How Agile and DevOps helped me through COVID-19. Never before have we experienced a VUCA reality such as this. It’s not usual for me to feel that everything was swept off, let alone this powerless feeling of not having a single thing under control.
It’s been a whole month of confinement when I write these words and none of it has been easy. The first week was complete chaos with no groceries at home, two kids trying to understand how their school would continue, and a lot of effort to ensure that each and every family that was now at home would have the best telecommunication experience in the country. While trying to put myself and my family together – my husband who still goes to work every day, my parents who need extra care due to their age and health, my team whom I feel is part of my family… how do I help them keep healthy and productive?
The first step for me was in fact embracing the truth that I can’t control any of this. Embracing my vulnerability, even. The second was to understand I didn’t know what was going to happen next.
Really I can’t control what’s happening but I can control how I’ll respond to it. So let’s find an appropriate rhythm and cadence so that everything will fit. What is my MVP for each day? How do I get my work done and take care of everything else? First off, let’s get everybody to do their part. Even my youngest son can help do some chores besides his classes. Then, let’s get a Kanban board everybody can see and contribute to. How about using the fridge surface for that? Actually, the board became a mix Kanban-calendar board where visiting my parents, shopping and all those major time-consuming tasks were filled in advance. In those first weeks, the tasks would be constantly reviewed and prioritized but by the end of the third week we had found our optimal cadence. From the beginning it proved really helpful with keeping it all together. Along with a time boxing approach I just had my recipe for not letting things go out of hand.
The same thing applies to our teams: when nothing feels certain our backlog and our daily meetings assume an even more important role in providing patterns and moving work forward. The simple fact of having an ordered list is now a top benefit! Week after week I’ve come to find a broad advantage in having scrum ceremonies already in place as compared to other teams that have no other way but to start learning and applying it now. Familiarity not only with the practice, but also with the collaborating tools gave us the perfect breeding ground for productivity during these times. Being used to geographically distributed meetings and work was another major benefit. While we know that collocated teams work better, facts show that increasingly more companies have geographically distributed teams. And our reality is no exception.
As I was being hit by this new normal, I understood that Agile was also helping us engage – with the company and one another
Our team always had a strong (superhero) culture, how were we going to maintain it and even develop it online? Surprisingly, I found it to be effortless. As we found ways to review and give feedback on one another’s work, to share our experiences, replacing social distancing with virtual social intimacy and making everyone aware of teammates’ circumstances we strengthened the team’s virtual bonds as well. It is crucial that team members feel safe to engage and develop initiatives with positive culture impact. For example, one of our colleagues came up with the idea of a daily virtual coffee break. Work talk forbidden there. We also have a chat group for jokes and casual chat which is always active. Small things like these go above and beyond helping us cope with the harsh reality: they reassure us there’s someone there for us.
A third pillar is code quality. McKinsey analysis indicates that remote teams may have poorer software quality. Having already code quality tools in place can be a real advantage as teams move from collocation to fully remote. Including code reviews in our Definition of Done was a major quality move a while ago. Now we just have to ensure we continue that path with real-time, synchronous interactions as many times as needed.
Last but not least: the beauty of CI/CD. As I watch many companies becoming much more restrictive with moving new functionalities into production I realized having a sound, automated mechanism for building, testing and deploying software is key to less turbulent days. To be able to maintain or even slightly increase the move to production rhythm, as consumption rates continue to grow for phone, internet and TV, is key to succeed.
No doubt, COVID-19 forced us into digital transformation in many different ways
Many organizations are now looking for ways to survive and even succeed, which will undoubtfully continue after the pandemic crisis is over. As seen before, crisis response plans created and perfected during those crises (9/11, Katrina hurricane, etc) have (at least empirically) proven to be the best. Maybe some organizations will try to fall back to how it was before but that “place” no longer exists.
Agile and DevOps culture, practices and tools will certainly continue to help establish the bases for dealing with messy times such as these. Agile leadership is also key to a shared product vision and alignment throughout the teams and with the vision and strategy. Crucial elements such as collaboration will help build the heart and resilience of both teams and solutions.
Maybe we don’t know fully were we’re going and what is going to happen. But surely we know where we don’t want to go back to.