Discovery / Shaping's Ability: Decomposition & Sequencing

Being able to understand the full scope of a project and working with the team to breakdown and sequence work that delivers value to our clients/partners in iterations - aka a deliverable piece of functionality that works end to end in some meaningful way. It allows us to start collecting feedback from users.

An “iteration” is a shorthand for “a work item that delivers a valuable change in system behavior”

When you call the iteration “done,” the system is observably more valuable to a user OR the CP Product team learns (answers a specific question we needed to move forward).

I have observed this person showing a consistent, comfortable, continuous, and clear positive impact to a squad when wielding this ability, and therefore I would put them in situations where they can employ this ability with only a small amount of guidance

• Working with the team for the successful decomposition of ideas into shippable units of work to deliver customer value, validate P&E assumptions or both.
• Though you may not be leading the effort, you consistently make valuable contributions throughout the journey

I have observed this person showing a consistent, comfortable, continuous, and clear positive impact to a squad when wielding this ability, and therefore I would put them in situations where they can employ this ability, with no assistance as well as being a trusted active or passive mentor to others

• Leads the squad in efforts of successful decomposition of ideas into shippable units of work to deliver customer value, validate P&E assumptions, or both
• Develops right-size size iterations of work that fit into the checkpoint and quarterly goals
• Thinks through the stack in a way that promotes flexible story creation (e.g. model/database, API, routes, react components, UI).
• Your squad consistently gets iterations of work into customers hands for testing as early as possible in the lifespan of a project

At this Milestone, you are no longer holding on to the "training wheel" guidelines of cycle lengths (see Jason Fried's response to AR3... specifically bullet point #2)... you ship value into the hands of clients and partners in small chunks, when it is ready. Waiting until a cycle end date is focusing on the wrong goal, and by this Milestone you've internalized that.

You've helped launch mid-cycle.

I have observed this person showing a consistent, comfortable, continuous, and clear positive impact to multiple squads when wielding this ability, and therefore I would put them in situations where they can employ this ability as well as being considered an expert within this discipline

• Helps in establishing and bettering the way our decomposes and sequences delivery work
• Identifies gaps in our existing process across squads and works to implement solutions to any gaps we have
• Sequences for continuous progress by teams with shifting skills and availability (as teams have members with different skill sets, strengths, weaknesses, and availability)
• Degrades gracefully: delivery is incremental enough that missing a target scope for a checkpoint or quarter still delivers usable scope; delivery isn't a binary proposition (which means eating into the subsequent quarter/cycle to save an initiative).

I have observed this person showing a consistent, comfortable, continuous, and clear positive impact to a squad when wielding this ability, and therefore I would put them in situations where they can not only employ this ability but where they set the tone for this at the company level

• Defines and promotes a long-term vision for how we decompose and sequence work across our department coordinates across the team to ensure projects are in service of it.
• Goes externally to look for ways/best practices of decomposition/sequencing of work and brings those learnings back to the team to consider

I have observed this person showing a consistent, comfortable, continuous, and clear positive impact to not just internal teams but the community/industry in general when wielding this ability, and they are recognized by the community/industry as an expert

• Implements new Forecasting and Estimation techniques and frameworks to meet the needs of the wider community.
• Speaks at conferences/meet-ups about our CareerPlug forecasting and estimation processes
• Publishes articles/posts about best practices of estimating/forecasting as a team