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Thank you 🙏👍 and thanks for the great tip 👍

Hi, well the first step is to identify them, then depending on what they are work to remove them. For example, if the handoff (sometimes called a queue) is that you are waiting for stakeholder feedback or waiting for a committee to make a decision or sign off then make this visible and explain the consequences i.e. it causes a delay resulting in longer cycle times. If it’s busy stakeholders then work to improve the relationship. There is no one answer to how to remove a handoff it all depends on what the handoff is but identifying it, making it visible along with the consequences is your first step.

@@TheAgileLeanGardener thank you so much for your answer!

You are very welcome 🙏👍

Hi, I’m not quite sure what you mean. To use MCS all you need for your 16 sprints is the throughput for your completed stories. So, on what date was each story completed. You then plot this on your date range in the Excel. Let’s say the first date that you had a completed story was 1st March 2024 and the last date you had a completed story was 31st July 2024. You then plot that date range in the Excel (every date in this range must be plotted whether you completed a story on that date or not) you then simply put how many stories where completed on a date, it could be 2, 5, 10 or it could be zero. Once you’ve done this you can change the date range to start in the future if you wish so long as every date in this new range is plotted. Just don’t change the column that shows how many stories were done. Are you doing this? Or have I misunderstood your question?

@@TheAgileLeanGardener I modified your template and instead of have each day listed in column A of Sheet1, I have the start date of each of my next 16 sprints listed in column A. I then put the total count of tickets from each of my 16 sprints in column B. I then changed the value in F6 (Date to Complete By) to coincide with the date value in the first Date Range column (A3).

…further thought. Usually the more data you have the better the forecast will be. The less data you have the worse the forecast will be. But the data you use must model what is currently happening. Significant changes in the team or major events (everyone is on holiday or has covid) will affect the forecast. MCS models past performance and so will forecast accordingly. So you need to use data that reflects current reality.

This won’t work. Each day in the date range must be listed, it’s very important!

The 2 templates I have work but if you change any logic they will not work, you’ve changed 2 very important things in order for MCS to work correctly. I would recommend using them as they are and see what result you get and if that closer aligns to what you’re seeing on the ground.

Hmm I see. But the figures don’t seem to tally to me, something isn’t quite right. Are you sure the devs are moving their tickets into done on the right day? If they don’t, even a day or 2 late will skew the forecast and cycle time.

@@TheAgileLeanGardener we will look to hone that some more, but regardless, MCS is still showing only 6-7 tickets per sprint and I know we are hitting 12-17 per sprint . I know having a large number of tickets completing the last day of the sprint hurts the predictability; however, when there is a seven month pattern happening you would think it would take that pattern into account.

Yep I get it but these figures don’t tally to me, I still think something is wrong. Monte Carlo is simply a calculation based on the data input, there is no intelligence at work. Have you tried sampling a shorter more recent data sample, for example the last 8 sprints (and check the throughput for each of those 8 sprints)? Have they been any changes of significance to the team in the last 6 months?

@@TheAgileLeanGardener now I am really worried. I ran the same data through your Excel template and it shows 15 tickets at the 85th percentile. I am using ActionableAgile and it shows 6 days with the exact same data set.

Hmm the plot thickens….. Well 15 sounds more like it based on your figures.. But I’m not sure why AA is saying 6…. When I’ve compared my Excel to AA it’s always the same +-1 sometimes 2

Hi and thanks 🙏👍 are you doing 2 week sprints? If so your 85th percentile cycle time of 14 days is too high - but this ‘could’ be due to other factors than it actually taking that long. For example, are the team really updating tickets when the item is done on the right day? If not this will make a difference both to your cycle time and the Monte Carlo forecast. Also when does your cycle time start? It needs to start only when you move a ticket in sprint from ‘to do’ to ‘in progress’ (or equivalent). If your cycle time starts as soon as you put something into sprint regardless of whether you’ve actually started work on it then this will also skew both cycle time and Monte Carlo. I would look into this because if Monte Carlo is saying you can only get 4 or 5 items done to the 85th percentile and your 85th percentile cycle time is saying 14 days but you always seem to get a throughput in sprint of 7 or 8 then something is definitely not right.

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Watch this one, may answer your questions ‘What do Scrum Masters do all day? I How to be a Great Scrum Master’ czcams.com/video/o5V8-s7_M-Q/video.html

Thank you 🙏👍 I agree 💯

Thank you 🙏👍

Thanks 🙏👍

Thank you, I appreciate that 🙏👍

Sadly not, this is an old video that I noticed was in ‘unlisted’ for some reason so I set it to ‘public’ and weirdly CZcams thinks it’s new but is actually 2 years old. But I appreciate your comment all the same 😊🙏👍 As I’m sure you’re very well aware we don’t tend to see these kind of views on new Agile type videos anymore 🥲

@@TheAgileLeanGardener - I wondered how you'd managed to rack up 150k views in a day!!!

Yep that would have been something but no. Most of the agile channels out there are slowing down in terms of content as the views simply aren’t there, of course it does depend on why you’re doing it but if it’s purely for views then we’re just not going to get them. I’m still going to produce content but not every week, only when I have something to say that I think is useful.

Unfortunately yes 👍

Thanks for the suggestion 🙏👍

Thanks 🙏👍 No not yet, work in progress 🤣👍

Cool 😎

Thank you 🙏👍

Scrumban is not a myth and can work very well for lots of teams. It’s a hybrid between scrum and Kanban and blends the two.

The idea is that the SM helps the team to remove impediments themselves. The SM isn’t there to spoon feed the team. But that doesn’t mean the SM can’t remove impediments themselves but just be careful they don’t turn into a team admin!

Yep completed items should be released to prod ‘if’ needed. Not all completed items are ‘ready’ to be released from a business perspective.

Yep speak to your product owner and explain the importance and get them to make this happen as it’s part of what they should be enabling.

It’s all about Monte Carlo Simulation for forecasting. Check out my videos on that for more info.

You’re most welcome 🙏👍

Yeah I think they all have a free trial 👍

Scrum is designed around having a product goal and a sprint goal derived from this. If you don’t have this because there simply isn’t one I would argue that Scrum is not the right framework for you. Better off with Kanban. The Sprint Review is not intended for a ‘demo’. It is to show progress towards the product goal and to collect feedback against the completed sprint goal that may go into the backlog. I guess in your situation you could update stakeholders on the number of support tickets closed and fixes made. I’m unsure of why you wouldn’t be working on a sprint goal in each sprint though.

@@TheAgileLeanGardener Not always we work without sprint goal. sometimes there will not be features and team will pick up defects,tech debts..Have seen this in between sprints sometimes..

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As long as you’re not spending much time on t-shirt sizing and using it as a quick comparison then it sounds fine to me. You don’t mention taking a percentile against all previous completed stories (such as the 85th percentile) on your cycle times. If you’re not doing this then I’d highly suggest that you do. This will tell you how long it’s taking to complete a story, regardless of size and complexity, 85% of the time. If you’re happy with the resulting number then you’re in good shape, if not then you should look into the reasons why it’s too high 👍

@@TheAgileLeanGardener thanks so much, great to have some validation and I will certainly be observing the 85% percentile/confidence interval stuff in my inspection events with the team! Thought I’d share, but since doing what I’ve mentioned (much from watching your vids for the last few years!), it’s really made it transparent the effort required from my cross functional team to achieve the outcomes we want, and allowed us to understand what we all go through to get something to ‘live’!

@@MichaelKeywood Thank you so much I really appreciate that and thanks for all the support, it’s great to hear people getting value out of my content 🙏👍

Thank you 🙏👍

No problem with them at all, they are good practices 👍

Throughout is what you need to forecast with Monte Carlo Simulation you don’t need cycle time for that. It’s the very opposite of uncertainty, throughout is fact, it actually happened 👍

You’re very welcome and thank you 🙏👍 let me know how it goes..

@@TheAgileLeanGardener I'll leave another comment. Story points should not be used when talking to stakeholders and it's best to have data that supports a claim. Plus, this keeps the spirit of range estimations and sets realistic expectations with a good chance of "over delivering"

Cool 😎 thanks Brandon 👍

Just created the Monte Carlo Simulation, thank you so much for this video 🙏🏾🙏🏾

You’re welcome 🙏👍

No don’t bother estimating. Set the objective of the spike to something specific, nothing too big, and set aside a few days, 2 or 3 usually. At the end collectively understand what you’ve learned and decide if what you’ve learned has moved you forward. If not try to understand why and repeat.

So your product backlog should be a collection of things that will achieve the ‘product goal’ which is normally created by the Product Owner. The Sprint Goal is a small subset of the Product Goal that the team believe is achievable in a Sprint. So, you pick those items from the Product Backlog that fit with the Sprint Goal. But the objective of the Sprint is to achieve the single Sprint Goal so it doesn’t matter if you complete all the items picked from the Product Backlog as long as you achieve the Sprint Goal. You may also find that as you’re working on the Sprint Goal there are other things that you need to do to achieve it that weren’t on the Product Backlog and that is also completely fine. If everything you needed to do was already on the Product Backlog that would virtually be waterfall.

@@TheAgileLeanGardener Thankyou I did not understand last line.Yes all items will be in product backlog,how this is mini waterfall

Yep mini waterfall. Because if you create all the stories upfront that’s exactly what happens in waterfall, requirements definition phase. So many teams / organisations use Scrum but are actually doing mini waterfall, not just because they create all the stories upfront but because they don’t have releasable value at the end of each sprint. The idea of user stories comes from XP and the point was all about card, conversation and confirmation. So it’s basically a note to remind you have that conversation in sprint and work with stakeholders, customers etc to understand what they need and do this continually throughout the sprint, not at the end e.g. sprint review. Without this you lose creativity, innovation and adaptability.

@@TheAgileLeanGardener In waterfall the requirements are fixed.But in scrum the backlog keeps evolving/refined ..

Thank you 🙏👍

It’s in the description towards the bottom…

​@@TheAgileLeanGardenerThank you overlooked it

Thanks 🙏👍

Hey and thank you so much, I really appreciate that 🙏👍 Check these two videos out for how to actually do Monte Carlo Sim: MCS How many by when czcams.com/video/k22ZwODjgkE/video.htmlsi=8TZhpN4xpTtHo4wQ MCS When can I get x number done by czcams.com/video/hQOs5CfkOJU/video.htmlsi=swodpH3DJyxRe3ox

Thank you 🙏👍

Yeah there is a good argument for that, it’s an accountability not a job title 👍

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Hi, well to do that you’d have to create another Jira automation rule to clear the CT Start custom field if an item transitioned from In Progress to To Do. But I’ve set it the way I have done so that it’s less easy to ‘game’ the system. If an item moves from To Do to In Progress then the cycle time has started so you shouldn’t reset it. I assume you mean if it’s done by mistake. Alternatively you could get the Jira admin to reset the CT Start custom field, it’s a bit more hassle but you could make it the job of whoever moved an item by mistake to In Progress to get this sorted to try and discourage these mistakes and to take more care.

Hi, that’s a good question and I’m not sure. This was done on a company managed project template but give it a go and see 👍

@@TheAgileLeanGardener It does not work as you have showed in this video for Team managed project template but at one step when you have to associate an issue operation with a screen in teams template, we have to go to settings > issues > screen schemes > associate an issue operation with a screen

Ok thanks for the update and info 🙏👍

Hi, my suggestion on this is always the same. Get the cycle time under control first. For example, if you’re doing 2 week sprints, you want (as a minimum) your 85th percentile cycle time for all completed stories to be 10 days or less. Ideally it wants to be less than that, 5 days or less. If you find that it’s something like 15 days you need to look into the reasons for this. It could be stories are too big, you hadn’t identified dependencies or constraints, there are some handoffs in your process (such as waiting for stakeholders or committees etc). If you don’t get your 85th percentile cycle time under control before using Monte Carlo it’s likely that your forecasts won’t be realistic.

@@TheAgileLeanGardener Great explanation, thanks!

You are very welcome 🙏👍

Personally I would concentrate on the sprint goal (assuming you have a product goal). Jira doesn’t have any decent charts, I wouldn’t bother with them. This is why I created the ageing wip Excel and the Monte Carlo Excel, using these you can do it for free. The trick is getting the data out of Jira - you can do this for free for cycle time/throughput by following my recent ‘extract data from Jira’ video but to get the data for the ageing wip chart you’ll need a plugin like Time in Status (you can also do it with Jira automation but it’s a little trickier). Or you could just spend the money and buy the ActionableAgile plugin that gives you everything.

@@TheAgileLeanGardener Fantastic, thanks

Thank you, really appreciate your support 🙏👍