As well as being set our first Rapid Ideation session this week, we also had course content on Time Management and project planning. This is something I could definitely improve on. Although I am familiar with some of the techniques mentioned in the course content, I am very aware that I do not put these processes to effective use.
As well as discussing the merits of planning and time management in principle, the content went on to highlight the challenges of managing an effective project in a nonprofessional environment such as academic or voluntary work, where other commitments may clash. I'm interested to see how this process is managed in firsthand once I begin to collaborate with my cohorts on the course, potentially as soon as the second rapid ideation session. Clearly, I'm already aware of my personal commitments - work and children, but I need to keep an open mind and not assume my peers have similar restrictions. This is may not the case, some may have more free time available whereas others may be even more restricted. I'm interested to see if we will be able to settle into a rhythm as a group and if using the recommended tools like doodle.com (direct voting system for arranging meetings) will allow us to efficiently coordinate our diaries. It also appears that a lot of my peers are active on Discord and already use it to communicate and collaborate. I must be honest and say I am behind in this area and will need to invest time getting up to speed with the platform. I have set up a profile and joined a few servers, but I really haven't actively participated to any great extent.
The Meeting
The video supplied began to also discuss the format of a project planning meeting as shown below:
Before | During | After |
Agenda |
| Minutes |
From my own experiences, this is an important format to follow. Having the agenda ahead of time allows all participants time to collect their thoughts, reference material and gives them an overview of the topics to be addressed. It also keeps the meeting on track and allows legitimate grounds for course correction if the meeting starts to drift off-topic. During my time as a marketing manager as well as secretary for my local RoundTable, I would have to prepare agendas as well as take minutes (for the secretary role at least). The Minuets were crucial for keeping everyone accountable post-meeting and I continue to refer to them as evidence of points discussed.
It stands to reason then a good producer needs to be robust enough to allow all voices to be heard and champion the spirit of Agile’s, non-hierarchical approach. Reflecting on my own experiences, big personalities can often influence the direction, tone, and outcome of a meeting. This frequently happened when there was a disparity in the power dynamic of the group, such as a manager exerting their influence and opinions over their team. Unchecked, this often led to GroupThink (Janis 1972), Conformity bias (Conformity Bias - Ethics Unwrapped, n.d.), or the Bandwagon Effect (Kahneman, 2013). All these stem from a desire for harmony or conformity in the team and an aversion to conflict. It often results in outcomes and plans bereft of the benefits of diverse and rigorous scrutiny and coloured considerably by the influences of the assertive's own agenda.
Producers then need to create a production plan, with the recommended tool for this being a Kanban board. Kanban was developed by Taiichi Ohno, an industrial engineer at Toyota, and literally means “visual board” in Japanese. The term and principles have been adopted by the agile development community. The principles used in this content are:
Visualise the Workflow
Limit Work in Progress (WIP)
Manage Flow
Continuous improvements
(Buehring, 2021)
Visualising the workflow can easily be implemented by using a Kanban Board. The course literature recommends Trello. I've used Trello boards professionally, however, over time we transitioned to use Zenhub as it is integrated into Github. This created a Kanban-style board, generated from a backlog of tasks. This followed a process that adopted elements of Scrum and Kanban. The boards were visual but we had pipelines, for the backlog, sprint backlog, in progress, reviewable, and done. This allows us visibility but also the integrated benefits of Github, such as code reviews and quality control from peers.
I definitely believed Kanban boards are an important tool for team collaboration. It can be incorporated well into the scum process and complements the spirit of the process by improving the visibility of a sprint's progress for the entire team.
Limiting WIP reduces multitasking so the tasks can be appropriately managed and scoped. It also allows the team to easily spot any blockage and work together to remove it.
Managing flow and Continuous improvements allow the teams to continuously improve the processes. Things like lead time, cycle time, number of items not started, number of items that are WIP, and Blockages can be assessed and scrutinised.
A good production plan can help reduce problems such as the Planning fallacy (Kahneman, 2013), where overly optimistic forecasts and planning follow best-case scenarios. Through continual assessment and refinement of the process, support from peers along with lessons learned each time, future forecasts should be more accurate and robust meaning a more efficient process and end result. They also reduce Parkinson's Law:
Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.
(Cyril Parkinson, Parkinson’s Law ,1955)
By virtue of its visible nature and its use in an Agile environment, Kanban boards mitigate the possibility of tasks running away with themselves. The tasks are the task set at the start and the progress is clear to see. With the short nature of the sprints and the agreement from the whole team on the work needed to be done, the board can come under scrutiny if any additional tasks start to creep in.
I look forward to collaborating with my cohort, particularly if the teams are a mixture of indie game developers and UX designers. I'm anxious to see how this will play out in practice and how we can all manger the deadlines and personalities in the group. In my experience, there is a certain amount of politeness when teams begin to work together and I hope this won't adversely affect productivity and effectiveness. Lively and robust discussions at the start of a project about the issues faced can lead to a better outcome as everyone feels they have had their contribution and thus buy into the process. I have been guilty of both in the past, both being too passive and too assertive in meetings. I can see myself doing this during our weekly webinars as I find myself eager to show my willingness to contribute something of worth to proceeding as well as validation of my thoughts and ideas. However, I can see the wisdom of allowing all members their turn to contribute and I will bear this in mind when approaching group activities such as project planning.
References
Buehring, S., 2021. Kanban Principles. [online] Knowledge Train. Available at: <https://www.knowledgetrain.co.uk/agile/agile-project-management/agile-project-management-course/kanban-principles> [Accessed 17 February 2022].
Ethics Unwrapped. n.d. Conformity Bias - Ethics Unwrapped. [online] Available at: <https://ethicsunwrapped.utexas.edu/glossary/conformity-bias> [Accessed 17 February 2022].
Kahneman, D., 2013. Thinking, fast and slow. London: Penguin, p.250.
Lester Janis, I, 1972. Victims of Groupthink. A Psychological Study of Foreign-Policy Decisions and Fiascoes. Boston: Houghton Mifflin , p. 3–12.
Medium. 2017. Parkinson’s Law: Why Constraints Are The Best Thing You Can Work With. [online] Available at: <https://medium.com/the-mission/parkinsons-law-why-constraints-are-the-best-thing-you-can-work-with-4fad6e0e91cf> [Accessed 17 February 2022].
Thomas, D. and Mustafa, Y., 2020. Design for cognitive bias. 1st ed. New York: Jeffrey Zeldman, p.64.
Trello.com. 2022. Trello. [online] Available at: <https://trello.com/en-GB> [Accessed 17 February 2022].
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