What is your organization’s highest priority?
In the twelve principles of the Agile Manifesto, this ‘highest priority’ is defined with the first principle:
“Our highest priority is to satisfy the customer
through early and continuous delivery
of valuable software.”
Satisfying the customer is the highest priority. In software development, that means delivering valuable software early and continuously. Focus should ideally be on the customer and their needs. As soon as the focus moves to a specific person in a supply chain, focus is lost on the true customer, potentially causing the quality to suffer. Here is an example of how this may work (each arrow represents a hand-off to a separate team/member):
Customer (end user) -> Manager/other stakeholder gives requirement -> Product Owner presents requirement -> UI/UX does some prototyping -> Architect hands off the design -> Developer codes -> Tester (QA) tests the code -> Product Owner tests the functionality -> Release Support team picks up requirement -> Requirement gets released after additional testing/DevOps -> Customer uses new code (issues go back through the chain)
In the above example, are these different team members most likely focused on the customer and have empathy for the customer? Is that person(s) their highest priority to satisfy? How much waste is there in this process?
The below represents more of a true Scrum Framework flow for the requirement:
Customer/Product Owner present requirement/need -> Developer codes (Architect/Tester/UI/UX, DevOps, Release Support – these are skills that the entire team of developers has and owns) -> Product Owner/Customer accepts need as done/decides when to ship code -> Customer uses new code
Does this system put more focus on the customer and maximizing value? All the team members have a direct communication channel to the customer and work on the same team. They are serving the customer and not the next person in line.
To get data and expose the design to an organization, try using concepts from the Scrum Framework or Kanban. If one has the authority or ability to influence their organization, try implementing a framework to expose problems and ideally bring the customer closer to the team. By exposing problems and implementing changes to improve the system design, ideally the organization and it’s people will improve customer focus and make the customer their highest priority.
What does your current system design look like? Is your customer the highest priority at your organization?
Additional Readings:
http://www.craiglarman.com/content/feature-teams/feature-teams.htm