This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Agile Buzz
by Simon Baker.
Original Post: Visibility is a good thing
Feed Title: Agile In Action
Feed URL: http://feeds.feedburner.com/AgileInAction
Feed Description: Energized Work's blog.
Ford CEO, Alan Mulally, talks about the concept of making problems visible and how Ford had a culture of hiding the problems to make things look good. He tells a story:
One of the first meetings we had, I asked how it's going, and most of it was all green and a little yellow. I said, "Hey, we lost like $12 billion, it can't all be green."
The next week, [Ford Executive Vice President] Mark Fields was launching the Edge [Ford's new small sport-utility vehicle] up at Oakville [Ontario]. He had a technical issue, so he chose not to deliver the car because we wanted to start off with the highest quality. In the weekly review, he presents the chart with all the launches. It has all the greens, yellows and this one big red box. The place goes silent.
I started to clap. I said, "Mark, that is great visibility and I am glad you understand that. Is there any help you need? Other resources you could get from technical or product development?"
So, within a couple weeks it went from red to yellow to green and we had a great launch. It's not a warm and fuzzy thing, it's relentless focus on your area. The expectation is we will portray it exactly as it is, and that's OK. What will not be OK is not dealing with it.
Scrum is based on empirical process control theory where everything is kept visible at all times, you inspect frequently creating more opportunities to obtain feedback, and you adapt frequently to keep improving and to optimise results. There's no hiding problems, burying bad news or ignoring obstacles. Visibility of problems provides better information on which to make more informed decisions.
When you start Scrum, almost immediately it reveals pre-existing problems. Newcomers often blame the problems on Scrum and claim that the process isn't working. Don't panic! And don't blame Scrum. It's doing what it's meant to do. See the problems, understand them and deal with them.
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