My Product Owner colleague and I both realised this week that we’re nudging the six months mark in terms of how long we’ve been in our roles. Where did that time go? In one of our (regrettably irregular) ‘shoot the breeze’ chats we both felt that we’ve started to make an impact.
And that feels good.
For weeks now my colleague has been saying how much things will change when we shifted to Scrum. She’s been quite excited so I’ve been carried along with that, given her experience and expertise.
I couldn’t quite see it before the move, but wow, do I get it now!
I’d experienced Scrum in other projects to some degree, but to see it applied to continuous delivery has felt like a door opening. Suddenly everything makes more sense. The ceremonies have value. The refinement exercises take on a new importance.
Kanban felt a little like just feeding the machine, but having sprints with goals that are starting to align with our product strategy and respond to customer feedback feels like the real deal.
This week marked a minor milestone in us responding to customer requests to be a bit more transparent and show where we’re heading.
The first to come out was our Release Plan, hot off the heels of moving to sprint planning. This really felt like nailing our colours to the mast. Our release notes hang on until the very last minute to check that everything is right to prevent misleading anyone. Our Release Plan, by comparison, is more about intent than absolute accuracy, but is designed to give customers a heads up about what things are coming and when, which is great for bug fixes or product enhancements they are waiting for. I’ve been really chuffed to hear parts of it mentioned in my conversations with customers already.
Our new version Roadmap has taken a little longer to get out. As a Product Team we’ve been working away at refreshing it within our Prodpad system, stripping out ideas that had been delivered or streamlining initiatives that were too top heavy. It’s also had a wash of realism applied to where we are and what we’re working on now. Getting this new version out felt like the strategic partner to the Release Plan, marrying the longer term with the shorter term.
In terms of format we decided a few weeks ago that we really liked the GOV.UK format for its simplicity, so have adapted it to meet our needs. I ran a prototype past a couple of customers to check their temperature and got a thumbs up. So this week was about further refinements (we’ve used labelling for the status of ideas within initiatives), a check for accuracy and off to publish.
As with any aspect of working in the open, it makes you explore your own understanding about something and how it is perceived by colleagues. We’ve had some great exchanges that have reignited our approach to strategic planning on the back of it.
We’ve also started refining ticket titles to be easier to read so that their transition to release notes is less fraught and matches our Definition of Done; a translation exercise that always felt last minute previously.
Seeing Scrum in action has felt like the biggest learning point. I’m sure I’ll come back to this in future weeknotes.
It also felt like my discussions on Roadmaps with our (hugely experienced) Chief Technical Officer started to resonate with me. I think I had one understanding of the process, but the need to get the new Roadmap right helped me see the interconnections between the strategic and tactical.
My other (very minor) triumph this week was really owning a ticket; discussing it with a lead developer and rewriting it in detail for technical refinement. I got a virtual pat on the back via Slack, which made me pleased I’m getting the hang of it all far better than I did when I started.
Looks like the Product Team will be back on the road as part of the regional LocalGov Camp events. All the fun of the annual event, times four (or five)! Am hoping this doesn’t mean additional doses of COVID….
As well as divvying up who goes to which one (London and Glasgow for me) we’ve been thinking about what workshops we could run. I had a stab at running one for LocalGovCamp22 which went pretty well, but unfortunately didn’t lead to a planned follow-up.
We’ve been kicking around the idea of what being a different sort of supplier should look like. The creation of the Supplier Standard laid the foundations for a new relationship between suppliers and government bodies, but what does that look like in terms of behaviours? We think we’ve embodied these in our values, but it will be great to test that out with others.
One of my more disturbing traits is that when I find myself really comfortable with someone I unleash all manner or torments on them, in the comfort of an understanding that we both ‘get’ where the other is coming from. And the verbal sparring doth fly…
There is an inherent risk to this, of course, and I do have to check in occasionally to make sure I’ve not overstepped the mark. As the West Wing’s Joshua Melina, a famous on-set prankster, said:
There is a fine line between being the life of the party and being unemployable
I may have achieved a new record in the last few weeks with our new trainer. He arrived (unsuspecting) into the Product team and was an instant hit. I couldn’t hold myself back.
However, I do feel he’s found his feet quickly. In a mock-up of a potential report card system, using teammates names as samples, I had ‘Sassy Back-up’ as my signifier. Within my mock outrage I glowed with delight….
All that aside, it’s great to be working with a real professional who is charting a new approach to how we help customers better understand and work with our products. Yes, my days of fumbling through a presentation are numbered. All hail the new broom.
This week we have been toilet training. Yet to achieve lifting the lid, but it’s a start