Metrics
Derek Huether
Most Important Metric for an Enterprise

As an executive, you will be faced with the choice to do the pivot (if you can) or persevere (if you have no other choice). This will lead to a series of “bets”. You lead with a hypothesis that the things you change will allow you to operate at pre-event levels. But, how long will it actually take for you to validate your hypothesis and have a bet pay off with pre-event levels? If you run out of time to figure it out or run out of bets you can place, then you either lose your standing in the market or worse risk going out of business.

Derek Huether
How to identify dependencies with Tableau and ...

Regardless of the organization or institution, there will always be dependencies. The larger the organization, the greater chance of the existence of dependencies.
This template is available for download from Tableau Public

Video
Derek Huether
Value Stream Management

In the following interview (both video and audio), Dave Prior and I explore why Value Stream Management is so important, how it works, the connection to Value Stream Mapping, and how you can get started with it.

Derek Huether
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Key performance indicators (KPIs) are metrics that are used to evaluate the performance of an organization or individual. They are used to measure progress towards achieving specific goals or objectives and to determine whether an organization or individual is meeting their targets.

Enterprise Insights, Jira Align, Metrics, Tableau
Derek Huether
How Atlassian Jira Align Supports Flow Metrics

I keep getting asked, does Jira Align support Flow Metrics, as defined in the Flow Framework and SAFe? The short answer is yes. If you believe these metrics will help unlock the potential of your teams, use this community post to see working examples of Tableau reports I have created using Jira Align and Enterprise Insights.

How Atlassian Jira Align Supports Flow Metrics

VSM

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Value Stream for Business Travelers

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TSAThe more I travel, the more I find myself observing how business travel (particularly flying) is a lot like application development. Process the flow of travelers (business value) through a system much like ideas flow from inception to delivery.  When reviewing the processes of  the business traveler (delivery), I keep asking myself why the system has so much room for improvement and why we as participants within it don't fix it.  I notice many travelers do few things that provide direct value (save time).  Rather, we do things that either provide little or no value but are necessary or are just wasteful.

As a business traveler, I want to arrive to a destination as quickly as possible without violating identified constraints.

Constraints: Quality and Cost 

Quality (safety thresholds):

We want to make sure that some knucklehead does not get on a plane and do something destructive.  Rather than quality, the FAA calls this security.  In the end, the underwear bomber who unsuccessfully detonated his skivvies mid-flight is like discovering a severity one bug in Production.  It would have been a lot cheaper, if this guy was stopped at a security checkpoint and prevented from getting on the plane in the first place.  As a result, I have Bubba the TSA Agent measuring me for a pair of pants every time I opt out the body scan. Do these theatrics actually increase quality?  I'm not sure. But I digress. [TSA Removing Body Scanners?]

We want to ensure planes don't fall out of the sky, due to mechanical issues.  In an attempt to ensure we don't go below this quality threshold, the FAA requires airlines to conduct regularly scheduled maintenance on aircraft.  As stakeholders, both the airlines and passengers see maintenance translate as on-time departures.  As this relates to application development, customers don't always think (or care) about code refactoring, fixing bugs, or paying down technical debt.  Still, if they don't want the system to crash or have a delayed launch, this out-of-site process has to take place on a regular basis.

Cost (budget thresholds):

As a business traveler, I expect my costs to fluctuate, based on quality and the speed in which I move through the system.  If I want to move through parts of the system faster, I can pay more.  In the end, local optimization just makes the process seem less painful.  It is, until you get to the next step or stage of the process.

The overall system:

  1. I arrive at the airport (park in the Daily garage) [every 15 minutes a shuttle arrives]
  2. I stand in line at the security (TSA) checkpoint.   [1-30 minutes]
  3. Choice of x-ray or full body scan [pay more for express search] [1-20 minutes]
  4. I opt out? [doesn't necessarily increase quality] [5-10 minutes]
  5. I arrive at gate and
  6. Board flight by "zone"  1st Class, Zone 1, 2, 3 [0-20 minutes]
  7. Fly to destination [varies]
  8. Land at destination and disembark the aircraft [5-15 minutes]

Though you can have several local optimums within the system, like any process we need to look at optimizing the system as a whole.

Look for bottlenecks and address them.  There is a bottleneck if a lead time exists between the start of one of the eight processes listed above and its execution (completion).   A lead time is the latency (delay) between the initiation and execution of a process. For example, the lead time between getting into the security (TSA) checkpoint line (process step 2) may be anywhere from 1 to 30 minutes. In industry, lead time reduction is an important part of lean manufacturing.  In application development, it allows us to shorten our iterations or feedback loops.  In travel, it allows us to get on with our lives with less impact to events happening outside the system.

One way I've seen people shorten the lead time at this process step is to just be ready.   Sounds obvious but you would be surprised.  There are signs and videos leading up to the security area.  TSA instructs you to have your boarding pass and photo identification ready.  They inform you what is allowed and what is not allowed (step 3).  I've seen countless travelers wait until they are at the podium before digging through purse or pocket, only to have a minor panic attack because they can't find a drivers license.

I've seen the same thing with application development.  Teams don't have their work ready and then there are delays in getting it done.

 

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Intro to Value Stream Mapping

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The Critical PathI'm in the process of doing a Current State Value Stream Mapping (VSM) for the PMO. The big questions are, based on the current state, are there areas we can improve? Can we eliminate any waste (or increase efficiencies) from our current processes? The answer to both questions is YES.  Everyone should be reviewing there processes on a regular basis, giving themselves opportunities to become more profitable.  Though I'm advising a Federal Government project, the American people still deserve the most bangs for their bucks. Today is the last day for one of my projects.  It is done.  Now is the time to see what worked and what did not.  We now need to do a retrospective and see if we learned any lessons from the last go-around. I will give the vendor credit on this particular project. This small cross-functional team did a better job than others, in part, because we had a daily 15 minute status meeting. (otNay allowedway otay entionmay Agileway). One of the other program teams wastes so much time because they only communicate once a week in a 3 hour meeting.  I hope my VSM will change that.

For those new to Value Stream Mapping, I included a 5 minute video that does a pretty good job of explaining its value.  See how a process that took 140+ days to complete was shortened down to just 30 days.

If you don't have your current process documented, you need to do it!  As the saying goes, "What cannot be measured cannot be improved".  Don't be complacent and accept the waste.  Times are tough and we need to think lean!

Like the drawing? Get it free at Pictofigo