I listened to a group of developers who were working in Scrum as they discussed some of the challenges they faced. The focus of the discussion seemed to be on “Sprint Fatigue”. They explained that “Sprint Fatigue” was what developed with the constant reiteration and focus on the bi-weekly iteration such that the routine became boring and the bi-weekly results not as fulfilling as they had been at the beginning of the project. And, it seemed that they were losing their way since they were changing direction with every sprint. One of the team likened it to swimming a long distance at the beach. You want to swim parallel to the shore, but you focus on each stroke to make sure it is done right. Because you are dipping your head into the water regularly, when you stop to look around to see how far you have gotten, not only have you not progressed as far as you thought, but you are now headed out to sea, no longer parallel to the shore. The developer said that that was how he felt about the effort and, just as with swimming, eventually, you get tired and frustrated and want to give up and swim back to the safety of the beach.
I decided that this was a question for Dr. BA who, it seemed, had already ascertained the question I was going to ask, as usual.
Dr. BA was in his office standing in front of the white board. He had his arms out to both sides and had his right foot precisely placed in front of his left, right heel to left toe. Then, like a man on a tight wire, he moved his left foot in front of his right.
I knew I should be quiet during one of his experiments, but I couldn't help myself. “Are you practicing your balance?” I asked.
Amazingly he was not upset by my interruption this time. “Not at all. I have great balance.” He grimaced as his body waved left to right when he took another step and he bent slightly at the waist. “I am following the old adage of taking one little step at a time to reach your goal of a thousand miles. But see here, I am not going to be reaching my goal.” He pointed behind him at an X marked in white tape on the floor about eight inches from the white board and four feet behind him. “I started there. My goal was to go on a straight line to the other wall. But each step moved me a fraction of an inch, imperceptible, of course, from that goal. Had I walked with full strides toward the wall I would not have gone off. And the really upsetting thing is that I have no idea how I slid off the target taking one step at a time.”
“You are paying more attention to the steps than you are to the goal” I suggested.
“You may be right.” He dropped his arms and plopped into the desk chair nearby. “But it is difficult to keep your eyes on the ultimate goal and still keep your balance walking in baby steps.”
“Why not just walk straight to the wall?”
“That would imply a plan of attack and direction set up to start with rather than learning as you go.”
“Why is that so bad?”
“You might find a different direction to be more appealing or beneficial or easier to achieve, you see. You need the option to change direction.”
“You can still change direction with larger steps, right?” I commented as I sat in the chair next to him.
“True, but as you proceed, the closer you get to the goal, the less options you have, the more committed to the specified goal. The longer the steps, the fewer steps you need to take and the fewer times you have to reevaluate where you are going and if your direction and approach are correct.” He sighed and I could see he was about to get up and repeat his experiment.
“OK. So how are you going to take small steps that allow more reevaluation and inspection and adaptation and still make sure you get to the original goal, or somewhere around it?”
He stood up. “You be a business analyst and I’ll be the agile development team. I am going to focus on making sure I complete each step along the way and that I don’t lose balance and complete the step. You keep your focus on the overall goal to achieve and make sure I don’t vary too greatly from it.”
“You want me to be your guide?”
“In a sense, yes.”
He began again at the white X on the floor and proceeded to carefully place one foot in front of the other. I stood between Dr. BA and the mark on the wall and told him when he was getting off track. After about ten minutes of this exercise, we stopped and he was closer to the goal and mostly on the right track.
“So, you see,” said Dr. BA as we poured out our coffee into our coffee cups in the corner, “It is possible to move ahead and develop a solution in small increments as long as someone, specifically a BA, keeps the team’s overall focus on the final product.”
“Wouldn’t that be a job for a project manager?”
“In Agile?”
“Right. How about a product owner? Or some similar role?”
“From what I’ve seen, product owners get wrapped up in the step by step as well. They are focused on assuring that each two-week segment delivers a viable and valuable piece of the product. Many times, they, too, lose sight of the end game.”
“So, another responsibility for the business analyst in agile?”
“It is never ending.” He sighed and got that signature faraway look in his blue eyes.
“And this will overcome Sprint Fatigue?” I asked. He nodded abstractedly. I had to ask, “How?”
“A person gets fatigued, loses interest, gets frustrated, and so forth when the results of working hard do not get them closer to the goal they are working toward. Consider a television series. You have to divulge the mystery at some point. You have to find out who killed JR, or get the Cheerleader saved, or determine what the Island is all about, or whatever. If you extend it too long people get frustrated and tune out. So, if you keep the goal in front of the team and they can see how each sprint’s results are leading to that goal, they will be less likely to get Sprint Fatigue and more likely to stay on point.”
“But what about change, say, information or situation that changes the overall goal?”
“I could have told you at any point in our experiment that there was a good reason to move the mark on the wall to the left or right. No problem. You would do that and then make sure I stayed on track for that new target. But while I have my focus on my feet and the immediate work to do, you are always looking ahead at wherever the goal is now.”
Then he got his faraway look again, perhaps looking ahead in his brain at his next goal or anticipating the next question.
I left him to it.
Author: Steve Blais, PMP, PMI-PBA
Steve Blais, PMP, PMI-PBA, is an author, consultant, teacher and coach who has nearly 50 years’ experience in Information Technologies working as a programmer, project manager, business analyst, system analyst, general manager, and tester. He has also been in an executive position for several start-up companies. He develops business analysis and agile processes and trains business analysts, project managers, and executive for organizations around the world. He is the author of Business Analysis: Best Practices for Success (John Wiley, 2011) and co-author of Business Analysis for Practitioners: a Practice Guide (PMI, 2014) and a contributor to the Business Analyst Body of Knowledge, V3 (IIBA, 2015).