Caso práctico Agile Education

Estudio de caso

Summary: Enhancing Agile Workflows with Shorter Planning Cycles

The Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA), an educational non-profit specializing in educational assessments, faced significant challenges in scaling its Agile processes. The engineering department, with 19 Scrum teams spread across four value streams, required a way to manage interdependencies and provide visibility to stakeholders. Three years prior, NWEA implemented a scaled Agile planning framework that revolved around quarterly planning cycles. These cycles were meant to align all teams, identify risks, and establish a roadmap for the coming three months. However, the lack of flexibility and responsiveness inherent in this system began to clash with the evolving demands of product development. To address these challenges, Heidi Nibouar and her team introduced a shorter planning cycle and a Product Value Workflow. The goal was to foster greater iteration, involve Scrum teams earlier, and increase the frequency of value delivery. This case study explores the difficulties NWEA encountered, the solutions they tested, and the results achieved.

Challenges

Mismatch Between Planning and Work Types:

• Predictable vs. Unpredictable Work: The quarterly planning process worked well for predictable, well-defined projects where technology and scope were known. This “known work” could be meticulously planned out and scheduled with clear dependencies. However, for “unknown work”—projects where the scope evolved, technology was new, and feedback was needed as the team progressed—the quarterly planning model created conflicts. Teams handling unknown work found it nearly impossible to commit to three-month timelines, leading to constant struggles during planning sessions.
• Rigid Structure: This rigid approach highlighted a major flaw. Unpredictable work couldn’t adapt within the quarterly constraints, causing stress and disruptions in execution. Teams felt bound to unrealistic commitments, which constrained their ability to be Agile and responsive.

Morale and Ownership Issues:

• Pressure to Commit: Teams felt pressured to commit to a fixed three-month timeline without having a clear understanding of what the work entailed. This pressure was especially pronounced among teams dealing with unknown work, where requirements and technology choices evolved as the project unfolded.
• Imbalance in Responsibility: Although upstream roles like product management, UX, and architecture were involved earlier in the process, Scrum teams still bore the brunt of creating and executing the three-month plans. Understandably, this imbalance made the development teams feel overburdened and led to a lack of ownership and accountability among other roles.
• Impact on User Experience: Initially, the three-month cycle hampered the teams’ ability to incorporate user feedback during development. This delay sometimes resulted in delivering solutions that did not fully meet user needs, lowering user satisfaction.

Missed Dependencies and Scheduling Issues:

• Coordination Challenges: The quarterly planning process often led to unforeseen scheduling issues when dependencies emerged mid-cycle. Teams working on unknown work frequently discovered critical dependencies on other teams after planning was locked in. Undoubtedly, this created a domino effect. Many teams were blocked by others, forcing them to wait for the next planning cycle to accommodate changes.
• Missed Deadlines: This lack of visibility into mid-cycle dependencies caused teams to miss delivery commitments, further stressing the already strained planning model.

Approach

Introducing Accelerated Planning Intervals and the Increment Check-In:

• Shorter Planning Cycles: First, to improve flexibility, Heidi and her team proposed shorter planning cycles, shifting from three months to one month. Straightaway, this shorter cycle allowed teams to adapt more quickly, accommodating emerging information and shifting priorities without sacrificing alignment.
• Focus on Initiatives: Next, the teams decided to focus on a single “initiative” or major goal per month, akin to a large “epic.” This would allow for deep concentration on critical areas without the distractions of multiple competing priorities.
• Cross-Functional Involvement: The team expanded the planning process to include all relevant stakeholders, not just the Scrum teams. Specifically, they brought product managers, UX designers, architects, and other contributors into the planning process earlier.  This helped to establish shared understanding and collective ownership of initiatives.

Monthly Review and Realignment:

• Structured Monthly Meetings: Each month began with a meeting involving all key stakeholders, including business, product, research, design, and the Scrum team. The agenda covered strategy updates, user feedback, past accomplishments, planned work, and retrospectives. Significantly, this structure ensured that everyone had a clear view of the work being done and allowed for a quicker pivot if priorities needed to change.
• Continuous Feedback Loop: After each monthly meeting, participants provided feedback through surveys and debrief sessions to assess the value and effectiveness of the meetings. They made monthly adjustments to refine the format, agenda, and participants to increase the event’s value.

Tracking and Adapting Based on Results:

• Pulse Surveys: A feedback mechanism was established to regularly gauge team morale, alignment, and stakeholder satisfaction. These insights were used to continuously iterate on the check-in model. Heidi and her teams addressed any concerns and ensured the process was beneficial for all involved.
• Scaling Experiment: Initially, the experiment began with one Scrum team and one initiative. Over six months, as success metrics indicated improvement, the experiment expanded to include additional teams and initiatives, scaling up the approach.

Outcomes and Key Results after Implementing Condensed Planning Timelines

Higher Morale and Reduced Pressure:

• Pressure to Commit Reduced: With the shorter planning cycle, 70% of development team members reported less pressure to commit to unknown work, as they could adjust plans monthly based on the latest information.
• Increase in Employee Engagement: The employee engagement score, which had been negative (-16%), jumped to 60% within six months. Certainly, while other factors were at play, the shift to a more flexible and inclusive planning approach was a significant contributor to this improvement.

Mayor capacidad de pivotar y aportar valor gracias a ciclos de planificación más cortos:

• Mejor capacidad de respuesta a los comentarios: 84% de los miembros del equipo confirmaron que las nuevas comprobaciones mensuales les permitían cambiar de dirección basándose en los comentarios de los usuarios, eliminando los casos anteriores de entrega de MVPs no aptos.
• Cero MVP No Vencibles: Con el nuevo proceso, no hubo casos en los que los equipos entregaran MVPs que no pudieran publicarse debido a necesidades no satisfechas de los usuarios, un marcado contraste con los retos a los que se enfrentaban con el ciclo trimestral.

Mejora de la colaboración y la gestión de la dependencia:

• Una mejor colaboración ascendente-descendente: 65% de los participantes señalaron una mejora en la colaboración, informando de que el nuevo modelo fomentaba un enfoque más unificado entre las actividades previas (planificación, UX) y las posteriores (desarrollo).
• No te pierdas ninguna entrega: Después de los seis primeros meses, con la incorporación de un segundo equipo a las comprobaciones mensuales, ya no se produjeron casos de entregas no realizadas debido a dependencias no identificadas. Sin duda, esto fue un testimonio de la mejora de la visibilidad y la alineación.

Ampliación y adaptabilidad con éxito:

• Modelo escalable: La comprobación mensual de incrementos demostró ser adaptable y escalable. Cuando el experimento se amplió para incluir a más equipos, los resultados positivos persistieron, validando la eficacia de la cadencia de planificación más corta.
• Mayor calidad de los despliegues: Los equipos pudieron desplegar soluciones de mayor calidad gracias al aumento de los ciclos de retroalimentación y a la mayor frecuencia de las retrospectivas. En general, este enfoque iterativo mejoró significativamente la experiencia general del usuario y la fiabilidad del producto.

Conclusión

El viaje de NWEA para evolucionar su modelo de planificación pone de relieve los retos de equilibrar previsibilidad y adaptabilidad en entornos ágiles. El rígido proceso de planificación trimestral chocaba con las necesidades dinámicas de un trabajo desconocido, lo que llevó a Heidi y a su equipo a innovar. Incorporando a los miembros del equipo afectados y experimentando con ciclos de planificación más cortos, NWEA pudo establecer un enfoque más flexible e iterativo. Esta transformación no sólo mejoró la moral y el compromiso, sino que también condujo a una mejor colaboración, a despliegues de mayor calidad y a una entrega de valor más frecuente. El caso subraya la importancia de mantener la agilidad dentro de los procesos ágiles y muestra cómo implicar a las personas adecuadas en el momento adecuado puede producir mejoras sustanciales y cuantificables en los resultados organizativos.

Sobre Heidi Nibouar

Heidi Nibouar es Agile Coach y Registered Scrum@Scale Trainer™. Es una profesional del desarrollo web orientada a resultados, con amplia experiencia en aumentar la rentabilidad de las organizaciones. Heidi ha sido Scrum Master, Product Owner y Agile Coach, y tiene una amplia experiencia en Gestión de Productos y Proyectos. Sus puntos fuertes son la mejora de la usabilidad, la concepción y aplicación de procesos, el análisis estadístico y la comunicación adaptativa.