Ever been stuck with an impediment that feels unwieldy? Too large to tackle?
Perhaps teams keeps escalating the same problems because they feel like it's outside of their control to resolve?
Try running the Marginal Gains gauntlet.
1. Which parts of our process that feels redundant or unnecessarily complex?
Identifying and simplifying complex or redundant parts of a process can lead to significant marginal gains.
2. What is one small change we could make that would save each team member a few minutes each day?
Time-saving changes can add up to significant gains when they're applied across an entire team.
3. What is one aspect of the impediment that consistently feels like it takes longer than it should?
Identifying time-consuming tasks and finding ways to streamline them can contribute to marginal gains.
4. What tools or technologies could leverage more effectively to help us?
Sometimes, small changes in the use of existing tools or technologies can lead to major improvements.
5. What is the simplest step we could take now that might reduce the negative impact of this impediment?
The focus here is on finding an easy, immediate step towards improvement.
6. What is a small piece of this impediment that we could test a solution on?
This encourages people to find a small, controlled environment within the larger impediment where they could test potential solutions.
7.What can we learn from how we have dealt with similar impediments?
This encourages the team to look for inspiration and lessons from previous experiences
If you make lots of small tweaks to various elements of how you work, those minor changes will aggregate to great results.
If you made a 1% improvement every day for a year, you'd be 37 times better off than where you started.
When should I use this activity?
As part of a large scale retro, a community of practice session or even a town hall to crowdsource ideas from the hivemind.
Looking for an Agile community of practice?
The 'Virtually Agile' Slack community of practice is always welcoming of new members and is growing rapidly. This space intends to be community driven, neurodiverse place where people can share and learn from one another.
You, your colleagues and anyone interested is welcome to get involved.
Sign up here;
Don't stop believin' folks
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