Agile Software Development - How much time spent Developing vs Meetings etc.

[Curtis McGrath]

I've been doing some internal research on the efficiency of several of our Agile running teams and projects to see how much time we spend on Development Tasks vs Meetings/Communication/Quoting?etc.

I've been unable to find much information online to validate our teams' performance. Would love to compare stats with anyone else who tracks this for their teams or is aware of a credible standard to baseline against. 

Thanks,

[mj4s...@gmail.com]

An interesting quote from _The Lean Startup_:

“… if you decide to implement [cross functional teams], I predict that you pretty quickly will get feedback from your teams that the new process is reducing their productivity.  They will ask to go back to the old way of working, in which they had the opportunity to ‘stay efficient’ by working in larger batches and passing work between departments …. When people are used to evaluating their productivity locally, they feel that a good day is one in which they did their job well all day.”

I don’t doubt that most companies have unnecessary meetings that should be eliminated.  But when it comes to complex work, I do question the use of trying to measure efficiency or productivity.  I’m interested in agility as a way to optimize *adaptability*.  Sometimes the appearance of greater efficiency or productivity may be side effects of this, other times not.

—mj

(Michael)

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[Alan Dayley]

For differing types of work, levels of knowledge, skills, risk, target market, etc. etc. ​the time spent on development tasks vs. other work will vary. How will you know if the ratio of your teams is good or not? Even if you had a large database of team performance for comparison, how will you decide which example baseline matches your situation?

What problem will be solved by knowing the "right" ratio of time on development tasks vs. time on other work?

How do you know that knowing the ratio will help solve the problem?

One last comment before I become too annoying with my questions:

In all my years as a software engineer, manager and now Agile Coach, I have yet to encounter a problem of team efficiency that was bigger than problems of effectiveness. And most problems of effectiveness are outside of and around the team. If you have solved the organizational effectiveness puzzle, maybe focusing on efficiency is worth the effort. Think about flow vs. utilization: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CostXs2p6r0

Alan

On Thu, Oct 5, 2017 at 5:07 PM, mj4s...@gmail.com <mj4s...@gmail.com> wrote:

An interesting quote from _The Lean Startup_:

“… if you decide to implement [cross functional teams], I predict that you pretty quickly will get feedback from your teams that the new process is reducing their productivity.  They will ask to go back to the old way of working, in which they had the opportunity to ‘stay efficient’ by working in larger batches and passing work between departments …. When people are used to evaluating their productivity locally, they feel that a good day is one in which they did their job well all day.”

I don’t doubt that most companies have unnecessary meetings that should be eliminated.  But when it comes to complex work, I do question the use of trying to measure efficiency or productivity.  I’m interested in agility as a way to optimize *adaptability*.  Sometimes the appearance of greater efficiency or productivity may be side effects of this, other times not.

—mj

(Michael)

On Sep 27, 2017, at 7:06 PM, Curtis McGrath <cmcg...@acromedia.com> wrote:

I've been doing some internal research on the efficiency of several of our Agile running teams and projects to see how much time we spend on Development Tasks vs Meetings/Communication/Quoting?etc.

I've been unable to find much information online to validate our teams' performance. Would love to compare stats with anyone else who tracks this for their teams or is aware of a credible standard to baseline against. 

Thanks,

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[George Dinwiddie]

Curtis,

On 10/5/17 8:07 PM, mj4s...@gmail.com wrote:
> An interesting quote from _The Lean Startup_:
>
> “… if you decide to implement [cross functional teams], I predict that
> you pretty quickly will get feedback from your teams that the new
> process is reducing their productivity.  They will ask to go back to the
> old way of working, in which they had the opportunity to ‘stay
> efficient’ by working in larger batches and passing work between
> departments …. When people are used to evaluating their productivity
> locally, they feel that a good day is one in which they did their job
> well all day.”

To add to this, you might try running the Penny Game
(http://tastycupcakes.org/2013/05/the-penny-game/) for a visceral
indication of how optimizing the individual performance hurts the
overall performance.

- George

>
> I don’t doubt that most companies have unnecessary meetings that should
> be eliminated.  But when it comes to complex work, I do question the use
> of trying to measure efficiency or productivity.  I’m interested in
> agility as a way to optimize *adaptability*.  Sometimes the appearance
> of greater efficiency or productivity may be side effects of this, other
> times not.
>
> —mj
> (Michael)
>
>
>> On Sep 27, 2017, at 7:06 PM, Curtis McGrath <cmcg...@acromedia.com

>> <mailto:cmcg...@acromedia.com>> wrote:
>>
>> I've been doing some internal research on the efficiency of several of
>> our Agile running teams and projects to see how much time we spend on
>> Development Tasks vs Meetings/Communication/Quoting?etc.
>>
>> I've been unable to find much information online to validate our
>> teams' performance. Would love to compare stats with anyone else who
>> tracks this for their teams or is aware of a credible standard to
>> baseline against.
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> --
>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
>> Groups "Scrum Alliance - transforming the world of work." group.
>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send
>> an email to scrumallianc...@googlegroups.com

>> <mailto:scrumallianc...@googlegroups.com>.

>> To post to this group, send email to scruma...@googlegroups.com

>> <mailto:scruma...@googlegroups.com>.

>> Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/scrumalliance.
>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
>

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----------------------------------------------------------------------
* George Dinwiddie * http://blog.gdinwiddie.com
Software Development http://www.idiacomputing.com
Consultant and Coach http://www.agilemaryland.org
----------------------------------------------------------------------

[Tom Mellor]

I can pretty much guarantee it will be a helluva lot more efficient and effective than the old way you did work.  "Get shit done as quickly and effectively as you can" should be the mantra of teams doing any kind of work.  And don't cut corners. And, as Deming indicated, stop measuring performance of teams and measure the effectiveness of management.  They are often the biggest obstacles to teams' performance. 

[Alan Dayley]

Curtis,

Maybe this service and data will help with your question. Looks like the entry level is no cost. https://www.comparativeagility.com/

I know it can be annoying to ask a question of Agile people and we respond with more questions. We mean well. 

Alan 

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[David M. Babuder]

Or you might reframe the question and ask the individuals on your team:

-          What could make our meetings more efficient?

-          Is there any information that we aren’t covering at the meetings?

 

That way even if your team is in the top 10% against the baselines, you’ll still get better!

 

David Babuder