Where are your feedback loops?

Overhead!
Too many meetings!
Individuals and Interactions over Processes and Tools.

Agile frameworks, like Scrum, are not always loved. People feel hampered or incapacitated by, in their eyes, needless rigor in ‘the process’. Obviously, dogmatic approaches to bring agility in your product development is never ok. We should always know WHY we do the things we do.

However, once you dive into the details of a framework like Scrum, you discover that the events, artifacts and roles are modelled to setup feedback loops. In Scrum we see three feedback loops:

  1. The feedback loop on your product that determines the most valuable next step, that shapes your backlog of work. The Sprint and Sprint Review are the events that Scrum uses to run this loop.
  2. The feedback loop on your product increment to actually achieve a valuable next step, that defines the work you need to do today. This loop is run by the Sprint Planning and Daily Scrum.
  3. The feedback loop on your way of working. This is achieved by the Retrospective.

In my mind, these feedback loops cannot be missed. More than enough is written about the necessity of iterative development and continuous improvements. Therefore, when you decide there are good reasons not to do Scrum by the book, I would like to put this question to you:

What is your way to have the necessary feedback loops?

This Post Has 2 Comments

  1. Henk Nijenhuis

    We use all 3 feedback loops and you do need them. If the team feels that there are too many meetings and is too much overhead, most likely your team is too big in my opinion. It is my experience that teams should be 3-5 people. I am a firm believer in the Amazon 2-pizza rule :).

    1. Hugo Valk

      Are you saying that the feedback loops need less meetings when the team is small?

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