It has been over three months since I introduced Flow Metrics to my team. My team has changed their mindset when it comes to work. Today, I am going to discuss how I apply Flow Metrics to the team. Before implementing Flow Metrics, I created a spreadsheet and recorded all the Product Backlog Items (PBIs) created in 2023. Following Daniel Vacanti’s Flow Metrics for Scrum Team, the spreadsheet includes an Aging Work in Progress Chart, Cycle Time Scatterplot, and two Monte Carlo Simulations: “How Many” and “How Long.” I obtained the Service Level Expectation (SLE) for the Cycle Time. ...

Management loves measurements, especially those who work in traditional companies. When management wants to assess how much the team has improved after adopting Agile development, things like the Agile maturity model are usually presented to them. Everyone celebrates the results as the scores have improved from negative to positive after three months of hard work and dedication. Several years later, we revisited that team. Unfortunately, the team continues to practise the same things since we celebrated the improvement in Agile maturity. They continue practising what they learned, even if the industry has already abandoned some of the practices for years. They believe they are mature and that everything is going well. They refuse to change their current way of working. ...

It has been over six months since the last time I travelled to Japan. The last time we visited Hida Takayama, we enjoyed it a lot, especially the snow scenery in Shinhotaka, the heritage in Shirakawa-go, and the onsen in Gero. After weeks of discussion, we have decided to visit Hokkaido next month. To travellers like us, Hokkaido appears different from other areas of Japan. Apart from the Japanese, it consists of Ainu people as well. They are the indigenous people of Hokkaido, with a distinct culture from the Japanese. I am interested in their history, culture, and how they coexisted with the Japanese in the past and present. ...

Recently (and finally), I watched the film “Oppenheimer”. They won’t fear it until they understand it. And they won’t understand it until they’ve used it. — “Oppenheimer” (film) I don’t know whether it’s a quote from the real Oppenheimer or a creation from the movie, but this impressed me the most. Typically, we can’t change people’s minds directly. Often, they change because they realise that the change improves their lives. People often fail to realize the dangers of constantly staring at their phones on the street until they experience a vehicle collision. In the Agile world, people won’t understand the concepts we teach until they’ve tried them. ...

The Agile coach training programme at my company has reached its second half. One of the training objectives was to teach the Agile coaches about unit testing and code refactoring. Naturally, the coaching programme expects the trainees to subsequently coach their teams on the same topics. As a mentor to two new Agile coach trainees working in different teams, I often allow them to choose their approach and evaluate it later on. Both teams had no prior knowledge of unit testing and code refactoring. After learning the basic techniques, Trainee A decided to ask everyone to try writing unit tests themselves simultaneously. They would then share and discuss their work during Code Review. On the other hand, Trainee B dedicated all his time to working with a single developer, allowing others to continue working as they had been. Once that developer had grasped everything Trainee B knew, they would split up and work in pairs with the other two developers. ...

Typhoon is a common phenomenon in Hong Kong, typically happening almost every summer. However, reaching Hurricane Signal no. 10 is a rare occurence. Recently, we had a chance to face such a severe situation. Last week, the weather forecast indicated that Typhoon Saola was approaching Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Observatory expected to hoist Gale or Storm Signal No. 8 at midnight last Friday. Everyone at the office was ready to have a work-from-home day the following day. ...

In 2020, I moved away from my parents’ home and started living alone. During these three years, I learned to live alone, cook my own dinners, and fix the problems at home. Now my solo living is coming to an end – I moved to a new flat and started living with my girlfriend. Flashback to the day before I started living alone, I talked to my girlfriend about my move. Since I didn’t have any experience living alone, except when I lived in the university dorm where almost no housework was required, I had to train myself by living alone before we could proceed with the next stage. ...

Last month, I wrote a blog post about why I have refrained from using Story Points and capacity estimation in my team since day one. I have been delving deeper into Kanban and immersing myself in the materials, and I have started implementing it. After introducing Kanban and Flow Metrics to my team, I received a lot of questions and feedback from them. Kanban is a strategy for optimizing the flow of value through a process that uses a visual, pull-based system. There may be various ways to define value, including consideration of the needs of the customer, the end-user, the organization, and the environment, for example. ...

Last year, under the Work From Home policy, I had plenty of time to stay at home. I have developed a habit of reading since then. Earlier this year, the Work From Home policy ceased. Since I hadn’t adapted to the new lifestyle, my reading rate dropped for several months. After I decided to attempt the PSM II exam, I dedicated more time to reading. This month, I’ve finished reading three books. Two were about Kanban. The remaining one was about behavioural economics. I’m now reading two books. Two more are on the way through Amazon. ...

I’ve been listening to many podcast episodes recently. One of the quotes I heard is “They know what their problems are. They just don’t want to change.” “I want to be physically fit, but I’m old.” I’ve seen many twenty-ish and thirty-ish people react to my take on improving my physical fitness. “Your approach to your team works very well, but mine is different from yours.” How different are we? Does my team consist of geniuses, whereas your team is full of preschool kids? ...