Beyond blockers

Beyond blockersJames Aylett

“Yesterday no blockers”

This is (probably) a lie

More likely that you don’t remember any blockers now

Or maybe that you don’t consider them important

“No important blockers”

Had to look something up

Had to stop and work round a bug in boto|DRF|node|the universe

“No important blockers”

Had to wait for a PR review

Had to spend 10 minutes searching Stack Overflow but it turns out someone already knew the answer

“No important blockers”

Had to wait because Circle was down

Had to wait because the internet was down

Problems not blockers

Blockers you want to forget (urgh! got in my way)

Problems are areas where we can improve

Improvement isn’t just about big things

Problems not blockers

We should always try to make things better (for ourselves, our products, our users)

Even small problems, if they occur frequently, can cause significant problems

Problems not blockers

As we solve specific problems, others will become obvious or the most important

But how can we know what to work on unless we remember the problems?

Remember problems

We forget them overnight, so:

Record them as they happen

Remember problems

Notepad on desk?

Slack channel?

Andon flags?

What next?

We’ll be able to raise problems in retro

Including frequency information

So can act where we’ll see biggest gains

What next?

Anything we record we can graph

Gives everyone a view on whether things are getting better or worse

–Mike Rother, Toyota Kata

“We know that the vast majority of problems are caused by the system within which people

work, rather than by the individuals themselves.”