Author: Karan Negi

Agile Coach | Glossary

Karan Negi Leave a comment

Definition

An Agile Coach is the individual responsible for helping individuals, or teams adopt and improve Agile methods. His/her responsibility is to help people rethink and change the way they go about the process of development. The Coach’s role involves both training and consulting. He/She is involved with the organization in transformation after the training is over, as well.

The Coach’s responsibility is also to help the teams apply Agile/ Lean thinking to context specific environments and challenges, and eventually adapt methodology towards challenging the existing environment. All of this taken together, makes the Coach into an effective change agent.

Further Reading

  •  “Coaching Agile Teams: A Companion for ScrumMasters, Agile Coaches, and Project Managers in Transition (Addison-Wesley Signature Series (Cohn))”(book), by Lyssa Adkins.

Weighed Shortest Job First | Glossary

Karan Negi Leave a comment

Definition

Weighted Shortest Job First is used as a prioritization model that is deployed to sequence the jobs adequately, to produce the maximum economic benefit. Job sequencing can be an important factor in flow-based systems, where they can produce exceptional results.  Relative CoD and Job Size is calculated, and WSJF is implemented to prioritize backlogs.

Speaking of backlogs, WSJF is constantly used at Program Increment boundaries to update them, based on factors like: User and Business Value, Time Factors, Risk, Opportunity Enablement, and Effort. WSJF also tends to ignore sunk costs, a fundamental Lean Economics principle. When applied in SAFe, the model supports additional principles of Product Development low, include:

  • Take an economic view
  • Ignore sunk costs
  • Make continuous financial choices
  • Decentralize decision making
  • Quantify the cost of delay

Further Reading

  •  “Principles of Product Development Flow: Second Generation Lean Product Development”(book), by Donald Reinertsen.