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212 - A Refinement Resolution - Meta-Cast

Episode 212

212 - A Refinement Resolution

It's that time of year again. Time for everyone to make a resolution, or five. On our podcast, we're going to walk you through the ONE THING that everyone can get better at, as we did into your refinements and how to make them world-class. Have you improved your refinements recently, or are they stagnant? Let's discuss!

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Bob's articles he mentioned:

Agile Disciples:

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Transcript
Bob:

Do you, sprechen

Bob:

only in the morning.

Josh:

That's

Bob:

oh, no,

Josh:

no, you don't recognize

Bob:

spread again.

Josh:

We are at the end of 21, heading into 22 is the end.

Josh:

Isn't it.

Josh:

And so many times people do new year's resolutions.

Josh:

Is that something you do?

Josh:

Like, do you do that personally?

Josh:

You know, I

Bob:

used to.

Bob:

Yeah, but I'm so.

Bob:

Oh, I'm so old that I could, I, you know, I stopped even making it up anymore.

Bob:

Right.

Bob:

It's like, you know, I, I'm not gonna yeah.

Josh:

Same, same here.

Josh:

Well actually the thing that got me is like, well, why, why should it, why should

Josh:

I strive to only change once per year?

Josh:

I know.

Josh:

Like, why don't I just.

Bob:

I had that.

Bob:

My thing is like dice.

Bob:

Like last year during the holidays, I started a diet and I lost some

Bob:

weight and stuff like that, but it's not under the banner of a resolution.

Bob:

It's just, it's just holy cow ate a lot.

Bob:

And I'm, you know, as you get older, I think everyone's heard.

Bob:

You get more entrenched in your ways?

Bob:

I, it gets harder and harder to change.

Bob:

That might be a medic cast, uhhh, episode sometime like how to relubricate yourself.

Bob:

So that you're more,

Josh:

I don't think we're going to name the episode that, yeah, that's not a, you

Josh:

know, we're not going to do that now, but

Bob:

yes, but to be more changed, friendly,

Josh:

right.

Josh:

I agree.

Josh:

We're going to talk about the thing that we think if every agile team

Josh:

did better in 22, at the end of the year, they would be super proud.

Josh:

The one thing, the one thing, the singular thing that we think every

Josh:

agile team has room to improve, and many teams have like a lot of

Bob:

room to improve.

Bob:

I would, I would buy that, you know, I think what the spring it on him.

Bob:

Oh, okay.

Bob:

Go back to

Josh:

waterfall.

Josh:

Surprise, surprise

Bob:

waterfall.

Bob:

Bob's back too hard.

Bob:

Get the hell out.

Bob:

Get out of it.

Bob:

He can't cook.

Bob:

Get out of the damn kitchen.

Bob:

Go, go back to the living room and start running the waterfall.

Josh:

But seriously, what

Bob:

assignment?

Bob:

Oh, you're going old school back.

Bob:

Well, no, I mean, you used to be backlog grooming, backlog, refinement.

Bob:

Josh and I were talking before the medic cast that I've, I've encountered, almost

Bob:

every client I've encountered for the last few years is it's not the only thing they

Bob:

struggle with, but they're not, they're not refining well, and it's not even that.

Bob:

I don't think people understand.

Bob:

The point of backlog refinement, like how powerful it can be.

Bob:

So this is a nice episode.

Bob:

Yeah.

Josh:

The frustrating thing I see is it's just indifference

Josh:

about the event and people.

Josh:

I feel like they have to be there,

Bob:

so they show up.

Bob:

So that's the first one.

Bob:

Actually, I actually I'll I'll even undercut what you just said, Josh.

Bob:

It's like, they don't even think it's necessary.

Bob:

Right.

Bob:

So, so if they do show up, they're mailing it in.

Bob:

Right.

Bob:

But a lot of teams, they look at the out of all of the events I

Bob:

think they look at and I don't think we're fine is one of the events.

Bob:

I forget the context of.

Bob:

In the scrum guide, but it's not one of the core events.

Bob:

It's like an option, not optional, but it's a recommended event and it's

Bob:

rec and you have to figure it out.

Bob:

So it's, it's highlighted as a really good idea.

Bob:

So a lot of people don't do it, or, or they do it at the last possible.

Bob:

You know, the latest irresponsible moment or they show up and

Bob:

then they do it really poorly.

Bob:

Like they don't even engage.

Bob:

Right.

Josh:

Have you ever been anywhere you felt like refinement was

Josh:

necessary or like, wasn't sorry, like, you know, he should abandoned

Bob:

this it's now I, you know what?

Bob:

I know that I'm going to change that if you're, and I mean, this,

Bob:

if you're kicking ass, If you are, if you're executing and this is what

Bob:

bugs me, people argue themselves.

Bob:

A lot of folks push back and they, oh, it's waste.

Bob:

It's, you know, we're wasting our time.

Bob:

Right.

Bob:

And it's not agile.

Bob:

You hear?

Bob:

I mean, God, I've had a dive for every argument I heard, but, but

Bob:

a lot of folks are like, like they're complaining about it, but.

Bob:

I've seen it.

Bob:

If you embrace it, you don't ultimately you'd like mature

Bob:

teams don't need to do it right.

Bob:

Or they need to do it very fair.

Bob:

It's it's super quick and super fast.

Bob:

If you need to do it at all, like for example, it would be like, no estimates.

Bob:

Remember we were in the Medicus we were, you were big on the NOAA

Bob:

or you were talking about Ryan.

Bob:

Yeah.

Bob:

Ryan, Ryan Ripley.

Bob:

And you were re riffing on that at one point then no estimates.

Bob:

And to me, no estimates is not for the.

Bob:

You know, for a lazy team or for, you know, an immature team or, you know,

Bob:

a shoot team it's for a mature team.

Bob:

And yeah, I've seen, I've seen folks that actually they don't ever totally

Bob:

stop it, but it becomes, it becomes less frequent and less necessary.

Josh:

Yes.

Josh:

The closest I ever got to that was we had a total rockstar

Josh:

team and we were just rolling.

Josh:

That's what

Bob:

I'm doing and to right.

Josh:

And it was funny.

Josh:

I.

Josh:

Came back from lunch one day and we had a, we had a refinement and I

Josh:

said, do we need to do this anymore?

Josh:

And they all started laughing because they apparently all went to lunch together.

Josh:

And they felt like they didn't need to do it, but, but they were like, Josh will

Josh:

never let us not do this, but I'm like, but you guys are a different breed here

Josh:

and that's not necessary in the end.

Josh:

I said, okay, let's all think about it for a week and come back.

Josh:

And you guys decide what you think is right in the end.

Josh:

They valued it so much that it wasn't worth giving up because they

Josh:

knew was like, yeah, it's kind of annoying, but like, it drives us to

Josh:

get to where we need to be to win.

Josh:

So they still retained it even though they could've maybe gone without it.

Josh:

Yup.

Josh:

Okay.

Josh:

So number one, the number one hurdle is getting people to actually invest in it.

Josh:

What can listeners do out there?

Josh:

If, if they're stuck with the team that they've tried everything and

Josh:

they can't get them to invest, they don't show up or they do show

Josh:

up and they're on their laptop.

Josh:

They don't pay attention.

Josh:

They don't care.

Josh:

Like all will be painfully obvious.

Bob:

I mean, I would look at results you know, it's the end of the year and I'm

Bob:

getting Chris, I'm always crispy and, and, I'm like, You know, if you're driving the

Bob:

results, like we're at home on a mature team, then I don't care what you do.

Bob:

You can go tip two through the tulips.

Bob:

If you want, you can do whatever you want.

Bob:

If you're delivering great results as a team.

Bob:

If then, then do that.

Bob:

What, what really gets me going is, no one shows up, but we

Bob:

have crappy results, right?

Bob:

We're not hitting our sprinkles.

Bob:

We're having carry over stories up the wazoo.

Bob:

We're having serialized execution.

Bob:

we, you know, we're not, you know, we're being lazy and retrospectives, et cetera.

Bob:

There's no commitment.

Bob:

So to me, I don't think there's any silver bullet for that.

Bob:

I think, I think it goes back to like a bootcamp kind of.

Bob:

It's like I would kick a little butt as a coach and say, look, we haven't earned

Bob:

the right to ignore backlog refinement.

Bob:

Show me the results.

Bob:

Show me the outcomes and the results that we have as a team that give us the

Bob:

right to be, to show up where we are.

Bob:

And if it's there, that's fine.

Bob:

And if it's not there, then we ha we have to look in the mirror and we need,

Bob:

I think a little bit of a butt-kicking and I, I would run it as an experiment.

Bob:

So I think that, you know, the, the conversation would be that's, that's

Bob:

tried to really do it well and see if that makes a difference in our

Bob:

outcomes and our results in our work, in our behavior, et cetera.

Bob:

But I, I think you have to kick the, you know, kick the team's ass a little

Bob:

bit or something and will prescribe it.

Bob:

it's one of the reasons I like putting new teams through bootcamp kinds of things

Bob:

where there's not an option to opt out.

Bob:

Right, right.

Bob:

Like we're going to do.

Bob:

Right.

Bob:

We're you know, and we're going to try to do it well.

Bob:

So we're going to start with, this is how these are the activities or the,

Bob:

the things we're going to do to start.

Bob:

A lot of people don't want to confront the team.

Bob:

There's still a lot of runaway teams.

Bob:

I think there's more runaway teams nowadays, even than there used to be

Bob:

where teams think of, you know, agile as being to get out of jail, free

Bob:

card to do whatever the hell they are.

Bob:

I know, I'm sorry.

Bob:

I sound like a grumpy old man.

Bob:

I

Josh:

was thinking, and I do believe you're right, because I

Josh:

think agile has become, and we've talked about this a myriad of times.

Josh:

It's now mainstream.

Josh:

So everybody just kind of thinks they know what it is, but they're not totally

Josh:

sure because they've never really done it.

Josh:

Well, But harp is terribly distracted since got distracted.

Josh:

I

Bob:

just noticed that there's another, so Walter Raleigh in the

Bob:

room and he's, I think you stared

Josh:

at me there.

Josh:

Is there a two.

Josh:

I,

Bob:

I think his eyes are following me.

Josh:

Oh, listen there.

Josh:

So listeners, this is, oh

Bob:

my God.

Bob:

I can't help it.

Bob:

And sir, Walter is right over Josh, his head.

Bob:

So I'm like looking at Josh and now I'm looking at sir Walter at the same time,

Josh:

Bobby got to connect.

Josh:

We got to, I'm trying,

Bob:

I'll look at your chest.

Bob:

I'm

Josh:

looking at your chest.

Josh:

Oh, Okay.

Josh:

So, but you're not that sorry.

Josh:

It's fault listeners.

Josh:

I wish you could've seen his eyes while I was trying to talk about teams.

Bob:

And the strange thing was it's been there the whole time.

Bob:

I just, I just like looked up and I'm like, what the hell was that?

Josh:

yes.

Josh:

So I think because.

Josh:

Agile has become mainstream.

Josh:

Many people believe they know what it is.

Josh:

So they like wield that very broadly.

Josh:

And so that gives people this like belief that, oh, I know what it is.

Josh:

You don't, that's not like you're right.

Josh:

The number of times we've heard, that's not agile.

Josh:

It's pretty amazing.

Josh:

But, but that's, again, I agree and support with the approach you had

Josh:

of like, okay, like let's just stop and let's look at the scoreboard.

Josh:

Are we winning or are we losing right.

Josh:

And most likely they're losing.

Josh:

And then just say like, do you actually want to win?

Josh:

Or are you happy?

Josh:

Losing as a week.

Josh:

Exactly.

Bob:

Yeah.

Bob:

And if you want to play the game, I think for beginning teams, there's

Bob:

this, if you want to play the game of agile, like trust your coach to some

Bob:

or trust, trust the people who have experienced or your scrum master or

Bob:

whatever, they may not be perfect, but they have, they have some experience.

Bob:

There's, you know, there's a lot of people that they, they

Bob:

think they know what agile is.

Bob:

I mean it's, what's convenient.

Bob:

I think they forget the rigor of it.

Bob:

Right?

Bob:

It's it's not it's actual dumped well is rigorous.

Bob:

I can't help.

Bob:

But think of it has, it has a game plan.

Bob:

It has a playbook right there.

Bob:

There are, there are things like backlog refinement.

Bob:

There's there's a reason it's not these pointy headed managers have a meeting

Bob:

that drives you crazy and over again.

Bob:

What is backlog refinement?

Bob:

It's about.

Bob:

Team the whole team collaborating around the backlog, the whole team,

Bob:

understanding what the stories are and what the themes are.

Bob:

The whole team providing input on size complexity, risk, the

Bob:

whole team via estimation.

Bob:

It's look ahead so that you can be more efficient.

Bob:

One of the things most recently I was, I was talking to a client.

Bob:

And, they're, they're living in the moment of a sprint and they're

Bob:

having a lot of waste downstream.

Bob:

Like they do something in sprint one.

Bob:

And it gets undone or has to be ripped out in sprint two or three.

Bob:

And I'm talking about refinement.

Bob:

One of the ways to help with that is to look, look ahead a little bit.

Bob:

And, and it's not, not just preventing.

Bob:

I think it would about like efficiency.

Bob:

Yeah.

Bob:

It wasn't just look ahead like you can, you do spiking as part of

Bob:

refinements and spikes and research and prototypes and experimentation.

Bob:

But the other thing I was talking to them just a few days ago,

Bob:

I said, it's the efficiency.

Bob:

I said, the pro as a product owner, you want to listen to your team and

Bob:

encourage them to tell you, you know, what the, if you, if you change the

Bob:

order of these stores, I can do it better or we can do it better or

Bob:

faster, or we can reduce test time.

Bob:

Do you know what I'm saying?

Bob:

Like those efficiency discussions, that's how you actually accelerate.

Bob:

You can accelerate and stuff.

Bob:

Yeah.

Bob:

The, the,

Josh:

some of the more common pushbacks that I've received to what I call

Josh:

just in time planning and that just in time planning leads to all of the.

Josh:

Symptomatic issues.

Josh:

Have you have a lot of architecture, rework, all these things, just

Josh:

like you end up with a ton of debt.

Josh:

So there's two things that end up getting in the way in people's brains.

Josh:

The first one is like, they don't have time.

Josh:

Yeah.

Josh:

Right.

Josh:

So it's, it's that circle of, we don't have time to plan,

Josh:

but we don't, we don't play.

Josh:

Right.

Josh:

It's just, it just becomes this vicious cycle.

Josh:

And then the second is the number of places that I've been.

Josh:

Where teams, I think from management or something, I'm not sure.

Josh:

Or maybe their history have this belief that if they're not typing

Josh:

code in the feature in that sprint, they're not adding value.

Josh:

Whereas you have to understand to build it.

Josh:

Well, there's a ton of work that has to be done so that when the

Josh:

time comes to put your fingers on the keys that you actually.

Josh:

Well, and accurately, and don't have a ton of rework, but there's so many places

Josh:

where if I'm not typing, I'm not doing my

Bob:

job.

Bob:

I think, you know, I agree with you, but it's, I, I've never seen the logic to it.

Bob:

I think there's this false understanding of like the

Bob:

efficiency of writing software.

Bob:

'cause, you know, I'm like, I was talking to this to another team and

Bob:

I was talking to them about this curve of, you know, what is the story

Bob:

maturity entering the spread, you, and I've talked about the percent of

Bob:

clarity you have around stories coming.

Bob:

Let's say that's part of refinement, a big part of it, the clarity

Bob:

we have around the story flow.

Bob:

And I was like, you know, there are some coaches that say you only need 20 to 30%.

Bob:

Pre sprint entry, then you get another 20, 30%, even 40% clarity

Bob:

by sprint planning, right?

Bob:

And then you get another 30% or whatever by execution.

Bob:

So that there's this curve of you're getting clarity on the stories,

Bob:

you know, sort of pre sprint planning, sprint planning is a big.

Bob:

Right.

Bob:

You're getting clarity there around it.

Bob:

And that's just in time.

Bob:

That's, that's not in advance that's during sprint planning

Bob:

the way some people do it.

Bob:

Yeah.

Bob:

Right.

Bob:

And then it's, and then it's there during the execution.

Bob:

So my point is right.

Bob:

We're talking about like getting whatever it is, 20 to 30% clear.

Bob:

I'm not saying planning.

Bob:

It's not like exhaustive planning.

Bob:

It's it's very quick.

Bob:

I like the teams that I've seen that do refinement with.

Bob:

They do it.

Bob:

They do a quick, we have like eight, 10.

Bob:

One of my recommendations is like, do it Nick timer.

Bob:

Right?

Bob:

Have like an eight timer per story.

Bob:

Have quick, have quick estimation estimate.

Bob:

Multiple times have quick conversations, put it on the shelf.

Bob:

Talk about it the next time you can, you can get two or

Bob:

three sprints worth of stories.

Bob:

Refined.

Bob:

You know, I dunno in a month and then you're cruising then it's like, like you

Bob:

hit the, you hit, what is it in your car?

Bob:

Do you hit the I'm blanking the cruise, the cruise control.

Bob:

And you think you're welcome?

Josh:

And it's a reason it's not like a new test.

Bob:

Thank you for not busting my chops.

Bob:

Yeah.

Bob:

But you hit cruise control and then, and then you're just, then you're in the

Bob:

moment and it's incredibly efficient.

Bob:

So, so it's it.

Bob:

I don't know.

Bob:

I'm not buying the fact that it, yeah, if you plan it out to a hundred

Bob:

percent clarity in every story and you beat it to death, or you do all

Bob:

this dysfunction, then, then yeah.

Bob:

Jettison that.

Bob:

But the

Josh:

biggest hurdle that I've seen teams stumble over, or

Josh:

like completely fake Facebook.

Josh:

With is you can't go from zero to a hundred speed-wise

Josh:

without having to accelerate.

Josh:

And the acceleration is the work.

Josh:

So you have to invest a lot early because you're going from zero backlog effect.

Josh:

And you want to get to like two or three sprints.

Bob:

So the upfront penalty is there and you're paying more up front.

Bob:

And I think folks are maybe reacting to that.

Bob:

I have a question for you.

Bob:

Yeah.

Bob:

Teams are really struggling.

Bob:

You've seen them in, in the job or when you've been traveling around.

Bob:

I can.

Bob:

And I don't think I'm exaggerating.

Bob:

I look at teams, Carrie, I'll use Carrie over stories.

Bob:

They're committing to 10 and they're typically carrying over five.

Bob:

Per sprint, which is not a good thing, right.

Bob:

From a commit, execute perspective.

Bob:

I look at it and I look at their, the refinement and I see a direct correlation.

Bob:

Almost always.

Bob:

There's a direct, you can, you can tell it's not the only thing, but

Bob:

probably 80% of the time when I see teams struggling to me in my head, I

Bob:

may not even share it with them because they're not, they don't want to.

Bob:

But I'm like, you know, if you invest it in, in kick ass refinement,

Bob:

you would see totally different results during the execution.

Bob:

So it's like a pay me now pay me later.

Bob:

And everyone wants to pay later with the pain.

Bob:

I think it's

Josh:

the, you know, you don't want to.

Josh:

It's like investing, you know, you don't want to put the, you know,

Josh:

however many hundred bucks in a week or whatever your number is to do that.

Josh:

And then at the end you're like, oh shit.

Josh:

Why, why did I not have very

Bob:

good number for looking at stories in the bag?

Bob:

What do you think?

Bob:

Like sprints stories in the bag before you stop refining, you

Bob:

don't want to continually do as

Josh:

I've you healthy as.

Josh:

Two to three sprints kind of depends on the team.

Josh:

I aspire for three and I've had a lot of.

Josh:

Get there with work that is ready to be pulled into a sprint.

Bob:

So that's, that's my bench, somewhere in there, two to three

Bob:

sprints, like one is not enough.

Bob:

Right?

Bob:

There's some and five is too many.

Bob:

So there's some that there's some horizon.

Bob:

That's just, you're wasting your time on that horizon.

Bob:

And you're, you're just being silly on the other one.

Bob:

You're going to have things blow up.

Bob:

So it's like to right.

Bob:

But it doesn't.

Bob:

So let's say you have 10 stories.

Bob:

Velocity's not, so we're not talking.

Bob:

I get the upfront argument, but we're talking about what

Bob:

for one team, like 10 stories.

Bob:

Yeah.

Bob:

Right.

Josh:

And, and you're working on 10 stories that are like

Josh:

two or three sprints away.

Josh:

So you'll have to do all 10 stories.

Josh:

You basically have to do like three stories a week to like, keep your pace.

Josh:

Exactly.

Bob:

It's not, it's not that arduous of investment.

Bob:

If you sort of stick with it, I get having them in the bag.

Bob:

I have 10 stories, maybe at eight 20 in the bag for two, but, but

Bob:

again, then, then I do five a week or something like that.

Bob:

The minute I catch up, then I start throttling.

Josh:

Yeah.

Josh:

And it's another one of those things.

Josh:

And this is just always works in my brain.

Josh:

The more you do something the better you get at it.

Josh:

So if you do it once a week, you're going to get really good.

Josh:

If you actually invest, you're going to get good at it.

Josh:

And you can probably do, you know, two or three stories in an hour

Bob:

easy.

Bob:

I'll see, I've seen with some of the techniques I recommend we

Bob:

should link a link to a couple of,

Josh:

well, I think you and I have different expectations for what a story.

Josh:

Being ready for sprint.

Bob:

So S probably, yeah.

Bob:

You think you're more robust than I am?

Bob:

Really?

Bob:

Yeah.

Bob:

Oh, okay.

Bob:

Yeah.

Josh:

All right.

Josh:

This is why I think fewer per hour,

Bob:

but I still think of velocity.

Bob:

I mean, I've seen this a team again, if you're not trying to get this,

Bob:

if your goal was not to beat it to death in one, one hour, right.

Bob:

Beat them into two to death.

Bob:

If you can otherwise punt them and get to sample.

Bob:

Yeah,

Josh:

because you're not because you don't have to do it the next sprint.

Bob:

Yeah.

Bob:

So if you're doing that, I've seen teams like comfortably do five or six stories.

Bob:

So, so the sample rate is five to six, somewhere in the five to six.

Bob:

That's the velocity and look at.

Josh:

Yes.

Josh:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Josh:

I agree.

Josh:

So to me, a healthy cadence is like, you get three ready?

Josh:

You

Josh:

might

Bob:

look at others.

Bob:

Yeah.

Bob:

I'm with

Josh:

you.

Josh:

Yeah.

Josh:

So to me, But I agree with you completely, whatever.

Josh:

I go into some someplace where somebody has called one of us in,

Josh:

because something's going wrong.

Josh:

You know, you always look at the backlog.

Josh:

Yep.

Josh:

And it's a, it's a mess.

Josh:

So what, what is a mess?

Josh:

A mess is they all kind of look the same.

Josh:

Yep.

Josh:

And so then you asked the question of the team, how many of these

Josh:

are ready for like the next.

Josh:

And they have no way of knowing.

Josh:

The only way they know is if somebody remembers, oh yeah, we've talked

Josh:

about that story like two weeks ago and it's good, but like no one knows.

Josh:

So I actually add two statuses to work items, whatever system that you use, where

Josh:

it's ready for refinement is a state.

Josh:

So like the product owner gets it to a spot and does work.

Josh:

It's like, oh, like here's, here's things we can look at.

Josh:

Refinement and you might get to a refinement and there's only one

Josh:

because that's all the product owner has been able to get done.

Josh:

And you just do that.

Josh:

Then we have a status that's ready for sprint.

Josh:

So that means we've done whatever work that we think

Josh:

is the right work to get done.

Josh:

That we, yes, these are actually things that could get pulled into

Josh:

a sprint whenever we are ready.

Josh:

So then it gets really easy to say, yeah, we average about 10

Josh:

points or whatever the number is.

Josh:

Do we have.

Josh:

Do we have three X that ready to go?

Josh:

If so, maybe we don't need to refine if we have 35, just because

Josh:

the way it worked out, let's

Bob:

take break this week.

Bob:

I do think there were too, when I, when I even last week when I was talking to these

Bob:

folks I coupled readiness or definition ready and definition of done or whatever.

Bob:

You're talking about readiness.

Bob:

I coupled those two concepts with refinement.

Bob:

Ready.

Bob:

Just the way you talk about it, right?

Bob:

You, you having some checklist or some clarity around what is ready?

Bob:

What is ready for refinement and what is ready for the sprint?

Bob:

What is ready for a spike could be something, right.

Bob:

It doesn't be a checklist, but then done.

Bob:

This is helping you with the estimation and helping you with the discussion,

Bob:

like keeping definition of done.

Bob:

I don't think you like tattoo it on everyone, but it's like you

Bob:

have it in the back of your mind.

Bob:

But when we're thinking about level of effort, when we're thinking about

Bob:

risk and complexity, we're thinking about getting this story done and

Bob:

being very crisp in that definition.

Bob:

So those two things are coupled, I think, right.

Bob:

That's why, when I was talking about discipline, I think in terms of a

Bob:

rigor, you know, you've rigorously defined a definition of ready.

Bob:

Some people don't like that and then definition down as well.

Josh:

My, my assumption is that step one, then everybody should do.

Josh:

Yeah.

Josh:

Starting in 2022 is make sure you have clear.

Josh:

Around what ready looks like in these various states so that

Josh:

everybody can look each other in the eye and say like, yep, we did it.

Josh:

Yeah.

Josh:

Or like, no, Bob, we haven't done that yet.

Josh:

Like let's, let's hit the pause button and talk about this thing.

Josh:

And then.

Josh:

Done really matters because that way everybody in their

Josh:

mind has the same destination

Bob:

in mind.

Bob:

Well, when you're say 13, or when you say five, what are you, what

Bob:

are you thinking of doing right.

Bob:

I don't know how you can, I don't know how you can estimate something

Bob:

if you don't know what done is.

Bob:

I don't care.

Bob:

It's even been written down, but if we don't have a clear idea of what, what

Bob:

encompasses getting a piece of work done?

Bob:

Yeah, I think.

Josh:

Welcome to our diversity and inclusion minute.

Bob:

Hey, so I have something there's a, in the last medic

Bob:

cast, I talked about a group.

Bob:

God, I can't remember.

Bob:

I think it's like the agile, disciples and a bunch of about eight African-American.

Bob:

Coaches and they wanted guidance to become CTCs certified team coach.

Josh:

Everybody listened to the last episode.

Josh:

Right?

Josh:

You did didn't you?

Josh:

Yeah, you did.

Josh:

So if you didn't, you're going to go do it right now.

Josh:

So I've

Bob:

reached, so we've been working with them.

Bob:

We set up slack I've sent them some information about mentoring and

Bob:

things and They're talking about setting up a, a meeting like a

Bob:

meetup group meeting in January.

Bob:

So I'll make sure we get it out to the Medi-Cal to let

Bob:

people know I'm going to speak.

Bob:

They've invited me to be the, like the they're trying to, if you remember, from

Bob:

the last episode, there's two things.

Bob:

What can we do to become team coaches?

Bob:

And we need mentoring and training around that, et cetera, can you help us?

Bob:

But also we want to give back to the community.

Bob:

So, so the meetup group, I think is there.

Bob:

What can we do to start creating some community on our own around that?

Bob:

I would like to link those folks to, to the Medi-Cal like Agilent

Bob:

color and things like that.

Bob:

We might not now, but we, we can do that, like a landing page or something that's

Bob:

related to links, et cetera, around that.

Bob:

Right.

Bob:

Because agile and colors there.

Bob:

I like it.

Bob:

Yeah.

Bob:

We need to do something like that.

Bob:

So that's my, that's my update.

Bob:

Yeah.

Bob:

And

Josh:

mine is.

Josh:

I'm ready to help.

Bob:

I need your, I need your help because I'm on the little they need.

Bob:

They're pulling on me quite a bit.

Bob:

So if we can include it, if we can pair on that, that would be wonderful.

Bob:

A hundred percent.

Bob:

All right.

Bob:

Back to the episode.

Bob:

Yup.

Bob:

Cool.

Bob:

Okay.

Bob:

The other thing I saw last week, or I heard from folks who said, there's an,

Bob:

I, I heard this like more than 10 years ago and I was just ranting about it.

Bob:

I ran into a client 10 more than a decade ago, and they were, there was like a

Bob:

one-shot estimate where you could, the minute you estimated you got one chance.

Bob:

I re I forget the company, but you had one chance to get your numbers that many.

Bob:

Had a number from the team and planning poker.

Bob:

You could never revisit it.

Bob:

Wow.

Bob:

It was like, it was.

Bob:

Just that was a fixed number.

Bob:

So for the, and you can never re estimate if something, if someone

Bob:

said, oh, we forgot about this.

Bob:

You could tell them, no, you, you had a five it's it's too late.

Bob:

And these, these folks were talking about the same thing.

Bob:

Refinement was a one-shot exercise to them.

Bob:

I think if they did.

Bob:

It was, we look at the story, we write the story, we have an estimate, we

Bob:

get th we, we average it or whatever.

Bob:

We get a number and then we move on.

Bob:

It's done.

Bob:

It's like a, we land a story.

Bob:

We never met a story that we couldn't land.

Bob:

We just don't do very many of them, but we landed.

Bob:

And I was like, my head blew up.

Bob:

I was like, I, I encourage people to ask.

Bob:

You know, like for one story, if it's a complex story estimate 10 times, right.

Bob:

Over, over a period of meetings or whatever, and I'm like, the

Bob:

estimates can drive the decision.

Bob:

If it's a trivial story estimate one or once or twice, that's fine,

Bob:

but I'm not stuck on like the one.

Bob:

And what they were saying is, you know, there's this, you could hear fiddly

Bob:

oppression, like we have to get it.

Bob:

Right.

Bob:

Right.

Bob:

So it was driving like story perfectionism, like the story, right.

Bob:

Because there's only one shot to get to the waterfall.

Bob:

Refinement.

Bob:

Yeah.

Bob:

Yeah.

Bob:

It was weird.

Bob:

So I would medic Hester's the point is if you, for falling into, if you're

Bob:

limiting estimates, look at estimated.

Bob:

As more of a conversation driving activity than a number generation activity.

Bob:

And, and if it requires, if the story requires it, like in backlog

Bob:

refinement, I'll do a timer for like a story for maybe five to seven minutes.

Bob:

In five to seven minutes, we could ask that we could do planning poker

Bob:

estimation two or three times just in one refinement just to drive out some

Bob:

of the nuance so that, and we could do.

Bob:

Across to meetings.

Bob:

Yeah.

Bob:

Yeah.

Bob:

And, and I, I want to hear you tell me if you think know the crap.

Josh:

Yes, I do.

Josh:

But not on this topic.

Josh:

Exactly.

Josh:

No, I mean, I, I, I agree 100% on all of those things and a likely

Josh:

struggle that you have is the team.

Josh:

Is it willing to engage in that?

Josh:

Yep.

Josh:

Right?

Josh:

So that goes back to the bootcamp of like, we are losing every

Josh:

time we do you like losing or not like, do you actually want to win?

Josh:

So if you want to win, here are the things we need to do and we need

Josh:

you to engage and it will be hard.

Josh:

You will be required to push people and they might be annoyed at you

Josh:

pushing, but it's that that's coaching.

Josh:

Yup.

Josh:

That that's what coaching is coaching.

Josh:

Isn't just saying like, Hey, we're going to do it my way.

Josh:

And then when people push back, you.

Josh:

Turn a blind eye.

Josh:

No, that's where you do the hard work of saying, okay, I hear you.

Josh:

But remember, this is what we're trying for three sprints

Josh:

or whatever the number is.

Josh:

And like, we're going to engage.

Josh:

I need to be a part of this and we're off and running.

Josh:

And then what happens is the team starts doing it for you, but they

Josh:

don't start doing it for you.

Josh:

If you don't set the example and the expectation, do you think we have

Bob:

a.

Bob:

You just inspired me another thing that I'm sensing, maybe

Bob:

this is another Medi-Cal is I think coaches are getting softer.

Bob:

Yes.

Josh:

That's already in my brain of another one

Bob:

over time.

Bob:

Yeah.

Bob:

And, and I'm not making this, I think coaches for some,

Bob:

maybe for a variety of reasons.

Bob:

Are getting softer.

Bob:

I

Josh:

think agile coaching and scrum mastering has become diluted.

Josh:

And I believe that's an issue, but that is a whole nother tight.

Josh:

Yeah, yeah.

Josh:

Yeah.

Josh:

Cause I thought about bringing that up.

Josh:

Like, boy, we'll get really distracted.

Josh:

We go down that path,

Bob:

but no, no, but that's, that's a worthy other episode,

Josh:

which will be a good follow-up to this because there's, that's going to

Josh:

take tough love and you're going to do to tail off as a coach to make this happen.

Josh:

There's a reason that's not happening.

Josh:

Right.

Josh:

And as a coach, It's your responsibility to make this happen.

Josh:

So you need to look at yourself and say, holy crap, I've not been doing

Josh:

my job to help this get better.

Josh:

So like, what do I need to do?

Josh:

That's that resolution that you need to make and not a new year's, but there's

Josh:

a resolution within like your heart and soul that you have to make this.

Josh:

I'm going to do this and I'm going to make it happen.

Bob:

I agree.

Bob:

I have a really nice blog post.

Bob:

I think just one I have multiples, but one is coming to mind like patterns

Bob:

for successful backlog refinement.

Bob:

I'll I'll shoot that to you.

Bob:

And we could include it with this episode.

Bob:

How did we land this?

Bob:

Do you any more from your point of view?

Bob:

I feel that

Josh:

okay.

Josh:

There, there's a ton of nuance that we'll get into the episode

Josh:

about coaching getting soft.

Josh:

Yeah.

Josh:

On the execution and dealing with people that don't want to engage,

Josh:

like we can do episodes about that.

Josh:

I am sure.

Josh:

But we try to give you the framework of just look in the mirror and

Josh:

are you doing these things?

Josh:

And if not, you need to, and here are some tips and tricks

Josh:

on how to make that a reality.

Josh:

Next episode will be more tactical on like, okay, you're in refinements and

Josh:

three of your engineers don't engage.

Bob:

What do you do?

Bob:

So, yeah.

Bob:

Cool.

Bob:

So from beautiful downtown North Carolina, I'm Bob Gale and

Bob:

I'm Josh Anderson shake and take care of y'all by Walter..

About the Podcast

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About your hosts

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Josh Anderson

Josh Anderson is a seasoned software professional with a passion for agile methodologies and continuous improvement. As one of the hosts of The Meta-Cast podcast, Josh brings his wealth of experience and expertise to the table. With a knack for practical advice and a penchant for engaging storytelling, Josh captivates listeners with his insights on agile methodology, team dynamics, and software development best practices. His infectious enthusiasm and dedication to helping others succeed make him a valuable resource for aspiring software professionals.
Profile picture for Bob Galen

Bob Galen

Bob Galen is a recognized industry leader and an authority on agile practices and software architecture. With years of hands-on experience, Bob brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to The Meta-Cast podcast. As a co-host, he delves into topics ranging from agile fluency to organizational transformations, providing listeners with invaluable insights and strategies. Bob's charismatic and humorous style, combined with his ability to simplify complex concepts, makes him a fan-favorite among software professionals seeking guidance on navigating the challenges of agile development. His passion for continuous learning and his dedication to helping teams succeed shine through in each episode of the podcast.