It's been a while since I've written, almost a full month. My buffer of written posts is now gone. How did this happen? Things got crazy at work. The best way to describe it is that I had to move one of my teams away from the assembly line mentality and into the new build mentality.
Now you might be wondering how software development relates to manufacturing. Even though we aren't building a tangible item, the manufacturing plant concept is still applicable.
Let's first jump into the assembly line aspect. Using Kanban, an Agile methodology, the process of pushing work from analysis to production release, is already visually laid out. For my own Personal Control Book, I have a trimmed down version of a Kanban board (as detailed under Organizing Focuses & Projects). I only have three states: Queued, In Progress, and Completed. These relate to different stations in an assembly line. Queued would be equivalent to a pile of raw materials ready for assembly. Then there is only one actual work station: In Progress. Completed is the final product, let's call Widgets. Each Trello Card is an assembly that will turn raw materials into a completed Widget.
When we start a new project, we can quickly build our assembly line with the three work stations. We then brainstorm to create our raw materials for the Queued column. We then take all of that raw material and start creating widgets. We complete the project once we create all widgets.
In theory, a different person manages each work station. A task-delegator manages the Queued work station, moving tasks to In Progress and assigning out when they are ready. A task-doer handles the In Progress work station. Once they complete the job, they move it to the Completed work station. Then a task-validator oversees the Completed work station, ensuring satisfactory completion of all tasks.
In a Personal Control Book, a single person plays. In a team environment, different team members manage different work stations. If there is a clear contract for moving one task to another, everyone can work quickly and efficiently on their work station without knowledge of the entire assembly line. All assignments are broken down into small and manageable bites so that any skill level (from junior to senior) can manage any work station. This process turns even the most highly complex process into an easily managed process. Everyone can go into cruise control as they flex their habit muscle. Everyone works smarter instead of harder. The same concept applies to the Personal Control Book; if I break the work into these bite-size tasks, I can work smarter to accomplish something hard without putting much using much effort.
I prefer to break down both my team's work and my work in this manner. Assembly lines are easy and fast and productive and rewarding. Who doesn't want to produce more output with less effort?
But then we find ourselves with a New Build. New Builds happen when the assembly line doesn't exist yet. Maybe we don't have our workstations (Queued, In Progress, and Completed) yet. Or perhaps we will use the same workstations, but the type of work completed at each work station is drastically different than usual. There is no familiarity. There are no pre-defined habits.
A New Build is what one of my teams is going through at work right now. They are building a brand new project. It's using similar technologies that all of our other projects use and the workstations are the same, but the work done at the workstations is drastically different.
In this case, significant hand-holding is needed to move a task through the process. In both an Assembly Line and a New Build, we create something new. But in the New Build situation, we create a new gadget while also building the Assembly Line. The result might seem the same, but twice as much effort is required to get there.
It took me a while to realize what was going on. I kept getting frustrated that everything was taking longer and progress kept stalling. I didn't recognize the New Build because the process was the same. Once I realized we were in a New Build situation, I changed my expectations and my focus while massively simplifying the process into more granular tasks. I delegated the responsibility to advance tasks to someone else so I could focus solely on building the Assembly Line. Until the Assembly Line is completed and running smoothly, each job will stall and require manual intervention to start up again.
After a month of New Build and experimenting with roles and responsibilities of the new team, I think I finally have the Assembly Line built and the right people at the right work stations.
It feels good to turn the complex into bite-sized tasks and watch progress fly by.
(Written 2019.05.01)
Now you might be wondering how software development relates to manufacturing. Even though we aren't building a tangible item, the manufacturing plant concept is still applicable.
Let's first jump into the assembly line aspect. Using Kanban, an Agile methodology, the process of pushing work from analysis to production release, is already visually laid out. For my own Personal Control Book, I have a trimmed down version of a Kanban board (as detailed under Organizing Focuses & Projects). I only have three states: Queued, In Progress, and Completed. These relate to different stations in an assembly line. Queued would be equivalent to a pile of raw materials ready for assembly. Then there is only one actual work station: In Progress. Completed is the final product, let's call Widgets. Each Trello Card is an assembly that will turn raw materials into a completed Widget.
When we start a new project, we can quickly build our assembly line with the three work stations. We then brainstorm to create our raw materials for the Queued column. We then take all of that raw material and start creating widgets. We complete the project once we create all widgets.
In theory, a different person manages each work station. A task-delegator manages the Queued work station, moving tasks to In Progress and assigning out when they are ready. A task-doer handles the In Progress work station. Once they complete the job, they move it to the Completed work station. Then a task-validator oversees the Completed work station, ensuring satisfactory completion of all tasks.
In a Personal Control Book, a single person plays. In a team environment, different team members manage different work stations. If there is a clear contract for moving one task to another, everyone can work quickly and efficiently on their work station without knowledge of the entire assembly line. All assignments are broken down into small and manageable bites so that any skill level (from junior to senior) can manage any work station. This process turns even the most highly complex process into an easily managed process. Everyone can go into cruise control as they flex their habit muscle. Everyone works smarter instead of harder. The same concept applies to the Personal Control Book; if I break the work into these bite-size tasks, I can work smarter to accomplish something hard without putting much using much effort.
I prefer to break down both my team's work and my work in this manner. Assembly lines are easy and fast and productive and rewarding. Who doesn't want to produce more output with less effort?
But then we find ourselves with a New Build. New Builds happen when the assembly line doesn't exist yet. Maybe we don't have our workstations (Queued, In Progress, and Completed) yet. Or perhaps we will use the same workstations, but the type of work completed at each work station is drastically different than usual. There is no familiarity. There are no pre-defined habits.
A New Build is what one of my teams is going through at work right now. They are building a brand new project. It's using similar technologies that all of our other projects use and the workstations are the same, but the work done at the workstations is drastically different.
In this case, significant hand-holding is needed to move a task through the process. In both an Assembly Line and a New Build, we create something new. But in the New Build situation, we create a new gadget while also building the Assembly Line. The result might seem the same, but twice as much effort is required to get there.
It took me a while to realize what was going on. I kept getting frustrated that everything was taking longer and progress kept stalling. I didn't recognize the New Build because the process was the same. Once I realized we were in a New Build situation, I changed my expectations and my focus while massively simplifying the process into more granular tasks. I delegated the responsibility to advance tasks to someone else so I could focus solely on building the Assembly Line. Until the Assembly Line is completed and running smoothly, each job will stall and require manual intervention to start up again.
After a month of New Build and experimenting with roles and responsibilities of the new team, I think I finally have the Assembly Line built and the right people at the right work stations.
It feels good to turn the complex into bite-sized tasks and watch progress fly by.
(Written 2019.05.01)
