Technical Services Improvement Team Page
- Corbin Neilson
Initiative Overview
Kaizen Culture
This project brings us an opportunity to evolve our culture into one of Kaizen. Kaizen is part action plan and part philosophy. Kai-Zen = Continuous-Good or Continuous-Improvement.
As an action plan, Kaizen is about organizing events focused on improving specific areas within the company. These events involve teams of employees at all levels
As a philosophy, Kaizen is about building a culture where all employees are actively engaged in suggesting and implementing improvements to the company
Our Kaizen Event:
We have a goal to improve how we run Scrum for Technical deliverables
We reviewed the current state and listed challenges
We drafted a plan for improvements
We are implementing improvements
We will review and fix what doesn’t work
We will check results and determine any follow-up items
Scrum
Scrum is easy to talk about but very hard to do.
Commitment: The first value of Scrum is commitment, which is easier said than done. The group needs to commit to the goal, the process, and the team. They need to make sure that they don't take on too much but that they commit to what they do take on.
Focus: The beauty of the Scrum framework is the team's ability to choose what they can commit to what they are able to focus on.
Openness: Nobody likes surprises.
Respect: Serves as a foundation for the other values.
Courage: Committing, being open, and pushing through chaos takes courage; change can be uncomfortable.
Scrum Ceremonies (Touch points)
Meeting Type | Frequency | Day of Week | Team |
| Details |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Backlog Refinement |
Every other week |
Mondays | All Leads: Product Owner |
| The product owner and some, or all, of the rest of the team review items on the backlog to ensure the backlog contains the appropriate items, that they are prioritized, and that the items at the top of the backlog are ready for delivery. This activity occurs on a regular basis and is an officially scheduled ongoing activity. |
Sprint Planning |
Every three weeks |
Fridays |
All |
| During the sprint planning meeting, the product owner describes the highest priority features to the team. The team asks enough questions that they can turn a high-level user story of the product backlog into the more detailed tasks of the sprint backlog. The product owner just needs to go through about 2 sprints' worth of items. Not the whole backlog. |
Sprint |
Begin every three weeks, two week duration |
Monday Start, Friday End |
All |
Completed Sprint Backlog | When the sprint backlog is created, it is formed with the assumption that whatever's been selected can be accomplished in that two-week time frame. The result will be a usable solution or an implemented solution. A new sprint starts immediately after the previous sprint is over until such a time when it is determined that the project is "done-done." |
Daily Standup |
Daily |
Daily |
Scrum Team required SM optional |
| Intended to improve communications across the board, which may eliminate the need for other meetings. Perhaps one of the most important aspects is for the team to identify any impediments in their way and to keep everyone on the team up-to-date on what everyone else is doing. |
Sprint Review | Every three weeks, on last day of sprint |
Fridays, Last Day of Sprint | All Leads: Scrum Team |
Understand next steps | At the end of each sprint, a sprint review meeting is held. During this meeting, the Scrum team shows what they accomplished during the sprint. Typically this takes the form of a demo of the new features. |
Sprint Retrospective |
One time after each Sprint |
Mondays | All PO is recommended, but not mandatory. Facilitator: SM |
| Making and correcting mistakes, and learning valuable lessons are major tenants in Agile projects. SR is an opportunity for the Scrum team to spend an hour inspecting itself and to create a plan for improvements. The retrospective is sandwiched between the sprint review and the next sprint planning meeting, so the team can keep in mind what was talked about in the review and use that information to plan forward while improving the results. |
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