Theme Park Pull System

If you've been to a theme park like Disney World's Magic Kingdom or Hollywood Studios, you will quickly notice the lines.  Depending on the time of year (or day) the line to a ride or attraction could be anywhere from nonexistent to 90+ minutes long.  As you approach an entrance, you'll see a line marked on the grounds and a sign that reads "N minutes from this point". You want the sign to read 5 minutes.  That's the time it takes, with no wait line, to get to the actual attraction.  What you don't see from the line on the ground is the maze of lines snaking their way through the building.  If the volume of people is low, everything except the direct line to the attraction is roped off.  The more the people, the more "side" lines are open.  The line outside the attractions are deceasing.  The real delays start after you cross that line marked on the ground and are committed. I noticed that attractions usually lasted less than 5 minutes and people were divided into groups, just prior to onboarding some kind of transportation.  The transportation ran at a consistent rate of speed.  All these factors included, Disney World has to know the maximum throughput of a ride, before the line starts to back up. Why do you ask?  Well, to keep the customer happy by keeping them moving, of course.

When I saw all of this happening, I thought it was an excellent example of a pull system.  We went on a ride called "Star Tours".  The vehicle capacity was 40 people and the ride duration was 4:30 minutes.  We noticed the sign said 90 minutes from this point.  Can you imagine doing that with a 5-year-old?

Star Tours Capacity=40 people per load Lead Time=90:00 minutes Actual Duration=4:30 minutes

So, what does Disney do to help resolve the issue?  They call it the Fast Pass.  Yes, the golden ticket.  When you see the line at its worst, go up to a kiosk and get a Fast Pass.  It will tell you to return to the ride at a designated time.  In exchange for doing that, it will allow you to go to the head of the line, when that time comes.  I am assuming they are having you return at a predicted time of day in which the line will be shorter.  Regardless, it eliminated the bottleneck for us.  Whenever we saw a hellish line, we got a Fast Pass and came back later in the day.

To prevent the Fast Pass people from completely stopping the line, it appeared a certain percentage of seats per load were allocated for Fast Pass ticket holders.

I think this Fast Pass option may also work with non-theme park customers.  Let's say you are working on an application development project.  After you have an optimum cycle time, if you reserve a little capacity, you could potentially negotiate with a stakeholder to postpone an activity to a date or time in which you know the workload will be less.  I'm not saying you are postponing adding the work to your backlog.  It's still there.  But, you could agree to make it a lower priority until more of the backlog gets completed.  This could keep the rest of the work moving at an optimum pace and keep the customer happy.

Drawing by Pictofigo

P in your Network

I've recently been paying more attention to signs and indicators. Though Stop signs or Yield signs are a given, I'm talking signs that you find around homes (Welcome to our ool. Notice there is no "P" in it. Let's keep it that way) and businesses (Drink coffee. Do stupid things faster with energy). Last night, I attended the monthly APLN DC (Washington DC Chapter of the Agile Project Leadership Network). When friend and colleague Manoj Vadakkan kicked off the event last night, he announced that both the name (APLN) and logo had changed.  It will now be known as the Agile Leadership Network.  After telling people for the last few years that they could leverage agile principles and values in areas other than software development or just projects, I'm happy to see the change.  It should certainly help reinforce concepts like servant-leadership, outside of the application development world.  I went to the "new" ALN website and read a message on behalf of the board of directors.

In keeping with the agile spirit, APLN has continued to evolve since its inception. Over the last year or so, the national board has had an ongoing discussion about “getting the ‘P’ out”. That’s ‘P’ as in ‘Project’; as in Agile ‘Project’ Leadership Network. Why do that?

As agile practices for software development projects have become more prominent, broader application of agile principles and values has come more to the forefront. It is not that we no longer want to talk about these projects; we do and will. But we also want to talk about more than projects and we think the 10-year anniversary of the Agile Manifesto is an appropriate milestone to recognize that evolution.

Let this be notice to everyone out there to start updating their websites or documents listing APLN.

Motivate Your Team

You should be looking for ways to motivate your team every single day. You could bring them donuts or bagels. You could give out monthly awards or public recognition. You could also give them a pep talk.  All it takes is one minute of encouragement to change their day for the better.  So, here is your pep talk for today.  Take 55 seconds, watch the video, and I challenge you not to have an awesome day.  This kids could be the next Tony Robbins!    

I Got a Feeling

I was sitting at my desk when this song by the Black Eyed Peas called "I got a feeling" came on Pandora.  My son rushed over yelling to turn it up. I attribute turning up the volume to the resulting earworm that has lasted the last few days.  There could be worse things in the world.  Each time I hear it, I think of the flash mob that danced in Chicago for Oprah.  It amazes me how so many (strangers) came together to create something that brings a smile to my face every time I see the video. As I was preparing for day zero for LitheSpeed (I don't officially start until tomorrow), I found myself singing the song and thinking about "the feeling".   After taking a week off, I was able to break the cycle that had me feeling a bit numb for so long.  Just a few weeks ago, I felt like I was trying to keep control of an uncontrollable situation.  That can become exhausting.  But today I felt completely different.  This morning I felt excited about what I was about to do.  I felt an entrepreneurial drive I haven't felt for a long time.  It's that feeling when you play offense not defense.

Tomorrow is day one.  I have my Kanban loaded.  I have my WIP limited.  I got a feelin' tomorrow is gonna be a good day.  Let's do it.

Walt Disney Quote

Disney Quote

As my family and I were walking through Disney World last week, we noticed a lot of construction going on.  Come to find out, Fantasyland is getting a big face-lift.  We could see what appeared to be another castle being built and some mammoth big top tents.  We were told that it will be completed in 2012.

But this post is not about Disney World construction, it's about giving credit where credit is due.  As we were racing to get from one side of the Magic Kingdom to the other, my wife said she saw the perfect sign for me.  I'm sure I shot her some kind of momentary puzzled look without slowing my pace.  I was focused on getting from point A (Frontierland) to point B (Tomorrowland) in the shortest time possible.  It's tragic that I was at the wonderful world of Disney's Magic Kingdom and I couldn't stop and soak in my surroundings.  Don't worry, I got better as the day went on.  But let's get back to this sign that my wife spotted.

Clearly my wife knew this sign was more important than getting to Tomorrowland in record time.  She was able to get me to look her right in the eye and this time she said "Honey, it talked about a project."  I paused, processed the new information, did an about-face, and made a B-line for the sign.  Yep, she was absolutely right.  The sign was awesome.  Too many times I get my blog post ideas from my wife and I never give her credit for them.  The sign said

"When we go into that new project, we believe in it all the way.  We have confidence in our ability to do it right."

- Walt Disney

So, let it be known, my wife gets full credit for spotting the sign and inspiring this post. Without her, it wouldn't have been.  If you're leading a team or just a member of a team, don't forget to listen to others.  You have to accept that some of the best ideas are going to come from them.  When those awesome ideas come your way, don't forget to give them credit.

Carrots and Sticks

motivation

After watching Dan Pink do his TED talk, I read his book Drive.  I felt inspired.  I am often left feeling inspired after finishing a book.  After recently consuming Drive for the umpteeth time, I made a sketch.  I then told Pictofigo about it.  The result is a poster.  I hope this gives you a good laugh. Watch the TED Talk.  Read the book.  Try to understand the surprising truth about what motivates us.

FAR from accurate

This post is not specifically about FAR (Federal Acquisition Regulations).  It's about using relative grading or estimates (evaluations), before absolute grading or estimates (evaluations).  As an advisor to a source selection committee, I'm not allowed to write or talk about what is happening behind closed doors.  I can, however, write about the FAR .  Don't click away just yet!What exactly does the FAR say?

Subpart 15.303  Source Selection Responsibilities

Paragraph (b4) The source selection authority shall ensure that proposals are evaluated based solely on the factors and subfactors contained in the solicitation (10 U.S.C. 2305(b)(1) and 41 U.S.C. 253b(d)(3)).

That means is if you have 10 proposals, you are not allowed to compare them.  Based on content contained within them, you can not say one proposal is better or worse than another.  You may only grade the proposal against the solicitation, as if it was the sole submission.  So, this is where I see the problem with the FAR.  After reading Predictably Irrational, by Dan Ariely, I know humans don't think like this.  We compare things and then react (usually irrationally).  We're also pretty bad at estimating if we don't have something to use an a baseline or anchor.

The only proposal submission that will truly comply with the FAR is the first one read.  The rest of the proposals will be compared to all those read before it.  This isn't intentional.  It will happen subconsciously.  Though the FAR is attempting to be fair, I don't think that it's realistic.  If this was a scientific experiment, you would re-baseline after each test.  But the human memory is a tricky thing. You can't just reboot and clear the cache.

I've seen the same thing happen with providing task estimates.  You can spend a lot of time and money trying to get an absolute estimate.  For some projects, they require that up front. But, where there is a lot of uncertainty, relative estimating is commonly going to get you closer to where you want to be.  You many not be able to accurately predict how long it will take to complete a task but you can say if the task being estimated will be easier or harder than a similar task recently completed.  Use that as the anchor.

What I am proposing with the FAR and with estimating is provide a relative evaluation (bigger/smaller, better/worse, sm/med/lg...) based on all available information.  As more information becomes available, refine your evaluation or estimate to absolute terms (SLA1=4, Task1=Nhr(s), Task2=NDay(s)...).

If I were to change the FAR, I would require all of the proposals be reviewed once (establishing an overall baseline) and then focus my attention on the best proposals.  But, since I'll only be advising the source selection committee for two more days, I'll leave it up to the FAR.

Which do you prefer, relative or absolute estimates?

Yes, the book link is an affiliate link.

PMO Analogy

As my tenure with the PMO comes to an end, I've had an opportunity to reflect on the last two and a half years.  What I realized was how much the PMO was like the U.S. Congress.  If I imagine the organizational structure of the PMO I've been supporting, I can imagine the CIO as the President and the PMO Program Director as the Speaker of the House or the Senate Majority Leader.  Beneath the Program Director are the Division Directors (Committee Chairs) and then members of the PMO (Congress in general).  What I've found interesting is many (not all) have their own agendas and motives.  Gridlock, not collaboration, is the norm.  Now, am I talking about the PMO or Congress?  I'm not trying to paint the PMO or Congress in an unfavorable light.  To the contrary, these people are all SMEs in their respective areas.  But they've seemed to have forgotten the common goal.  They've forgotten who the customer is.  In both cases, it's the American people. From my perspective, when you're trying to deliver value, you need to consider all of the options, regardless of your convictions.  I was the sole Agile evangelist in the PMO.  Think of me as a lobbyist representing the American people.  I did what I could to help the Government understand and to be receptive to new ideas.  But what the PMO failed to grasp was Agile is much more than a way to deliver software products.

I think Michele Sliger put it very well:

Being agile means that teams are working in ways that allow for change in order to better work together and provide a more useful and meaningful product to the customer.

My final days with the PMO will be like a long retrospective.  What went well during this engagement? What could be improved in the next engagement?

HT: Michele Sliger