Make Your Agile ‘WAIT’ Visible & Worthwhile

Waiting for something or someone is one of the most annoying things in life. I’m sure all of you have faced such situation in a real life. How about waiting nervously till your examination results arrive? How about waiting for your fiancé or fiancée to come and meet you? And how about waiting till you get your increment or promotion? Strenuous and frustrating isn’t it? It just eats you away minute-by-minute, day-by-day fretting away at what might just be a risky unknown.

Well, waiting is a common thing. May it be personal life or even when executing software development projects. This is no difference even in a change-driven Agile project. In Agile terms, waiting is the result of an impediment of any shape or form.

So what is an impediment?

The dictionary definition of an impediment is ‘a hindrance or an obstruction to doing something’. In Agile terms, an impediment is ‘anything that is slowing down the team’. In PMP terms, an impediment is ‘any kind of issue’. An impediment simply makes an Agile team wait!!

So, what can make an Agile team wait?

An Agile team may end up waiting for

• Information
• Resources; human or non-human
• Another task or a feature
• Advice
• Feedback
• Tools or Technology
• Management decisions, or lack of it
• Work environment itself

Above are just some reasons while a team may get blocked from achieving their objectives. It will stop them from getting things ‘Done’ which finally affects their velocity.

So what should you do with the thing that makes you wait? Let’s take a look at it next!!

Making the ‘wait’ visible

A core concept in Agile is to make everything transparent and visible. We achieve this mainly by showing things in the information radiator (or our scrum board) or by discussing things during the scrum ceremonies. Here are a few things that you can do to make the ‘wait’ visible.

• Add a ‘waiting’ column to your scrum board – Move the tasks or user stories that are blocked to a swimlane named ‘waiting’ and make it visible for everyone as soon as you identify it. Don’t wait!!

• The swimlane alone does not suffice. Add some more notes (in coloured sticky notes or cards) with information such as why it is blocked, who are you waiting for, what are you waiting for, when do you expect a resolution, how the impediment will be removed, and what is the impact etc.
• Notify the relevant stakeholders about the impediment – Your scrum master is your ‘Protector’. Make him aware of all your impediments as soon as you identify it. Bring it up during the immediate daily scrum meeting so that the scrum master can identify a way forward and facilitate a process to resolve the impediment

Making the ‘wait’ worthwhile

It’s all good to identify and highlight impediments as explained above. Action or steps to find solutions for these impediments will take some time. In software development, a minute wasted may result in delays in project timelines that may have detrimental consequences on time, cost, and scope. So, how can you make the wait worthwhile?

The team members blocked must make maximum use out of the waiting time. Below are some of the paths that he or she can tread while ‘waiting’.

• Add more information as to why you are waiting. Information and collaboration is the key to resolving issues. The more guidance and information that can be provided on the issue itself will make it easier for the assignee to resolve that blocker.
• Move on to another task – If there is nothing else to do on the item blocked then just move on and keep the flow of other tasks going. Agile stresses on the progress of stories and tasks in a sprint on a daily basis and you will achieve this only by working on the other tasks.
• Help others or get help – Don’t be shy!! Collaboration and communication is the key in Agile. Work with team members to either solve the issue or help them resolve the blocker.
• Research on the root cause of the blocker or on a resolution for the impediment. Agile teams need to be innovative and this is the best way of making use of ‘waiting time’ judiciously

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Conclusion
Impediments and wait is an inevitable thing in Agile projects. It is up to the team members to identify the best way to identify, record, manage, update and resolve impediments. Agile principles and values provides guidance on what needs to happen but it is up to the team to ascertain what works well for the team while ‘waiting’.