SPC Notes

  1. Describe the house of Lean
    1. Top is “Goal: Value”
    2. Left Pillar: “Respect for People”
    3. Center Pillar: “Product Development Flow”
    4. Right Pillar: “Kaizen”
    5. Foundation: “Leadership”
  2. Describe the goal of value
    1. Sustainable short-time
    2. Deliverable quality and value
    3. Happy cust, low cost safety
  3. Describe Respect for People
    1. Develop individuals
    2. Build partnerships
    3. Empower
  4. Describe Kaizen (good change)
    1. Reflection
    2. Continuous Improve:
      1. Retro
      2. Root Cause Analysis
      3. Value Stream Mapping
  5. Describe Leadership
    1. Trained in Lean
    2. Decisions on Long-term philosophy
  6. Describe Product Development Flow
    1. Economic Framework
    2. Exploit variability
    3. Decrease Batch Sizes
    4. Apply WIP Constraints
    5. Deal with uncertainty : Cadence and Synchronization
    6. Fast Feedback
    7. Decentralized Control
  7. Describe the Economic Framework
    1. Cycle Time
    2. Cost
    3. Development Cost
    4. Value
    5. Risk
  8. How do you improve cycle time: decrease delays
  9. If you quantify one thing, what do you quantify: cost of delays
  10. What do you need to do with queues: actively manage them
  11. What is Little’s Law: average wait time is Average queue size / Average processing time – think Starbucks
  12. What is the optimum batch size: well it is based on a U-shaped curve
  13. If you do nothing else to control batch size what do you do: Apply WIP constraints
  14. How do you deal with uncertainty? Use cadence and synchronization
  15. Planning is not for conformance it is for? Alignment
  16. Why do you want fast feedback: improves learning, reduces cost of risk taking, helped by small batch sizes, requires increased investment in development environment, the shorter the cycle the faster the learning
  17. When would you not want decentralized control? Infrequent, Global Application, Not time critical

  18. What principles in the Agile manefesto are harder to do at scale? Working together, daily face-to-face, architecture

  19. Traditional development is Plan driven, but Agile is Quality and Value driven
  20. Traditional development flexes what and fixes what?  Flex: Requirements, Fix Cost and Schedule
  21. Agile development flexes what and fixes what? Flex: Cost and Schedule, Fix: Features
  22. What things do I fix? Dates and Quality
  23. Do I fix scope, nope?
  24. What are the four SAFe values: 1) Alignment 2) Code Quality 3) Program Execution 4) Transparency
  25. What are the four SAFe business results 1) Engagement 2) Time to Market 3) Quality 4) Productivity
  26. What is the optimal ART size? 50-125
  27. Program epics span how many ARTs? 1
  28. Portfolio epics span how many ARTs? 1 or more
  29. What is an NFR? Non-Functional Requirement, sit outside the backlog

  30. Program Increment (PI) is a fixed timebox; default: 10 weeks, range 8-12

  31. Do I care that project or the train is on track? the train
  32. What does a train need to keep going? cadence and synchronization
  33. A train operates under whose guidance? Arch and UX
  34. Who puts together the system demos? The system team
  35. At what levels do I have acceptance criteria? Story and Feature
  36. Why do we synchronize? To assure delivery
  37. How big is an Agile Team? 7 plus or minus 2
  38. What are the five ART roles: 1) Release Train Engineer (RTE), 2) Product Management (program and backlog) 3) System Architect (Arch Runway) 4) System Team (tools) 5) Business Owners (key stakeholders, exec leadership)
  39. What are the inputs to a program increment: 1) Vision and 2) Features
  40. What are the outputs to a program increment: 1) Objectives and 2) Business Value
  41. What is Vision: Strategic Input
  42. What is a Roadmap: Prioritized features, commitment to the next release, estimates for all other estimates
  43. What is a Program Backlog? Features (have acceptance criteria and are delivered incrementally)
  44. What are some attributes to a Feature: 1) Identified, 2) Prioritized 3) Estimated and 4) Maintained
  45. Who addresses external and internal facing issues: External – Product Manager : Internal – Product Owner
  46. What are 3 attributes of a Team Backlog: 1) NFRs are constraints against backlog and sit outside the backlog 2) Opportunities not commitments and 3) Owned by the product owner
  47. What are three attributes about a spike: 1) Have Estimates 2) Are demonstrable 3) If all you do is spikes then you are doing waterfall
  48. How do we start with a normalized estimate? Start with 1 SP per day to code and test and 4 SP/Dev/Week.  Then we move on and don’t look back
  49. Release Planning is all about Alignment (2 days every 8-12 weeks)
  50. Who owns the feature priorities? Product Management
  51. Who owns the story planning and high level estimates? Dev Team
  52. Inputs to the Release Planning: Vision and Top 10 Features.  Output: Program Board and PI Objectives
  53. What are Stretch Objectives?  They count in velocity/capacity, low commitment
  54. List out Day 1 Release Planning Agenda:
    1. Business Context – State of Business and Upcoming Objectives
    2. Product/Solution Vision – Vision and Prioritized Features
    3. Arch Vision and Dev Practices – Arch, common frameworks, agile tooling, eng. practices
    4. Planning Context and Lunch – Facilitator explains planning process
    5. Team Breakouts – Teams develop draft plans, id risks and impediments, arch & prod managers circulate
    6. Draft Plan Review – Team present draft plans
    7. Management Review and Problem Solving – Adjustments made
  55. List out Day 2 Release Planning Agenda:
    1. Planning Adjustments – adjustments made on yesterdays management review
    2. Team Breakouts – develop final plans, business value is assigned
    3. Final Plan Review and Lunch – Teams present final plans
    4. Program Risks – ROAM risks
    5. PI Confidence Vote – team and program confidence vote
    6. Plan Rework if necessary – continue planning until consensus
    7. Planning Retrospectives and Moving forward
  56. Describe the four quadrants of the business context: SWOT 1) Strengths, 2) Weaknesses 3) Opportunities 4) Threats
  57. What program roles would you assign: 1) RTE 2) Executive 3) Product Manager 4) System Arch 5) UX 6) Dev Manager
  58. What team roles would you assign: 1) Scrum Master 2) Product Owner 3) Team Members
  59. How do you estimate your initial velocity: 4 SP per Dev/Week
  60. Walk through the initial parts of a Release Planning Meeting: 1) RTE aligns (purpose) 2) Executive gives SWOT business context 3) Product Manager does vision and features 4) System Arch does arch
  61. How would you setup your team area: 1) Plan each Sprint X.Y with a) Features b) Velocity c) Load 2) PI and Stretch Objectives and 3) Risks
  62. What would you do during your team breakout: 1) List your capacity 2) Estimate your stories 3) Sprints are loaded 4) PI Objectives are written in clear business language 5) Stretch objectives are written in clear business lang 6) Risks in red
  63. So what happens in Team Breakout #2.  1) Business owners assign business value 1-10 2) Finalize plan 3) Consolidate program risks, impediments, and dependencies
  64. What would I find on a Program Board: 1) Sprint X.Y (Release.Sprint) 2) Features 3) Significant Dependency 4) Milestone/Event 5) String/dependency
  65. What would I find in the final plan for the Team (Day 2 morning) 1) Changes to Velocity 2) Final PI Objectives and business value 3) Program Risks and Impediments
  66. Describe ROAMing Risks: 1) Resolved 2) Owned 3) Accepted 4) Mitigated (might also transfer the risk)
  67. What are inputs to Vision: 1) Strategic Themes 2) Portfolio Backlog 3) Architecture/ART 4) Customer/Value stream feedback 5) Team
  68. What are outputs to Vision: 1) Program Backlog
  69. What is the Roadmap: Features over time.  Nearest PI is high confidence, next is medium confidence and last is Marque.  If a feature spans multiple PIs then indicate when done
  70. A program epic spans how many trains? 1. NOTE: They can arise locally
  71. A portfolio epic spans how many trains? 1 or more
  72. Give me two attributes of features: they have benefit and value.  Benefits trace to value
  73. What should we measure to prioritize: Cost of Delay and Cost to Implement
  74. Describe Weighted Shortest Job First? Cost of Delay / Duration
  75. What should I do first, if the COD are equal due the shortest job first.  If Duration is equal, do highest COD first.
  76. So describe Agile Architecture: 1) emergent 2) Intentional 3) runway
  77. What is an architecture runway? 1) Code 2) Technical enabler 3) Near-term business features
  78. What does it mean to be intentional architecture? 1) Gen Guidance 2) System level constraints 3) Maintainabilty 4) Avoidance of duplication
  79. What does an architectural runway provide? 1) Speed and 2) Flexibility
  80. How do we build an architectural runway? 2) Build incrementally 2) Validate early and often 3) Just enough enablement
  81. What assists an architectural runway? 1) Design spikes 2) Emergent design 3) Refractoring 4) Modeling 5) Test automation
  82. What are NFRs (Non Functional Requirments)? 1) “ilities” 2) Persistant constraints a) Port Level apply to all ARTs b) Prog apply to all systems b) team level apply to feature
  83. How do you deal with product vs architecture discussion 1) Separate concerns 2) Allocate boundaries % a) Product Manager controls business % b) Arch controls arch %
  84. How often is a system demo held? once per sprint setup by the system team
  85. How often a scrum of scrums? At least weekly has the RTE and scrum masters
  86. How do you control code quality? 1) Collective Ownership 2) Pair work 3) Refactor 4) Test-first 5) CI 6) Agile Arch
  87. When do you automate tests? same iteration and team that codes
  88. Give me some attributes about acceptance tests: 1) Specific, not flaky 2) automated and manual 3) written in program language or DSL
  89. How often do you have a release management meeting: once a week with the RTE, Product Mgmt, Dev Mgmt, QA Mgmt
  90. What does IP stand for? Innovation and Planning sprints – gives you capacity margins.  Recently dropped the H for hardening
  91. What are 3 parts to the inspect and adapt? 1) PI Demo 2) Quantitative 3) Problem Solving.
  92. How long is the I & A: 3-4 hours per PI
  93. What is the Release Predicability Report: Compare planned vs. actual business value
  94. What kind of things would you find on a PI Performance Summary Report? Progress/Functionality (Assess Progress) and Quality metrics (assess program health).  Things like Velocity, Stories accepted, Unit Test coverage
  95. What are the steps in a Problem Solving workshop: 1) Agree to solve the problem 2) Apply RCA, 5 whys 3) Find biggest root cause 4) Restate problem for biggest root cause 5) brainstorm 6) Identify improvement backlog
  96. Give some attributes of sprint planning: 1) Time-box 2) Prod Owner – what 3) Team how and how much 4) Result Goals and specific value
  97. If we develop on cadence when do we release? on demand
  98. When does real-value occur? when end-users are using the software
  99. Talk to me about the three levels of a iterating 1) Top: Releaseable 2) Middle: System Increment – every 2 weeks 3) Bottom: Working Software

  100. Strategic Themes are? Persistent

  101. What is a value stream? Shows concept to cash, value at scale is distributed goes across organizational boundaries.
  102. What does it mean to find the kidney? Look at the organizational structures, draw a line around the people that work on this product, looks like a kidney
  103. A budget supports how many ARTs? 1
  104. Note there are 2 levels in a portfolio: 1) Value Stream Level and 2) ART level
  105. Port. Epics cross how many trains? many
  106. Program Epics cross how many trains? one
  107. If Epic Owner a position or a role? Role
  108. Epic value statement is an elevator statement
  109. What are the parts of a Portfolio Kanban: 1) Funnel (WIP something like 75) 2) Review (WSJF Value State) 3) Analysis 4) Port Backlog 5) Implementing
  110. WRT cost center budgeting; Traditional keeps boundaries in place, better – moves the people to work
  111. Define ART: Group of dedicated people organized around a value stream that delivers value
  112. How do you fund a portfolio backlog?  Reserve in your budget funds the port backlog
  113.  Describe Objective Measures: Fact-based milestones
  114. Describe Portfolio Metrics: 1) Lean Port KPI Metrics 2) Port Kanban boards 3) Measure EPICs 4) Program Port Management Self-Assessment 5) Enterprise balanced scorecard
  115. List some lean metrics: 1) Benefit 2) Employee Engagement 3) Customer satisfaction 4) Productivity (Cycle Time) 5) Agility 6) Time to Market 7) Quality (Defects) 8) Partner Health

  116. Define a knowledge worker? If worker.getKnowledge > boss.getKnowledge then worker.isKnowledgeWorker == True

  117. NOTE: No useful improvement was ever invented at a desk
  118. 3 Types of heros 1) Leaders as experts 2) Leaders as conductors and 3) Leaders as developers. #1 and #2 used in hero methodologies #3 is post heros
  119. When are expert leaders effective: when they have more knowledge
  120. What is a concern with expert leaders: focus on technology and focus off humans
  121. What are behaviors of expert leaders: work is when people leave them alone, love their field of work
  122. Describe a leader as a conductor: 1) Centeralize decisions 2) Harmonies 3) subtle and indirect 4) manage across
  123. When are conductor leaders effective? When more complex and political issues
  124. What is a concern with conductor leaders: limits overall
  125. What are some behaviors of conductor leaders: systems and procedures to control work
  126. What are some myths with leaders: 1) Leaders must know what is going on everywhere 2) has the most technical expertise 3) can solve any problem 4) primary person responsible for how department is working
  127. Describe the responsibility cycle trap (if leader feels over responsible, then direct reports feel lower committment and sense of responsibilities
  128. What are the behaviors of a leader as a developer? Jointly responsible, develops direct reports
  129. What are the benefits of a leader as a developer? Leader can work laterally and upward
  130. Describe the four tenets of Lean-Agile Leadership
    1. Take a systems view
    2. embrace agile-manefesto
    3. implement a product development flow
    4. unlock intrinsic motivation of knowledge workers
  131. What does it mean to take a systems view
    1. Understand economy: COD
    2. Optimize Org whole
    3. Optimize sw system whole
    4. Own the System
    5. Agiln to a mission
    6. Lean-Agile budgeting
  132. QUOTE: It is the system that determines quality and productivity, only the manager can change the system
  133. What does it mean to embrace the agile manifesto?
    1. Deliver frequently
    2. Know XP, Scrum, Kanban, SAFe
    3. Foster excellence
    4. Kaizen mind and bias for action
    5. High-performing cross functional
  134. What is BA: Feeling of 1: Challenge and Question
  135. What about product development:
    1. Built-in instablity: specify end-state and put minimal constraints in the middle
    2. Self-organizing development teams
    3. Overlapping development phases
    4. Multi-learning
    5. Organizational transfer of learning
    6. subtle control
  136. So what do you do with product development flow?
    1. WIP (actively manage)
    2. Decrease queues
    3. Decrease batch sizes
    4. fast feedback
    5. cadence and synchronization
    6. variability
    7. limit demand to capacity
  137. Unlock motivation of a knowledge worker: life-long learning, decentralize, eliminate MBO
  138. What are 3 factors lead to a better performance and personal satisfaction
    1. Autonomy
    2. Mastery
    3. Purpose

  139. Describe organizing around value

    1. Deeper look into Value Stream
    2. Split value stream into ARTs
    3. Value stream coordination
    4. Advocating an ART level
  140. What do you organize around: Features and subsystems; Most ARTS are around Features
  141. How would you split a value stream: Releasable content, tech boundaries, dependencies, business domain AVOID: Politics and Geography
  142. What are the dimension of Coordination: Content, Integration/Testing, Releasing, Arch, Infra, Deploy
  143. What are the high level steps to launching the release train
    1. Prepare the org
    2. Choose art launch date and model
    3. Prepare to launch
    4. Release planning meeting
  144. What would you find in charter?
    1. MIssion and Value
    2. Metrics
    3. Operating model
    4. roles
  145. What are 2 methods to launch a train?  One-week prep (preferred), or take time
  146. Objectives should be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, Time-based)
  147. What are some things you change with distributed planning meetings: Logistics, Working Agreements, Distributed Teams, and 2.5 days
  148. What does ISHIKAWA mean? Fishbones
  149. Perato: 80% of the problem/effects is a result of the 20% of the root cause
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