What you measure gets managed.
At the start of Operation Scrumstyle, the daily stand-up has focused on the tasks the team has been doing.
We look at what they did yesterday and what they plan on doing today.
This is classic Agile/Scrum Approach.
Trouble is, there is something I’ve started to notice and I want to see if I can correct it.
The team is getting things done. The commitment is there for sure. The team are completing what they say they would do.
There’s a problem.
It’s how they are doing their work.
Instead of sticking to scheduled CFT’s, they are cramming to get things done.
I started noticing the number of times someone says, “Work was crushing me but I managed to get it done.” or “Something came up with the family and it put me behind but I forced myself to get up early to get things done”.
What’s the problem Ed, They got it done. They hustled.
There are so many, many problems.First, at the start of the week we schedule when we are going to do our CFT’s.
CFT’s (Critical Focus Time – 50 minute periods where we do focused work.At the start of each weekly sprint, the most crucial thing we do is schedule in CFT’s in our calender. The team takes into acount all the things which could be a problem.
Work Stuff, Family Stuff, Holidays etc.
These CFT’s should be immovable.
Trouble is, they are getting blown off way too much for my liking!
One of my private clients got everything done for the week. So they could not understand why I was so concerned!
Let me lay it out.
A well run business at it’s core is a process, a system. If you can’t make times you have booked with yourself after careful consideration. Are you serious about creating this business?
What does this say about the priority of your business?
Steven Pressfield would say you are an amature. Not a pro.
2nd issue.
If you miss your time and then you have to do the work later. You have put your brain under stress.
You miss your time – that’s bad. Negative brain juice produced.
You are down on yourself for missing your time – that’s bad. More negative brain juice.
Your stress levels go up because you now have to CRAM your business work in. More negative brain juice.
Do you have fond memories with cramming for exams at school? I didn’t think so.
You can’t be in the moment with your family, your collegues, friends or team mates. Your stressed about completing your CFT. You get angry at yourself because you know you are only participating in a half-assed fashion.
More negative brain juice.
Then you get resentful because you have to sacrifice something else.
Sleep, Housewives of Atlanta or Yuri on Ice. All bad. (If i missed Yuri on Ice I would go postal.
If you were religious about keeping your CFT at the scheduled time. You get a POSITIVE brain juice injection.
These positive brain juices make you want to do activities again. It’s the juice required to form positive habits.
Instead, a SINGLE missed session has your brain drowning in negative brain juice.
What happens when an activity sees negative brain juice produced.
You stop doing it.
You cannot fight your brian chemistry, You have to work with it.
No wonder so many solopreneurs don’t make it.
See you think you are getting the work done, but because you are cramming you are are going to flameout.
This is why starting this week I’m going to focus the stand ups on the number of CFT’s done and scheduled.
By taking the focus off individual tasks and focusing on CFT’s done. I hope the Operation ScrumStyle team will start to focus on doing the CFT’s when they planned.
But Ed aren’t you worried about them getting of track or going down the garden path. Well, no.
Thanks to a new question in the retrospective each week. I know the specific plan (and who created it) each team memeber is doing.
If the Team spends there CFT’s are working on tickets. They’ll get to their goal.
Operation ScrumStyle is all about focusing on systems. If the team get’s this right, they will have their 10K by Christmas.
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