A Scrum Team was a bottleneck until they decided to pick up less work
They finished more by starting less
This is a piece I published 5 years ago. I wrote it as a story, but my former colleagues will recognize that this actually happened to us. We still see many teams being pressured to do everything at once. If you recognize the situation, I hope you find inspiration from this story.
They finished more by starting less
Scrum Team interjunction is responsible for building and sustaining a product that is at the core of the company’s product portfolio. There’s hardly any initiative that doesn’t touch this product. As a result, many high-priority requests hit this team. Here’s an account of how this team used to be a bottleneck until they decided to work on fewer items and bring focus to their work.
“When everything is a priority, nothing is” — Karen Martin
The urgent request
“I know that I can’t make you work on this item Rita. But we really need to have it ready next week. It’s just a simple thing. I will be forever grateful if you pull this off.”
Rita felt that there was no way out. Three weeks ago the team planned to work on this asap. But after a promising start, work had stalled.
“You’re right Tim. This is taking far too long. I will discuss it with the team to complete it as soon as possible.”
“Please do. If it weren’t this important, I wouldn’t have approached you. But Magnacorps is getting impatient.”
Rita wished that Tim hadn’t used the M-word. As if the pressure wasn’t enormous already.
The urgent request and reality
“How could you promise this? Are you serious? Do you expect me to drop my work for this Magnacorps item? In the middle of a Sprint? Are you aware of what you ask me to put on hold?”
“What is it that you need to put on hold for this Billy?”
“You don’t know? Don’t you think this is strange, being the Product Owner?”
“We’ve selected five different items at the Sprint Planning. So it will be one of those five. I just want to know which of those will have to be postponed to later in the Sprint.”
“Before I’m going to answer this question, I wish to make clear that I loathe the fact that we always have so many unrelated high-priority items on our Sprint Backlog. We really need to do something about that.”
“I wish we could, but everything is a priority. We have no choice.”
“I believe there’s always a choice Rita. What about saying ‘no’?”
“It’s not so easy Billy. I wish it were. If you think that you are put under pressure, then believe me that I shield you from 80% of the pressure that is put on me. But there’s only so much I can do.”
“Still you ask us to do the impossible. We don’t have magic wands, you know. Anyway, I’m working on the AML (Anti Money Laundering) issue. The three items that need to be ready 3 weeks from now.”
“That’s a tough call indeed. You can’t possibly drop that one. Could the team perhaps organise the work a bit differently so that there’s a focus on the Magnacorps item too? But also finish the AML item? And the other items as well?”
“So much for shielding us from the pressure. Well done Rita. Everyone on the team is working on a priority item. But we all need each other too.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, the whole team needs to work on each and every item. When I am ready with my part of the AML work, Carl needs to do testing. But chances are high that Carl is then still working on something else. He then needs to choose between that work and AML. An impossible choice, you know?“
Silence…
“We know that everything needs to be done asap. So when we put something on hold, it hurts us. That’s pressure, Rita.”
“I share the pain, Billy. Thinking about how to solve this, what’s a way to organise it better?”
“The problem is the constant context switching which is costing us time. And sometimes the whole team has to wait for one person to finish their part. This is what you get when you want to do everything at the same time. You get congestion. We should focus. Work on fewer items. Please help us to focus Rita!”
“What can I do? I wish I had an answer Billy.”
With that, everything stayed the same. Billy could only hope that something of what she said would stick.
Nasty surprise at the Sprint Review
“The solution looks fine, but we can’t accept it without a few minor tweaks.”
This wasn’t what Rita wanted to hear from the Magnacorps representative.
“OK, I guess we have no choice then. I will add it to the top of the Product Backlog. With that, we have 6 items flagged as priority. We worked on 5 in the previous Sprint. None are fully finished yet. It will be a busy Sprint again, I’m afraid.”
“As long as the Anti Money Laundering solution is ‘live’ at the end of the Sprint!”
Rita gasps for breath, realising the impact of Darren’s remark. If it weren’t for the compliance officer, she would have totally forgotten the hard end date of the AML solution. It needs to be ready in two weeks. There’s no escaping it.
Now she is panicking.
Focus during the Sprint Planning
“I am at a loss for what we need to do now. I am game for any bright idea to get us out of this mess.”
“I believe the choice is obvious Rita. Let’s answer the following question: what is the most important thing that we should do right now?”
“It’s not this simple Billy. There’s also immense pressure to deliver the 5 other items.”
“OK, let me ask you this: what happens when you don’t deliver the AML solution at the end of the Sprint?”
“We’d be looking at huge fines from the regulators. And we’d be facing a reputation dent of unforeseen proportions.”
“Bingo! This is why we should focus on AML only.”
“But do we have enough work for everyone in the team if we only focus on that?”
“Let’s cross that bridge when we get there. If everyone helps to deliver the AML item, we will increase our chances to make it.”
Clarity at the Sprint Review
For the first time in ages, Rita was all smiles at the Sprint Review. The team managed to deploy the AML solution and the regulators were pleased.
But Rita had more to be pleased about. She had made sure to align with all stakeholders and had decided she would be determining the priority. No one else.
This didn’t mean that everyone was happy. Joseph, who’s responsible for Customer Care, still believed that the stability issue should be tackled first.
“I understand your point, Joseph. We all wish to take away this issue. But you were there when we discussed the priority items. You also did agree that we have to deal with Magnacorps and the calculation error first.”
“I did, but I got push-back from the CTO. Stability is our number one priority. We need to tackle it faster.”
“Let me discuss this with her Joseph. But for now, we are sticking to the order that we determined earlier this week.”
“But can’t the team work on two topics next Sprint, so that the stability issue will be dealt with earlier?”
“They will not magically have more capacity when they work on two items. On the contrary, it will slow them down. It’s just like traffic. Too many cars on the road and you have congestion. We worked this way and it was a disaster. Last Sprint we stopped that approach and we reached our goal for the first time. So we will continue to focus on one thing at a time.”
5 Sprint later — the road is cleared
“I have awesome news. We have cleared all priority items from our Product Backlog. We can finally focus on expanding our product.”
Billy's face was a mixture of relief and happiness. “I have been with this team for two years now. We always were seen as a bottleneck. Now we can anticipate what is to come. Thanks Rita. You really stepped up as a Product Owner.”
Joseph then said: “I was very sceptical when you told us you would only work on one item at a time. However, I’m impressed with what you achieved. Not only did you clear the list, but the quality of the software also improved. We haven’t seen any production issues related to the releases lately.”
Rita smiles. “This is all a result of us working together, being focused and trusting the team to get the job done. A great effort of the entire Scrum Team and the stakeholders.”
The lessons
It took the team half a year to change from outcasts to one of the most effective Scrum Teams in the company. They achieved it as follows:
The Product Owner stepped up to be the only person responsible for the Product Backlog. The team coached the stakeholders on this;
The Product Owner and the Scrum Master protected the team from unwanted interference from people outside the Development Team. They helped stakeholders understand that they should either approach the Product Owner or the Scrum Master;
The Development Team learned to say ‘no’. They came to realise that this is part of being a self-organising team;
The team finished more by starting less. By focusing on one item at a time they were able to work together, remove time-consuming hand-offs and context switching. They finished what they started. As a result, they increased their capacity and were able to finish more items faster than before;
The Development Team started working together, as a team. They finished their items, contrary to their old waterfall type of work. Apart from being quicker, they also improved the quality of the product.
The team finally learned how to use the Scrum framework to their advantage.