blog/devops/6-strategies-to-set-time-aside-to-improve/

[giscus[bot]]

blog/devops/6-strategies-to-set-time-aside-to-improve/

I tried many ways to set time aside to improve how we work and pay down technical debt. Here are 6 ways that I have used or witnessed, with my experience on each one.

https://www.olivierjacques.com/blog/devops/6-strategies-to-set-time-aside-to-improve/

[stevepereira]

This is a great summary of options! The tough pill to swallow is that all of these approaches require some kind of sacrifice of 25%, which can be hard to get buy-in for or ask a team to shoulder (especially since they're already drowning).

My first step is to have a team create a value stream map for the workflow they're in right now, and transform waste into improvement time.

In struggling teams, I always find simple fixes that can be implemented with near-zero work that can free up 20-30% of their week. The cost is 2-3 hours (which can be subsidized through strict meeting hygiene for a week or two) and the payoff is sustained every sprint.

Once a team can demonstrate the benefits of the practice it's much easier to get leadership support for an enabling team or other support to grow the impact.

[ojacques]

Agreed! The trick is to get the ball rolling, and get the benefits to free up even more time to improve.

Now, I find quite many teams who "hide" improvements activities (either willingly or unwillingly), as they consider it to be part of what they have to do anyhow. The issue with that is often over-commitment and frustration.

We discussed this more in depth during episode 8 of the 🎙 Tech Debt Burndown podcast with @cpswan and @nselby