking. That moment you let the quality just slide a little bit, just to ‘be done with it’.

But there's always pressure..

Yes there is! So, a different perspective is needed. Looking at Scrum:

Quality is non-negotiable. When panic or pressure builds, negotiate scope.
Teams should work in joyous steadfastness. The sports-team analogy works well once more: keep working together to reach the common goal, with a desire to win the game. Keep doing what you do, don’t send the goalie halfway up the field when the match has a quarter of time left.

Small steps and making decisions

Tue, 05 Apr 2016 22:59:00 +0200

Start something, try something, do something

Movement; a recurring theme

During a few months of in-depth reading on Agile, team dynamics and development practices, a fundamental truth keeps popping up. Maybe even more so, it shows it’s head during everyday work. We all know it, it proves itself time and again, it’s…

Better to take small steps and make decisions than nothing at all

No matter what the issue, how big or complex, taking a small step is always better than waiting or taking lot’s of time to figure out the ‘big’ step. It’s all too easy to get paralyzed. Same goes for decisions. Any decision is better than no decision. There’s always a best option at that moment, of which the ramifications will generally not be diar, and certainly not as bad as you’ve imagined. So:

Any decision is better than no decision
Chip away your complex issue by taking the smallest possible step

… or more poetically put …

Fear is the mind-killer
Perfect is the enemy of good

No, this is not new and probably not insightful, but I keep seeing people held hostage by indecision. Indecision, fear and perfectionism will destroy the most fortunate of ventures.

Story estimation: discuss why you agree!

Thu, 15 Oct 2015 20:44:38 +0200

a tiny lesson learned while ‘doing’ scrum

We all estimated the same! next story!

Backlog refinement issen’t what most people would call fun. I personally find it fun, but most of my colleagues would rather be building products than pokering. So, when we’re estimating a story and everyone has pokered the same amount of storypoints / complexity, it’s very tempting to leave it at that. “We all agree, yay! Next story please!”.

Let's agree to agree

The important question here is, why do we agree? It’s possible that all members of the development factored in a different part of complexity, while overlooking another. Therefore, the team needs to discuss why they agree. This ensures the input of all team members is reflected in the final estimate. Don’t overdo it, but for sure don’t skip it. Everyone giving the same ‘wrong’ answer doesn’t make it right, or alter the question asked.

You cannot hire a DevOps

Sun, 27 Sep 2015 13:35:10 +0200

Why do companies want to hire DevOps?

A lot of companies these days are looking for DevOps. Someone read or heard something somewhere, about how great DevOps are. Apparently when you hire some DevOps, they get everything working together smoothly, and shorten your release cycles by at least 200%. DevOps are kind of similar to that other gem of late: the fullstack developer. They know everything, so they’ll fix everything and get shit done. And ofcourse ‘getting stuff done’ === ‘mad profitz!’. Allright, enough with the sarcasm.

'There are no DevOps'

In the same sense you can’t hire an ‘Agile’, a ‘Scrum’ or a ‘Human centered design’. DevOps is a movement, an approach to teams and projects. Integrating development and operations smooths away barriers that make teams more effective and fosters real teamwork on all parts.

You can't hire DevOps

DevOps is a view on software development. Developers and operations should overlap, take notice of eachothers work, be a team that get’s your product shipped. There are tools to help do this, and developers and system operators can create tools that help eachother. So, hire one of those. Or someone who has a knack for both.