Viewing entries tagged
Outcomes

A Compelling WHY?

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A Compelling WHY?

I was reading an article from Mike Hall of Agile Velocity entitled The Most Important Question to Answer for Successful Agile Transformations. I’ve known Mike for quite a while and he’s an incredibly practical and skilled agile coach. So, I really wanted to explore the question. Point being…he had me “hooked”.

In the article he talked about how establishing a Business Objective was a crucial first step in any agile transformation effort. I’ll reframe it to be—your Compelling Why.

9 Typical Business Objectives

Mike spoke about Agile Velocity’s, Path to Agility framework having 9 business objectives that they typically try to uncover with their clients:

  1. Employee engagement

  2. Customer satisfaction

  3. Quality

  4. Speed

  5. Predictability

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Focusing on Outcomes

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Focusing on Outcomes

Metrics, metrics, metrics seem to be all the rage nowadays in the agile community. Everyone seems to want to measure everything.

There are quadrant models, the single metric that matters approach, and spider charts virtually up the wazoo that help measure all aspects of an agile transformation.

Instead of my adding to the pile of advice, I thought I’d share some articles that focus on (what I believe) are the most important aspects to measure.

That is measuring (focusing on) Outcomes that have Impacts!

Outcome-focused articles

This is a shortlist of articles sharing thoughts on the value of being outcome-focused.

  1. Great article on outcomes by Teresa Torres

    1. https://www.producttalk.org/2019/10/managing-outcomes/

  2. And another by John Cutler

    1. https://amplitude.com/blog/why-outcomes-over-outputs

  3. And another on Hacker Noon

    1. https://hackernoon.com/beyond-outcomes-over-outputs-6b2677044214

  4. Something from CA Technologies (Rally) published via HBR

    1. https://hbr.org/sponsored/2018/06/the-key-to-agile-success-focus-on-outcomes-not-metrics

  5. Josh Seiden does a nice job in this 18-minute podcast. He’s the author of Outcomes over Output.

    1. https://www.thisisproductmanagement.com/episodes/outcomes-over-output/

  6. Jeff Gothelf shares ideas on how to measure the effectiveness of your Outcomes focus.

    1. https://jeffgothelf.com/blog/if-were-managing-to-outcomes-how-do-we-know-were-doing-a-good-job/

  7. Finally, I’ve already done a SHORT article on outcomes here

    1. http://rgalen.com/agile-training-news/2018/2/12/done-outcomes

Wrapping Up

I think one of the key trends, and you see it emphasized in the CA article, is to not even bother with “metrics”. Instead, focus all of your (our) attention on outcomes.

They mention—

  1. Are my customers happy?

  2. Am I building the right thing?

  3. Are my teams engaged, and do they understand our business?

As key outcomes to pay attention to. Simple, right?

Stay agile my friends,

Bob.

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