Conclusion

Job drivers

Categories of job drivers

• Attitudes - personality traits that affect behavior and decision-making (e.g. social pressure, corporate culture, personality, expectations of others)
• Background - long-term context that affects behavior and decision-making (e.g. geographic/cultural dynamics)
• Circumstances - immediate or near-term factors that affect behavior and decision-making (e.g. environmental factors, work schedule, unexpected events)

Check strategic alignment

• Attitudes
  • Program leaders want to be able to ensure that what is being brought into planning matches what has been discussed with customers and stakeholders
• Background
  • Sometimes stakeholders lack visibility into what is being planned by programs until after the planning is done, which can lead to misalignment
• Circumstances
  • While the continuous refinement of the program backlog is advised, a strong emphasis on this work is needed in the two weeks prior to the next program planning event

Target features to teams/sprints

• Attitudes
  • Teams need to know what program leadership hopes to accomplish, by who, and by when in order to stay in alignment (this doesn’t mean that these items remain set in stone, rather they enable conversations around alternatives)
• Background
  • Sometimes teams will wait until planning to review proposed work, which can lead to avoidable issues arising during planning that results in work not being planned
• Circumstances
  • Some teams may be more mature in their agile journey than others, so understanding goals around delivery will allow teams to determine if what is being proposed is reasonable before going into planning

Identify needs outside program

• Attitudes
  • Teams feel they don’t have everything they need to complete because many organizations remain siloed in order to account for organizational hierarchy
• Background
  • As much as teams want to control all parts of their work, most teams need help from others outside their program to get their work fully delivered to customers (e.g. infrastructure, shared services, etc.)
• Circumstances
  • Identifying potential dependencies prior to a planning event helps to ensure that the appropriate teams are present during planning and capacity is being reserved ahead of time to avoid missed expectations on work

References

• Manage the backlog
• Pre- and Post-PI Planning - Scaled Agile Framework

Congratulations!