So no matter how hard you work and how much stuff you deliver I’ve always been amazed at how easily the customer forgets what you’ve done when things aren’t going so well or they can’t get what they want (*enter customer stomping feet and throwing tantrum*).
So one thing I’ve had teams doing over the last year or so is keeping all the work they’ve done visible at all times. For some teams they take a story card (different colour works best) and use it to record every release they make to production and keep a list of those cards somewhere very visible.
Other teams have put their completed cards (once released to production and delivering value) on the outside of one of the rooms in their office that has walls made of glass…they now cycle through taking off the older cards as newer one’s are complete since the wall is completely full of cards.
And the simplest of all..one team simply wrote a list of the releases they made on their information radiator (white board) along side the cards that were being worked on.
The customer really loves to see this, it creates a trust with the team and always generates a lot of interest when other people in the company wander past and ask what it all means…when you tell them it’s all the work that’s been released live it never fails to impress and excite people.
Tags: Agile