Daniel Vacanti: Measuring Agile Software Teams - Episode 199

Daniel is a 20-year software industry veteran who got his start as a Java Developer/Architect. He has spent most of the last 15 years focusing on Lean and Agile Practices. In 2007, he helped develop the Kanban Method for knowledge work. He even managed the world's first project implementation of Kanban that year and, ever since, has been conducting Kanban training, coaching, and consulting. As the co-founder and CEO of ActionableAgile, Daniel provides industry-leading predictive analytics tools and services for any Lean-Agile process.

Topics of Discussion:

[4:19] Daniel explains why he feels as though the right curriculum is not yet taught in college.

[8:00] It's important to bridge your conversations both in terms of the risk and your ability to deliver on a date in terms of risk. Then, you can have a conversation about what you want to do as a business to mitigate the risks and also accept that they are there in the first place.

[10:14] Daniel explains his more data-informed approach when asked how long something is going to take. Jeffrey asks, but how do we find the data that helps us make informed decisions in the first place?

[14:43] What are those numbers that give the right visibility?

[16;03] The four aspects every manager of a software team should have at their disposal and be monitoring:

Work in progress
Throughput
Cycle Time
The age of items that they are working on right now

[19:00] Our ability to come up with ideas is always going to outstrip our ability to execute them. That's why backlogs grow over time.

[21:49] Daniel explains the method to go from using Azure DevOps to having numbers at your disposal, and what are the two important pieces of data that you need?

[24:41] How does the ActionableAgile tool help when every team board is totally different?

[28:44] If your engineering practices are continuous, your process should be continuous as well.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Architect Tips — New video podcast!

Azure DevOps

Clear Measure (Sponsor)

.NET DevOps for Azure: A Developer's Guide to DevOps Architecture the Right Way, by Jeffrey Palermo — Available on Amazon!

Jeffrey Palermo's YouTube

Jeffrey Palermo's Twitter — Follow to stay informed about future events!

Daniel's previous interview: "Daniel Vacanti On ActionableAgile"

Daniel's latest book: When Will It Be Done?

LinkedIn: danielvacanti