After a leadership awareness session on Continuous Planning & Continuous Delivery, Ram walks up to the coach with a puzzled look. Continuous Planning is expected to help the unit respond faster in a dynamic environment and focus on delivering value. The unit that he leads has been operating with half-yearly releases for the last 5 years and each release is run like a project with defined scope. Commitments are made to customer groups based on the defined scope. Teams have been following scrum practices with excellent say-do ratios in each sprint. Predictability in delivering the promised scope is a big deal in various units and is perceived as a key factor in ensuring a good customer satisfaction rating.
Ram asks a simple question to the coach: “What should I focus on now? I do not know how to track progress with continuous planning.”
How would you respond to Ram?
Suggested Solution:
Ram’s focus needs to switch to delivering value to customers. Timeliness is not about delivering a pre-defined scope but about delivering value the customers when they need it for achieving their business outcomes. Given the dynamic nature of customer’s business in today’s environment, ability to respond faster to changes in priorities becomes crucial.
There are a few important things that Ram can track:
- Adoption of delivered features
- Feedback on how the features helped solve customer’s business problem
- Trends in feature throughput
- Cycle time trend – are we improving our speed of delivery in response to an idea or customer need?
Quality of the deliverables – this is a hygiene factor but needs focus to ensure that speed does not compromise quality
4 Responses
Hi Shiv, I can relate to this, it is a real different world.
I was invited a few times to address students appearing for CET exams as an industry person and found it challenging to connect with them. I was able to connect somewhat as one of their concern was what if they do not get into a good college, which I was able to address by sharing real life examples.
Thanks Vasu. College “brand” no doubt helps early on in work life – corporate doors open more easily. But down the line, it is people’s motivation and track record that helps build careers. I am sure we have all seen examples affirming this. I have stressed with the mentees that I work with. An aside, the mentorship program I am involved in spans 4-5 months and so, I have had time to work on the “connect”! Yes – takes time and effort.
Hi Shiv – very well written – thanks for the write-up.
Many years ago I was a volunteer mentor for a couple of youth as part of Dream A Dream’s life skills mentoring program. This was in person mentoring where the mentee and I would meet periodically (usually on a weekend) and discuss general topics. There was no prescribed structure though all mentors did go thru a few hours of in person training. Based on that experience I can corroborate that it takes time for the mentee to open up, especially in that case given their lack of confidence in expressing in English which was the recommended language for communication. Switching to Tamil (in one case where the mentee was from Tamil Nadu) helped.
Can also relate well to your point on swings in mood and engagement level of the mentee and the need for mentor to shift gears accordingly.
I am sure the mentees are benefiting a lot from your vast and varied experience – hope you will come back to mentor more such students after you complete the current mentorships and possibly take a break!
Thank you, Bhasker!