Mihály Csíkszentmihályi defines flow state as an “optimal state of consciousness where we feel our best and perform our best.” We've likely all experienced this flow state individually at various times, but how do we achieve this at the team level?
In this hands-on advanced workshop, you'll explore how to apply Lean principles of flow to your everyday development work. We’ll take a practical approach: participants will be working on real–world problems. We won't be covering the basics of Scrum, Kanban or any frameworks etc. There will be no easy answers. Instead, you’ll learn how to ask the right questions, and how to evaluate different models of team flow. It doesn't matter if your team does Scrum, Kanban, or something else, we'll cover practical techniques you can take back and apply immediately to your team situation.
Learning Goals
This workshop is designed for experienced agile developers who want to move beyond basic Kanban, Scrum and task boards to a deeper understanding of how to apply Lean theory and practices in their context. We'll cover:
- Modeling and visualizing your team's development process
- Visualizing and troubleshooting feature development using timelines
- Story slicing techniques to enable smaller batch sizes and faster feedback
- Applying Systems Thinking and problem–solving techniques to team productivity challenges
- How small improvements in limiting work in progress (WIP) and reducing time spent waiting can lead to major improvements in performance.
- Challenges and approaches for limiting work-in-progress (WIP)
There will be individual and group exercises. We'll also be working in pairs, using the application Flow as a teaching tool to visualize and measure the presence and impact of these hidden queues on team productivity. You'll review actual work timelines for several teams to see a radically clear view of team progress and areas where work is getting stuck. You'll leave with a deeper understanding of lean principles, and a checklist of practical steps to confront and manage queues in your own team's work.
Participant Requirements
You are an experienced software developer with solid experience on agile teams and desire to learn and grow.
Bring your laptop to share with a partner for our pair-based discovery sessions using Flow.
It’s recommended to read “The Principles of Product Development Flow” (Reinertsen, 2009), but not essential.
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