Agile Superpower #3: Watch the Work, Not the People

Johanna Rothman, known as the "Pragmatic Manager," offers frank advice for your challenging problems. She consults with leaders and teams to help them learn about practical and possible options. They can then decide how to adapt their product development. Her most recent book is "Project Lifecycles: How to Reduce Risks, Release Successful Products, and Increase Agility." See www.jrothman.com for all her books.

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This is the third installment in a series on Agile Superpowers. Read Agile Superpower #1: Focus on Collaborative Teamwork and Agile Superpower #2: Reduce WIP to the Most Important Work for more.

Does your agile team still use the same old three questions in your standup? If so, you’re not alone. Those questions focus on each individual, not to help the team finish the team’s work. And because the questions focus on the individual, teams can create too much work in progress (WIP).

Instead of focusing on each person as an individual, you can use questions that focus on the progress of the work. That changes the conversation and encourages more collaboration. Even better, it helps the team realize what causes its delays and decreased throughput.

Here's how one team changed its conversation.

Standups as Serial Status Meetings
Peter, the product owner, stood at the board feeling as if he had a pear growing in his stomach. He hated this team’s standups. Too many items were “in progress,” rarely moving to the “done” column.

Elise, the agile project manager, joined him at the board. She said, “I don’t think much has moved since yesterday.”

Peter replied, “I’m sure nothing has moved. It’s Wednesday, and nothing’s moved since last Wednesday. Our daily standups have turned …

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