- Purpose of this article
- A3 Thinking - The Lean Problem Solving Approach
- How to Use Cause-Effect Diagrams
- Example 1: Long Release Cycle
- Example 2: Defects Released to Production
- Example 3: Lack of Pair Programming
- Example 4: Lots of Problems
- Practical Issues: How to Create and Maintain the Diagrams
- Pitfalls
- Summary
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Example 4: Lots of Problems
Here’s a bigger example. This organization was doing Scrum but was having some problems. After some interviews and workshops the cause-effect diagram that emerged showed that they weren’t really doing Scrum correctly and that this was causing problems.
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It became clear to everyone that many of the root causes would be addressed with a “proper” Scrum implementation (for example reorganizing into cross functional teams, and making sure each team has a dedicated product owner). This triggered organizational changes that ultimately fixed many of the root causes (green stars). The next step was to improve test automation.
Scrum isn’t always the solution of course. In fact, sometimes Scrum itself is the problem and other techniques such as Kanban are the solution See my upcoming book “Kanban and Scrum – making the most of both” for more on that.