Chi Development: The Process Is The Goal

Last year I entered the Marine Corps Marathon. I'd never ran more than 10K in my whole life but I felt the urge to do a marathon just once. Of course I didn't want to just finish I had to get close to my friend Dave's time who did 3:17 in the Loch Ness Marathon. So I started an ambitious training program and as time progressed and I was not getting any faster I started training more. 4 weeks before the race I had to pull out with a stress fracture and slightly torn achilles tendon.

I failed to heed my own counsel. As an agile coach I tell my students that the number one cause for failure is scaling too fast and you need to start with baby steps.

This year I'm entered again but I'm going to take it easier with the training and not care how fast I go in the race.

Looking for a better way to train I was intrigued by Danny Driver's book Chi Running: A Revolutionary Approach To Effortless, Injury Free Running.

I was fascinated reading about the Chi Running Method and Mind-Set.

The optimal conditions for running and the fundamentals of the method:

• Great posture
• Relaxed limbs
• Loose joints
• Engaged core muscles
• A focused mind
• Good breathtaking technique

The benefits:

• Great posture
• Relaxed limbs
• Loose joints
• Engaged core muscles
• A focused mind
• Good breathtaking technique
• More energy!

His point. The process is the goal.

Similarly with agile/lean teams the fundamentals:

• Deliver highest value first
  
• Release early and often
• Shared vision
  
• Empowered collaborative decision making
  
• Engaged customer proxy
  
• Sustainable pace
  

The benefits:

• Deliver highest value first
  
• Release early and often
• Shared vision
  
• Empowered collaborative decision making
  
• Engaged customer proxy
  
• Sustainable pace
• More energy!
  

I Don't Like MoSCoW

It's OK Sergey and Boris I'm not referring to the capital city of your homeland with it's rich history, wonderful literates and great hockey players.

Instead I'm referring to the technique that the DSDM consortium recommends for prioritizing backlog items.

• Must Haves
• Should Haves
• Could Haves
• Won’t Have (this time around).

There are a couple of problems with this technique and in my classes my students spot them right away.

1. The customer always thinks everything is important and therefore the distribution of the backlog items is hopelessly skewed towards the Must Haves.
   
2. If we are planning an iteration and we have only room left to take on one more backlog item and we have two Must Haves which one gets planned into the iteration. Of course we should ask the customer but what if they're not there.

Many customers think that promoting backlog items to Must Haves is exercising better control over delivery but it is not. A customer who cannot differentiate between the importance of backlog items is ceding control to the delivery team. Work has to be sequenced and if the customer will not choose then the team will.

A better technique is to rank backlog items such that no two items have the same priority. In this instance it is very clear the preferred order of delivery.