agile

My Personal Agile: Getting Started With Incubators And Backlogs!

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr)

OK, so we’re talking my personal Agile Method, which is really kind of Scrum with some variants and my own tweaks.   This is how I stay productive – without goung crazy.

I’ve talked Value. I’ve talked breaking down work. Now we’re going to figure out what work you need to do in the future. Literally, you can start now – this is the first phase of really getting into it.

Now a quick warning on what I’m about to show you:

    1. It’s best done in one go. That will likely be an hour – it can go as high as four.
    2. My “sprints” (periods of doing work) are one month long. So you may want to do this closer to the start of a month.
    3. It’s going to require some record keeping.
    4. It’s not entirely “standard” Scrum.
    5. You’re gonna do a lot of typing.

OK warnings done, let’s start.

Set Up To Track Work

First, you need a way to track work. Me, I use a spreadsheet with several tabs in it. I’ll assume you’re doing the same, using either Word or LibreOffice. You can also do this on graph paper or in a word processor table or whatever, but I like spreadsheets.

So spreadsheet in hand (well on computer), let’s go.  First up – the maybes!

The Incubator

The Incubator is where you track things you probably want to do but haven’t really decided when to do or aren’t ready to get to in the near future. It’s for “I really want to and probably will” but “not sure when I want to do it and have other priorities).

In a spreadsheet (or whatever method you do), every row represents something you’ll want to work on. The Columns to defines this work is simple:

  • PROJECT – The thing I want to do
  • NOTES – Any notes.
  • I also insert a “Rank” column to help sort them.

So your each line of your incubator is a thing you want to do and some notes.

You may also have notes and wireframes and prototypes on your computer. I can talk more how I organize that stuff later, but I suggest having one or two directories to store just project information.

Setup, done, let’s go!

So your first step is to write down everything you really are sure you want to get to for the foreseeable future. I recommend going out at least a year, but maybe more.  Don’t overdo describing things unless you have a lot of ideas, and keep separate notes on more elaborate plans.  When in doubt, use your friend the User Story:

As x I want to y so that Z.

Now as you write these down, try and put them in order of priority – Bit nothing can be of equal priority. This is called Force-Ranking and is a tool to help you (OK, make you) decide just what order you want to do things. It’s a great way to help you evaluate, challenge yourself – and even helps construct a vague schedule very quickly.

If you have any metrics or measurements of success, you might note them here, in separate documents, or even have a separate project to measure them.  For instance if you get a certification with the hope it adds to your paycheck, that’s a separate project – evaluating pay a year down the road.

Also it’s OK if you miss something. You’ll be reviewing this regularly and adding things you forgot – or subtracting things you no longer care about.

Once you’re done and you have a good list, in order of priority, of what you want to do, we’re going to get deeper.

The Backlog (or Backmap)

You now have a good idea of everything you might want to accomplish in the near future. Now you’re going to determine what you definitely want to accomplish. So we’re going to your Backlog – the “I’m definitely going to do this list.”

The Backlog tab of your spreadsheet should have the following Columns (warning, this is a lot)

  • RANK – How important the project is. I use Rank to sort (and unsort) columns. You might not use this.
  • DATE – I include dates I want to get things done by. Not everything will have this.
  • PROJECT – The name of the project.
  • STORY – The name of a story that is part of a Project.
  • TASK – Sometimes when you fill a Backlog, you even know the tasks involved. You may or may not use this column.
  • SIZE – Since I often do tasks in the Backlog, I size them in hours as noted. You might not size everything.
  • NOTES – Notes. You kinda got that.

So roughly, your Backlog is going to let you at least list all the stories you can think of in the Projects you want to do – and possibly some tasks.

Now let’s fill this backlog:

First, take the topmost item in your incubator. Evaluate if, indeed, this is something you want in your plans to do. If so, move it to the Backlog. This will, of course, be your topmost item – probably.

After moving, it, try and figure out any major stories and break it down further – with one line per story. Thus a small Garage-cleaning Project may have the following stories

  • Clean Out The Trash Cans
  • Buy Lots of Trash bags
  • Clean out the garage.
  • Call someone to haul the big stuff away.
  • Put out the trash.
  • Final dusting and cleanup.

You’d make one line entry for each of these with its Project, the story, and maybe even several tasks (each tied to a story).  However most of these stories are also probably “single task.”  You might list something like this:

These may not be perfect breakdowns, just enough to get a handle on them. If you can do more without wasting time, then go for it. I have lots similar projects with my book writing, so I can even break some Projects down to the task level from the get-go. Just don’t overdo it – or lock yourself in.

So after you put in your first big story, you go back to the Incubator and . . . pick the next one, and do the same thing. You put these stories after the ones from the first project because, hey, that project is the second most important thing, right?

Not necessarily.

Backlog to Backmap
This is where the backlog gets fuzzy because though it’d be nice to do everything in order, but you may not want to.

Agile is all about delivering value. However:

  • The value of all stories in a more important project may not always be more than some stories in a less important project. Remember stories should be relatively independent pieces of value.
  • Some projects can’t be done all in one go and/or need to be paced out. Imagine trying to write a book and that’s all you do to the exclusion of all else? It’s not like you can cook six months ahead then write for six months.
  • Some work is bound by other limits, including time.

So about by the second or third big project you put into your backlog, stories from different projects are likely to be in different orders than the projects were in the Incubator. That’s fine. The key is, as always, is value and what you can deliver.

My reccomendation is that when you first do this, try not to focus on getting projects done in order of prioritiy, and get comfortable with “mixing” their priorities as you get used to this.

Sometimes you have a lot of timebound stuff as well. When your backlog has a lot of date-driven Projects/stories I christen it the Backmap – as it’s also a Roadmap.

A note, by the way, on how to use the fields to make this easier:

  • Tracking things by PROJECT lets me sort and resort what’s going on and even check if a Project is done because there’s no other stories after the last (and lowest). I also put in a “completion/wrapup” story for any large projects to remind me I’m sure I’m done.
  • You also see the importance of RANK – you can easily sort or resort projects if you need to assign some numeric values.
  • Finally, you can see why I include DATE as that also helps me sort things. In fact one of my tricks is to make RANK the number of the month
  • I want to do certain Project/Stories in. Then after sorting, I can more finely arrange priority.

Onward
So you go through this until you have a backlog that covers the things in the Incubator you’re SURE you want to do. This probably won’t be all of them. For the first time what I’d do is just get enough Projects queued in and broken into Stories that you know what you want to do for the next three months.

You’ll be revisiting the Backlog monthly if not more anyay.

The Regular Task List

Wait, aren’t you done? Nope, because my guess is your life has a lot of things you do regularly. Meetings, cleanings, cooking, social events. You’ve got Regular Tasks, so it means it’s itme for the Regular Task list.

I set up the list the same as I do the Sprint Backlog (which we’ll get to) so I can copy it over easy.

It’s got the same columns you saw above.  Now that you did a Backlog/Backmap you’re probably going to find this pretty easy.

  • RANK
  • DATE
  • PROJECT
  • STORY
  • TASK
  • SIZE
  • NOTES

So here’s what you put in:

  1. Anything that you do with a monthly cadence (possibly even quarterly).
  2. Use “Project” to organize it. For instance I usually have “Projects” like “Cooking” for all my cooking, “Social” for all my social events, etc.
  3. I use Stories to organize anything, but usually they’re the same as Tasks. Frankly, you may not need to use proper User Story style here. I mean “work out this week” kinda does it.
  4. I put in tasks since, as these are regular, I know what’s going on. Often they’re the same as the story as these regular bits of work are very defined.
  5. If a task repeats during a month, I make entries for each repeat. For instance I tend to cook 8 times a month or more. So I have a Project (Cooking), a Story (Cook #x) and a Task (Cook #x).
  6. For these repeating tasks make sure you break them down well. Improving and polishing your Regular Tasks is great practice.
  7. For Regular Tasks I try to break down the task small, down to hour increments if possible.

Setting up your Regular Task List is pretty good practice for what comes next – the Sprint Backlog. That’s the next post.

To give you an example, here’s how I handle my cooking:

  • A Project called “Cooking”
  • Eight stories called Cook #1-8 – since I want to make eight large meals to freeze up.
  • Each story has a task called – you guessed it – Cook.
  • Each story is sized to an hour.

And Here We Are!

So there you go, you just created, in (hopefully) a short time:

  • Your rough vision for the future in the form of the Incubator.
  • Your solid vision for the future in the form of the Backlog.
  • An idea of what you’ll do monthly and a good practice for the Sprint in the form of the Regular Tasks.

Next post we’ll talk about figuring out what you’ll do specifically – the Sprint Backlog!

– Steve

 

My Personal Agile: Work Breakdown

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr)

And back again with my attempt to describe my “Personal Agile” productivity methods.

One of the challenges of getting things done is to figure out how to get it done. What do you have to do? What order? How do things work together?

To figure this out part of most any Agile practice is breaking down work to find out what to do, how to do it – and maybe if it even needs to be done (by finding the value as mentioned earlier).

So here’s how I break down work – this is the last stop before we get on to the real hands-on work.

Please note, these are my own definitions, tweaked for personal productivity. They may not fit various other Agile methods or ideas.

Projects

At the top of this all are Projects.  Projects are major, often large, initiatives. These are usally the big things you want to do like cleaning the garage, launching a new website, or writing a book. It may even be a thing you do regularly like cooking twice a week.

How do you define a Project? Here’s a quick guide to what a Project is in my book:

  • Distinct. Projects stand on their own and have their own identity that is (mostly) not dependent on anything else.
  • Has one of two lifespans:
    • It is distinct and will complete and be done, such as finishing a book or a program. Note that something like a software program may then spawn new projects like “maintenance.”
    • It is a distinct effort that is continuing, like a software maintenance program or an exercise routine. I call these Regular or BAU (Business As Usual) Projects. The effort is distinct enough that you could decide to end this Project in the future as a discreet act
  • Usually large. Most Projects will be of some size. However I argue that the Distinction and the Lifespan together define a Project more than size. And since this is my method, I’ sticking with it.

Project Value:
How do you determine if a Project is worth doing – in short, it’s value? There’s formal methods used in business, but on Personal Agile I find that there’s two ways to express – and measure – it’s value.

  • The binary. “I want X so y.” It could be as simple as taking a vacation so you relax or getting a certification as it’s standard career progression.  This is a lot like a User Story (below) just jacked up a level.
  • The measure. This is when you can tie the value to a measure and thus by measuring, determine if something was done and worth it. If you got a certification to try and get a raise then you can measure if that goal was reached – and it can fail as you may get the certification but not the raise. If you want to make X amount of profit with a book in a year, you can evaluate it – after a year.

Because Project success can be defined in many ways, I always look for “congruence,” that gut-level feel that the Project and any measures connect to my life goals. If that gut-level feel isn’t there, you might be wasting your time – or doing this under duress.

By the way if neither work, you can try describing it like a Story.  In fact, those are next.

Stories

Projects consist of Stories. Stories are where we get down to real work and hands-on value. Stories are also where a lot of work and breakdown and arguing goes on. So get ready for some opinionated stuff that might get me into a fight with other Agile practitioners.

A Story is the smallest unit of work you can do in a Project that still delivers value and helps complete the Project. It may be of limited value. It may be to a limited audience. It may not be that helpful without other Stories. But it has value that wouldn’t exist if you took it apart any further.

Ideally a Story should, when completed, be valuable if all other work stopped. It might not be much, but it’s something. Note this is an ideal but it doesn’t always happen.

The best way to get to breaking down Stories is to try it.  So let’s try . .  .

EXERCISE: Look at a Project you want to do.  Now write down everything you’d need to do for it to get done.  Don’t get over-detailed, just give yourself about five minutes.  We’ll talk how to make good Stories in a moment, but I want you thinking breakdown.

Interesting isn’t it?  Determining stories is definitely an art.  I also bet that the Story breakdown you have just brainstorming isn’t quite clear or satisfying.

So if you’re thinking “These Stories seem both really defined and kind of fuzzy” you’re right. Agile is both knowing what to do but not overdoing and overanalyzing. Fortunately there’s a tool to clear them up – and it’s a core part of Agile and one of it’s big contributions to management thought period.

Story Value
Stories in Agile are sometimes called User Stories (the terms get thrown around interchangeably). This is because they are, bluntly, focused on delivering something (value) to someone (a user) – and that forms a Story. The formula is a key to quickly determining what a Story is and what it delivers is to title the Story thus:

As (person) I want (thing) because (reason)

Sound simple, right? But this tells you three things – why you’re doing something for whom. If you can’t figure out any of these three parts, you either need to break it down more, do research – or realize it has no value.

When you define your Stories this way, you get:

  • The Person- Tells you who you do it for, who to ask for questions, and who approves of the result. Vital for good feedback, communications. Though in Personal Agile this is probably you a lot.
  • The Thing – Tells you what to do. The better defined it is the better idea you have what to do but don’t overdo it.
  • The Reason – Tells you why. Why is a great guidance for evaluating what you do, determining if you’re delivering, and motivating you. Reason is also one of the major places where you discover “hey, this is kinda worthless.”

If you’ve ever done something and wondered “why am I doing this?” imagine how knowing these three things would have helped.

As you can see, the Story method is pretty powerful. Sure you might need more details, you may have to find them, but this is a great way to know enough to get doing things. It also helps prevent over-designing things.

By the way, if you need more details, let me refer you to the classic Kipling poem’s opening line:

“I KEEP six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.”

You got Who, What, Why. If you need more details see if any of their friends should go in: When, How, and Where.

By the way, when in doubt, yu can use this formula everywhere. To evaluate an action, to quantify a Project. So be it the biggest Project or the simplest task, when confused, ask “why an I doing this thing and for who?”

A few notes:

  • In Personal Agile you may not need to do formally described stories, but it does help. When in doubt, use them – they’re wonderfully clarifying, even if later you go back to more simple terms. If you’re new to this, definitely use them.
  • Some Projects are so big that they have “big stories” or “bundles” of stories called Features, Epics, Legends, etc. These let you organize stories into groups.  I don’t use them in my Personal Agile.

Tasks

Tasks are the final part of good Agile planning and breaking down work. This is when you figure out what you do hands on.

Remember how you broke down Projects into Stories, the smallest bits of value?  Tasks are when you break down a Story to figure what you have to do to get that value.  Every Story has at least one Task, and each Task contributes to completion of that Story.

Figuring out Tasks is also a bit of an art, but is usually more hard-nosed than, say, Stories. You can pretty much look at a Story and figure out what has to be done.  Remember you may find more Tasks are needed, but you can usually get a good start.

There’s no real way to describe Tasks, but I’d describe them as clearly as possible for the sake of clarity.  The value of them is also pretty apparent as they’re directed to a goal.

EXERCISE: Look at one Story for the above exercise.  Describe the Tasks necessary to do it, and try to make them of reasonable size.

Interesting exercise isn’t it?  You can define Tasks but how do you get your hands around how much work they take?  That’s what’s next.

Tasks and size
Tasks are also where sizing takes place. Sure, sometimes people size Stories and even Projects in various ways (I don’t always in my Personal Agile so I won’t cover it). However, no matter what, how you size a task affects real work – so we need to discuss that.

There is a lot of discussion in Agile about how to do this. In turn thereare a lot of great ideas. In turn, a lot of people actually ignore these half the time. The other half they argue.

Me, I use hours of work. If I were planning a larger Project with more people I might use other methods, but in this case I have a pretty good grip on how fast I work.  This also lets me figure out how long I can spend on things and may let me track odd things that just require a block of time (if, say, I want to spend X hours studying)

However I do have an additional rule I call Fibonacci Hours.

I size tasks in how long I think they’ll take. But I have a few rules:

  • Tasks should be sized so in theory I can do them all in one go – even if it may take setting some time aside (usually 5 hours or less).
  • Tasks are sized in hours – minimum one hour.
  • Tasks hour-sizing must fall in the Fibonacci sequence – 1,2,3,5,8,13, etc. Basically each number is the sum of the ones before it. If something is “between” the two I have to make the call if it’s more likely the lesser or the greater.

In using these Fibonacci hours I’ve been amazed how accurate they are – usually more accurate than my attempts to figure the “exact” time. This is because in our ability to estimate, we’re not always good making fine distinctions, especially with larger numbers. This just enforces a pattern that, as a story gets larger, you have to think in a wider range between sizes.

By the way, I try to break things down to never be more than 3 hours, 5 at the most, unless it’s for something odd (like setting aside time to write).

By the way if you use Agile, you’ve seen this used for “points” and other methods of work. I just found they worked for hours.

A Few Tips On Tasks

  • In an ideal situation each Story would have only one task because you were able to break down value so specifically.  This can happen a lot in Personal Agile, but not as much on larger Projects.  It’s something to aim for, but remember it may not be achievable for certain efforts.
  • It’s best to describe tasks well, but in Personal Agile usually you’re the one doing them so don’t waste time.  Just make sure you can remember what you described.
  • A few times above I noted sometimes a task is just spend-so-much-hours on something.  Don’t be afraid to do that – in Personal Agile it really helps.

Onward To Action

OK you know to think about value. You have an idea of how to break down work. Now we’re gonna get started.

By the way, even if you never use any of my other Personal Agile methods, thinking about work like this will help you.

– Steve

 

My Personal Agile: Value

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr)

I’ve been talking to a few people about my personal use of Agile (specifically Scrum) to be productive.  So let’s get to the next step: thinking about work.

It may seem strange to say your first step is thinking different – it sounds kinda fuzzy doesn’t it? But it’s it’s a core part of Agile methods, and a core part of doing better. How you think about work affects how you do it – or if you do it. Agile is not just some techniques or some airy philosophy – it’s a mindset.

First up is learning to think about value.

Value

Value is something talked about in Agile a lot. The first Agile Principle is:

Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.

Substitute software for, well, anything. Substitute customer for whoever your target audience is – including yourself. Your goal in doing anything is to do something of value for someone.

If there’s no value, well the eight Agile Principle states

Simplicity–the art of maximizing the amount of work not done–is essential.

So if something isn’t worth it why do it? Exactly – don’t.

If there’s no one to do it for, don’t do it.

But, that means you have to learn to think about the value of work you do.  I’ll cover more of that in the next section when we look at breaking down work.

EXERCISE: List the top five things you want to get done in ife. Write down in order which is the most important to the least – and no item can be of equal importance to any other (this is force-ranking). What do you learn doing this?

EXERCISE 2: What was the last thing in life that you did that really didn’t need to be done. Why did you do it? How much time would you have saved not doing it?

Value And My Personal Agile

So why is value so . . . valuable? I mean you can guess, but let’s peek behind the curtain.

  • Thinking about value tells you why something should be done – and you can figure out if it’s worth doing.
  • Thinking about value tells you how important something is – and how you should prioritize it. Good productivity – and Agile especially – requires you to know what’s important to do. That helps you organize.
  • Thinking about value tells you who wants it – and that’s the person you want to talk to for guidance and feedback.

The first part of work is knowing why you’re doing it – or why you shouldn’t.

I hope that helps you think about work better. Because next step we’re going to talk about how you break work down – and find its value.

– Steve