How to Facilitate Guided Self-Improvement using the Agile Kaizen Dashboard
The Agile Kaizen Dashboard is used by product teams to self-assess themselves in areas that impact their business agility, motivation, purpose, happiness, productivity and quality of product they produce. Kaizen is a Japanese term that means “change for better”. Applying this concept to teams using the Agile Kaizen Dashboard enables guided self-improvement for the team (or team of teams). By conducting an open and honest self-assessment, the team will be able to create a kaizen backlog for them to focus their continuous improvement efforts on. This approach/tool was created in collaboration with an amazing team of Scrum Masters & Agile Coaches based on observations made in real product development working environments. It has been used within multiple organizations and can be adapted for different domains and contexts.
Self-Assessment Categories & Measures
There are 3 categories used in the Agile Kaizen Dashboard: Product, Team, and Technical Excellence. There are 9 items within each of the categories that teams use to self-assess their current state. For each item and category overall, there are 3 options that signify where the team is at: Target State (green circle), Continued Improvement (yellow triangle), and Needs Attention (red cross). Japanese symbols are used to represent each of these options to quickly and easily visualize current state.
The categories and items within each category have corresponding criteria defined for each of their current state options. The goal is to create an unbiased approach to eliminate debate between which option is most appropriate for a given category or item. If a team says they meet the criteria for Target State of a given item, then they should be able to easily provide evidence that demonstrates the defined criteria for that item.
Facilitating the Self-Assessment
A team member should facilitate the self-assessment. It’s important that a psychologically safe environment is established for the team. To get started, the team should discuss the need for such a self-assessment to occur. They should also commit to being open and honest, and taking action based on the results.
Once everyone understands and is committed, then the facilitator can read out the first category item and corresponding criteria defined. In order to avoid bias or anchoring, team members should write down their initial thought on a piece of paper. Once everyone has a response for the first item, the facilitator can have everyone reveal what they think the current state is for a category item. If there are different responses, then a brief discussion should occur regarding the differences. The facilitator may ask probing questions directly related to the criteria defined and responses given. After the brief discussion, a second round of voting can then occur. After two rounds of voting, then the facilitator should notate the option with the most votes and move on to the next category item. Teams should spend between 10-20 minutes for each of the 3 categories for a total time to conduct the self-assessment at around 30 minutes to 1 hour max.
Some of the items on the self-assessment may be beyond the team's current control. It’s still important for the team to select the option based on the true current state regardless of their current ability to control it. These items should be shared/escalated to better enable the team to deliver customer value in a lean and agile way. This should NOT be used by managers or other members of leadership to assess teams. If misused, this will lead to unintended consequences and ultimately teams will manipulate the results to show themselves in a more favorable way.
Following the initial self-assessment, teams should reassess on a regular basis to ensure they are making improvements in targeted areas, and to evaluate additional areas to focus improvement efforts on. To support this, there are three columns to keep track of progress at regular intervals.
Category Breakdown
Product (What)
The first category is Product and focuses on the “what”. It includes product management artifacts and best known practices used for developing and delivering products successfully: Vision / Strategy, Roadmap, Business Value Communicated, Return on Investment (ROI), Value Metrics Identified / Captured, Shippable / Releasable Each Sprint, Refined Backlog, Backlog Prioritized by Value, and Release Planning. For more information, check out Product Management: 9 Keys to Success.
Team (How)
The second category is Team and focuses on the “how”. It includes factors that impact team performance including: Engagement in Team Events, Raises Impediments, Meeting Definition of Done (DoD), Velocity Trend, Team Morale, Working as a Team on Top Priority Items, Dedicated Team Members, Empowered Team Members, and Limiting Work in Progress (WIP). For more information, check out Product Delivery Teams - 9 Factors to Improve Performance.
Technical Excellence
The third and final category is Technical Excellence. This is focused on quality engineering and practices including: Defect Management, Leverages Continuous Integration / Delivery (CI/CD) Capabilities, Uses Automated Testing, Ease of Deployment, DevOps Practices, Code Quality Standards, Tech Debt, Frequency of Deployment, and Security Checks. These are specific to software development but can be customized for other domains as well. For more information, check out Software Development: 9 Vital Signs for Technical Excellence.
Start Your Team’s Journey
The key to improving is to start! The Agile Kaizen Dashboard is a tool to help you and your team do just that. You can use 1, 2 or all 3 of the categories listed. The important thing is for your team to inspect where they are currently at, identify what they need to adapt to get better, and take action towards improving. Let your kaizen journey to changing for the better begin!!
Kaizen Image Credit: By Majo statt Senf - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0