Initial Scoping — Part 1 The Interview

In the last article, I gave you an overview of the newly released agile scoping approach I have found useful. In this instalment, we start to dig deep into initial (clean) scoping.

As a recap, initial scoping is heavily influenced by Caitlin Walker’s Clean Scoping, which at this stage I only aspire to be able to do in its fullest form.

During an initial scoping session I am trying to find out…

To bring this to life I thought I would give a few real examples to go through, starting in this blog with one I know a lot of people are doing at the moment… interviewing.

Scenario — Going for an interview as a contract agile coach

There may be a few stages to the interview. In this case, I had to run a 1 on 1 session with a member of the team, run a backlog refinement session for a new team and run a lunch and learn session for the product area I’d be supporting but that is a whole other blog post.

Then came the leadership interview:

Client “Here is all the info about the organisation and agile pilot we are doing…”

Me “Fantastic sounds like you have done a lot already, with that in mind if the agile pilot was to go just how’d you’d like it, it would be like what?”

Client “It would work”

Me “and when it works what will you see and hear?”

Client “Well we will be releasing much more often to our customers at the moment things can take 18 months”

Me “So at the moment things can take 18 months and after the pilot, you will be releasing much more often. What happens before you release much more often?”

Client “Well we have to control the release process at the moment, that is a separate department”

Me “Ok so what would have to happen to control the release process?”

Client “Well that’s going to take a while as it is a whole different area of the bank away from the pilot”

Client “Have you dealt with something similar before?”

Me “Yes it is a common problem I see when starting an agile journey”

Client “What do you suggest?”

Me “There are a few things we can do to try and help from our side but really until we can resolve the release process we are not going to be able to make much impact. Have you been in a similar situation before where you haven’t had the influence you needed?

Client “Well I think it is about trust so if we can make some small changes that go well I think over time we will be able to do more.”

Me “Thanks, I know that took up a little bit of time but I thought it was important that you know how I work so you can decide if it is what you want.”

Client “Thanks I do have a couple more questions I’d like to ask”

Me “Sure”

Interview continued…

PAUSE! — Before reading on, take a moment to think about what you are making up about the agile pilot and the client who is interviewing me.

Here are my observations

When the client said “Well we have to control the release process at the moment, that is a separate department”

The story in my head is that he was able to reflect on what I said and was able to grow his own understanding rather than always looking for the quick fix.

The impact is that I feel I can work with this person as part of my agile model is that cookie-cutter approaches don’t work so I need to feel the person understands this for themselves and is also coachable

When The client said “Well we will be releasing much more often to our customers at the moment things can take 18 months”

I inferred that they have some idea that agile is not the goal and I will be able to work on defining what outcomes the client wants fairly quickly

This impact is that I feel I can help the organisation as I don’t believe agile is a good enough goal on its own and therefore means the need for change is not going to be strong enough when things get tough.

When the client says “Well that’s going to take a while as it is a whole different area of the bank away from the pilot”

I made up from this that the client has some influence but perhaps not enough to meet the overall outcome they want but over time maybe they can get the change they want

The impact of this was that as much as we did some awesome stuff within the pilot this issue was the bottleneck for the outcome the client wanted and even with special focus it still took a long time to get things into production (first release took 6 months).

The only thing I can do at this point is to make up stories in my head based on the limited evidence. From what is normally a fairly formal meeting the chance of success. It does not guarantee for example that what the person says is the truth but it does give you a good starting point. We will uncover more on what we do in this situation in organisational scoping.

What I am not trying to do during initial scoping or an interview

• Sell agile or any other service I might offer
• Solve the clients' problems
• Make what they are currently doing wrong

I couldn’t do that in an interview, are you crazy?

This is a style I have used with a good success rate but you need to find how you interview at your best, here are the key principles I try to follow:

• Interviews should be a 2-way learning experience
• If I can give an example of how I work that is going to beat any answer to a question the client asks
• Try not to have preconceived ideas of what the client wants or needs. Scoping is often best when it is an emergent process of discovery.
• Be yourself

What next?

After the interview, you are probably going to struggle to get in contact with the client due to the recruiter buffer who is likely to give you limited to no feedback (Maybe you will get lucky). With this in mind I like to reflect on the session and remind myself of the 3 questions:

• Is the client someone I can work well with?
• Are the outcomes the client is looking for congruent with my agile model?
• Does the client have enough influence to meet the desired outcomes?

If the answer is a no to any of these then I have to decide what would I like to have happen? Perhaps if I get offered the job I will need to ask for another meeting to dig deeper? Perhaps I decide to decline the job or if I really need the money, what can I do to manage expectations and work within a scope that is possible at the moment.

That is because explicitly or implicitly committing to a scope that is not possible might seem like a good idea at the time but eventually, it is likely to cause you many problems. At best it loses you credibility and makes your next role harder to get. Worst case, you leave the client in a worse place than when you started.

Questions?

What other interview techniques have you found useful?

How do you decide if you should take a job or not?

What do you do if you can’t afford to not take a job but you know the difference you can make is minimal?

With thanks

Rickard Jones for helping define this way of working with me at Agile Affinity, and contributing to the article. If you would like to talk in more detail on the topic email us talk@agileaffinity.com or have a look on the website www.agileafinity.com we offer the ICP-CAT: Coaching Agile Transitions course that covers this topic in much more detail use ICAgile10 to get 10% off

Caitlin Walker for supporting my systemic modelling journey and inspiring me in so many ways including clean scoping the bases for this article www.cleanlearning.co.uk

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