Improve the Scrum Team’s feedback-cycle time
Beyond eliminating un-done work and reducing interruptions, teams can streamline their work to reduce the time it takes them to develop, deliver, and measure the customer impact of an idea they think will improve customer satisfaction, and reduce a customer satisfaction gap.
The kinds of improvements Scrum Teams make depend on the kind of product they are building. Specific techniques will differ between, for example, software products versus physical products, but typically involve things like:
- Identifying and eliminating non value-added work. Teams should examine the work that they are doing and consider if it is related to achieving their Sprint Goal. Non-value work can include meetings that team members have to attend that are not related to their work on the Sprint. It also includes side-projects and other things that team members are asked to do that aren’t related to the Sprint Goal. This work might need to be done by someone, but when it’s not related to achieving the Sprint Goal, it’s wasteful from the perspective of the Sprint. Removing this work from the Scrum Team helps them to be more effective at achieving their Sprint Goal.
- Automating repetitive but time-consuming or error-prone tasks that don’t require decision-making. In certain domains, teams have to repeatedly perform the same tasks such as producing reports or gathering information. Automating these tasks frees time for the Scrum Team to do other more valuable work. Automation also eliminates errors that can be common in manual and repetitive tasks, also eliminating further waste created when team members have to fix the errors.
- Building verification into the development and delivery process. Much of the work Scrum Teams do is complex and can be error-prone, and builds on itself. Checking results along the way prevents errors from piling up until the end. In software development, this means using automated tests to find defects every time code is delivered to the source control system. In other domains it means making sure that errors are not creeping into the product during the course of the Sprint.
- Building feedback collection into the product itself. Digital products provide opportunities for gathering feedback on user or customer experience, provided that user and customers consent. Direct feedback about usage can complement other kinds of feedback such as surveys, direct observation, and interviews to provide a more complete picture of the customer and user experience.
These are some approaches for the Scrum Team shorten their feedback-cycle time. They can gather effective feedback frequently from the customer by eliminating non-valuable work, focusing on their goals, simplifying repetitive and manual tasks and monitoring product usage.
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