Xmas Special: From Project-Driven to Flow-Driven Software Development in 2025 | Vasco Duarte

Mon Dec 23 2024

Xmas Special: From Project-Driven to Flow-Driven Software Development in 2025 with Vasco Duarte In the kickoff episode of the “5 Wishes for 2025” series, Vasco Duarte dives into a topic close to his heart: why managing software like construction...

Summary

Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast: Agile Storytelling from the Trenches

Episode Summary: Xmas Special: From Project-Driven to Flow-Driven Software Development in 2025 | Vasco Duarte

In this special Christmas episode of the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast, host Vasco Duarte, an accomplished Agile Coach and Certified Scrum Master, delves into the transformative shift from project-driven to flow-driven software development. Released on December 23, 2024, the episode not only explores innovative strategies for enhancing Agile practices but also announces the inaugural Global Agile Summit 2025 in Tallinn, Estonia. Below is a detailed summary capturing the episode's key discussions, insights, and conclusions.

1. Announcement: Global Agile Summit 2025

The episode kicks off with an exciting announcement from Vasco Duarte about the Global Agile Summit 2025, scheduled for May 18-20, 2025, in Tallinn, Estonia. Duarte emphasizes the summit's focus on practical Agile implementations rather than theoretical concepts.

“We're putting together an event that is all about real life agile. It's not theory or buzzwords. It's practitioners sharing what's working, what's making an impact, and how they've overcome challenges that you too will have to face...”
— Vasco Duarte [00:04]

Key features of the summit include:

Hands-on Workshops on the first day.
Leadership, Product Strategy, Coding, Testing, and other Agile essentials on subsequent days.
Real-life stories from Agile practitioners across various domains.

Duarte urges listeners to take advantage of the super early bird tickets, offering significant discounts until the summit agenda is finalized.

“Go to globalagilesummit.com and grab your ticket. Today, let's all make 2025 the year agile truly transforms your teams, your business and our industry.”
— Vasco Duarte [02:30]

2. Transitioning to Flow-Driven Software Development

Vasco Duarte introduces the primary theme of the episode: moving from a project-driven to a flow-driven approach in software development. He critiques traditional project management methodologies, highlighting their inadequacies in the dynamic software landscape.

“Software is not like building a house. It's perhaps if we go with a metaphor, a little bit more like growing a garden. You just can't plant everything at once and then come back six months later expecting the garden to be perfect.”
— Vasco Duarte [03:45]

3. Critique of Project-Driven Approaches

Duarte shares personal anecdotes illustrating the failures of project-driven methodologies:

Nokia's Downfall: He recounts how Nokia's rigid project management approach contributed to its inability to compete with Apple's iPhone, emphasizing the pitfalls of inflexible planning.
Failed Project Example: He narrates a case where a company heavily invested in PMI’s project management practices faced an 18-month delay in a six-month project, leading to significant market irrelevance and resource wastage.

“Project management is about executing a plan. It's not about having business impact or making customers happy or always being ready to release.”
— Vasco Duarte [06:15]

These stories underscore the limitations of traditional project management, particularly its focus on rigid execution over adaptability and customer satisfaction.

4. Embracing Flow-Driven Development

Contrasting project-driven methods, Duarte advocates for a flow-driven approach, likening software development to maintaining a garden that requires constant care and adaptation.

Key Differences Between Approaches

Assumption of Stability vs. Dynamic Adaptation
- Project-Driven: Assumes a stable environment and fixed requirements.
- Flow-Driven: Acknowledges the ever-changing business landscape and adapts continuously.
“Projects assume stability, but software and business in general are much more like trying to hit the target that keeps on moving and changing shape while you are also in movement.”
— Vasco Duarte [05:20]
Front-Loaded Decisions vs. Continuous Decision-Making
- Project-Driven: Decisions are made upfront, often leading to rigidity.
- Flow-Driven: Decisions are made iteratively based on ongoing feedback.
“Have you tried planning your entire year's meals in January? How did it work out?”
— Vasco Duarte [05:50]
Artificial Boundaries vs. Flexible Scope
- Project-Driven: Defines strict project scopes, hindering adaptability.
- Flow-Driven: Allows for scope adjustments based on evolving requirements.
“Projects create artificial Boundaries. Sorry, that bug isn't in the scope.”
— Vasco Duarte [06:00]

5. Three-Step Framework for Flow-Driven Development

Duarte outlines a straightforward three-step framework to transition to a flow-driven approach:

Step 1: Accept Software’s Need for Continuous Flow

He compares software development to a "shark," which must keep moving to survive, underscoring the necessity for constant progress and adaptation.

“Software is more like a shark. Bear with me, this metaphor is going somewhere. What I mean by this is that it needs to keep moving or it dies.”
— Vasco Duarte [07:10]

Key Elements:

Continuous Delivery: Regular updates and iterations.
Assumption of Value: Each change is based on delivering tangible value, whether it's a minor tweak or a significant feature.
Fast Feedback Loops: Implementing rapid experimentation and adjusting based on feedback to maximize business impact.

Step 2: Fund Software Incrementally

Duarte argues for treating software funding like business investments rather than traditional project funding, advocating for incremental funding and flexible capacity management.

“We fund software incrementally, step by step, we don't do that anymore.”
— Vasco Duarte [09:20]

He references a separate episode featuring experts Maritlanti and Rami Serkia, who elaborate on Lean and Agile financial planning, promoting incremental funding and adaptive capacity management over upfront planning and rigid budgets.

Step 3: Teams Need Goals, Not Just Backlogs

Emphasizing the importance of goal-oriented teams, Duarte suggests that teams should focus on delivering specific value rather than merely managing backlogs.

“Teams need to be focused on what value needs to be delivered, not on the backlog.”
— Vasco Duarte [10:55]

Key Points:

End-to-End Ownership: Teams should own the complete process of delivering value.
One Team, One Goal (OTOG) Principle: Promoting unity and clear objectives within teams to enhance focus and decision-making.
Continuous Decision-Making: Encouraging teams to adapt and prioritize based on goals rather than fixed task lists.

6. Benefits of Adopting Flow-Driven Development

Transitioning to a flow-driven approach yields significant advantages:

Continuous Delivery: Enables regular, incremental updates aligning with market demands.
Incremental Funding: Allows for flexible financial allocation based on project performance and value delivery.
Goal-Oriented Teams: Enhances focus, motivation, and decision-making efficiency within teams.

“When we achieve these three steps, we can then move to this flow driven approach to software development that I advocate and wish for in 2025 and we get a very important benefit at the business level.”
— Vasco Duarte [12:30]

Ultimately, this approach elevates agility to the portfolio level, allowing organizations to make swift, impactful decisions without the constraints of long-term project commitments.

7. Real-Life Applications and Summit Highlights

Duarte emphasizes that the flow-driven approach is not just theoretical but is already being successfully implemented by various organizations. The Global Agile Summit 2025 will feature real-life stories from these organizations, showcasing practical applications and outcomes of flow-driven software development.

“Real live first person stories of real organizations that are doing this flow based software delivery already today. It's not an illusion, it's not a utopia. It is happening today.”
— Vasco Duarte [13:45]

Attendees can expect to learn from product leaders, engineering experts, and business visionaries who have successfully navigated the transition to flow-driven methodologies, providing actionable insights and inspiration.

8. Conclusion and Call to Action

As the episode wraps up, Duarte reiterates the importance of embracing flow-driven development to enhance agility across organizations. He encourages listeners to attend the Global Agile Summit 2025 to gain deeper insights and connect with leading Agile practitioners.

“Check out the super Early Bird and the introduction video@globalagile summit.com and I'll see you all in Tallinn.”
— Vasco Duarte [15:20]

Duarte also invites listeners to engage with the podcast by rating it, sharing it with peers, and participating in the Agile community to foster continuous learning and improvement.

Key Takeaways:

Flow-Driven vs. Project-Driven: Emphasizing adaptability, continuous delivery, and goal-oriented teamwork over rigid planning and execution.
Three-Step Framework: Accepting the dynamic nature of software, funding incrementally, and focusing teams on clear goals.
Global Agile Summit 2025: A pivotal event for Agile practitioners to learn, share, and network around real-life Agile success stories.
Agility at the Portfolio Level: Enhancing organizational agility by enabling swift, informed decision-making across all business levels.

For Agile professionals seeking to elevate their practices and stay ahead in the ever-evolving software landscape, this episode provides invaluable insights and actionable strategies. Don’t miss the opportunity to join the Global Agile Summit 2025 and be part of the Agile transformation journey.

Transcript

Vasco Duarte (0:04)

Hey, how are you doing? I'm Vasco Duarte, your host on the Scrum Master Toolbox podcast. And I've got some exciting news. So right now, as I record this, I'm holding in my hand the signed contract for our very first Global Agile Summit. We're all in. And I couldn't wait to share this news with you. So mark your calendars. May 18th, 20th of 2025 in Tallinn, Estonia. We're gonna have a transformative experience. We're putting together an event that is all about real life agile. It's not theory or buzzwords. It's practitioners sharing what's working, what's making an impact, and how they've overcome challenges that you too will have to face, or maybe even facing. Right now, we're bringing together the best stories in Agile. From product leaders to engineering wizards to business visionaries, these will be stories that will inspire you to action. This isn't just another conference. It's a chance to connect with the people that are shaping the future of Agile. And here's the best part. Right now, we're in our super early bird phase. And that means you can grab tickets at just 25% of the final price. Look, that's not just half off, it's half off of the half off. It's an incredible deal for our dedicated community members, just like you listening to this right now. So at the summit, day one will be all about hands on workshops. And days two and three, we'll dive into leadership, product strategy, coding, testing, and everything that makes Agile thrive in organizations. Right now remember, these are all first person, real life stories. Now whether you're a leader, a developer, or part of a consulting company, this event is built to take your Agile game to the next level. So don't wait. Go to globalagilesummit.com and grab your ticket. Today, let's all make 2025 the year agile truly transforms your teams, your business and our industry. I'll see you all in Tallinn. And Remember, go to globalagilesummit.com and get your super early bird ticket right now. It only be available until the agenda is announced, so don't wait. Grab it right now. Right now that that's out of the way, on to the episode. Hey everyone. Welcome to the first of my Five Wishes for 2025 series. I'm Vasco and today we're tackling something that keeps me up at night. And no, it's not just to finish Winter Darkness. You know what's funny? We keep trying to manage software projects. Like if we're building a house. And I mean I hear that metaphor all the time. Somebody will say, well you can't build the roof before you build the foundations. Well, it just so happens that in software you can do this. They will say something like, just give me the requirements up front, just tell me exactly what you want. Well, if that were possible, we'd already figured out how to do it. And that approach, knowing exactly what you want up front didn't really work out so well for Nokia when Apple came along with the iPhone. And sorry folks, I'm still bitter about that. I worked at Nokia at the time and I saw what project management perspective did to that company. Now moving on, let me tell you a quick story. I was working with this company, let's keep them nameless to protect the innocent. And they were so proud of their project management approach. I mean they were probably one of the largest funders of the PMI Project Management Institute in the Nordic countries. And they said we have everything planned out. Well, 18 months later, that's 18 months later for a six month project. That is, they were of course not ready to release and the market had moved on significantly. They ended up canning this 18 month effort with over 500 people involved. What a massive waste. And no amount of project management super skills would have helped. You know why? Because project management is about executing a plan. It's not about having business impact or making customers happy or always being ready to release, which is what I advocate for in the no estimates approach. More on that in a later episode. So here's the real deal. Software is not like building a house. It's perhaps if we go with a metaphor, a little bit more like growing a garden. You just can't plant everything at once and then come back six months later expecting the garden to be perfect. A garden needs constant care, continuous attention and yes, continuous delivery. That's what gardens are continuously delivering. So let me break this down into three key differences between what I call flow based software development and project driven software development. The first one is that projects assume stability, but software and business in general are much more like trying to hit the target that keeps on moving and changing shape while you are also in movement. Well, good luck with that. The second is that projects front load decisions. Have you tried planning your entire year's meals in January? How did it work out? Let me know in the comments. Maybe it worked out for you and you might be a super genius project manager. So let me know in the comments. Let's discuss that further. And then third, projects create artificial Boundaries. Sorry, that bug isn't in the scope. That's something I've heard many times. Or a customer comes up with a request and that can't be tackled because it's not in the scope. Or worse, it can be tackled. And now the whole project is derailing because you've changed the plan. Don't forget that projects start with the plan. A list of requirements. So how do we fix this mess? Well, I've got a simple three step framework that I want to propose. This is simpler than assembling IKEA furniture. And trust me, as someone living in the Nordics, I know my ikea. All right, so first step, accept that software is more like a shark. Bear with me, this metaphor is going somewhere. What I mean by this is that it needs to keep moving or it dies. So I'm working with this mobile startup right now and they're releasing updates faster than I can drink coffee. And that's saying something. They design every change around an assumption of value. This is very important, right? It's not a list of features, it's every change, whatever the change is, whether it's a simple color change or text change. We for example, saw a three times increase in conversion by just changing a text. These things can happen. So every change is done around an assumption of value. And they measure everything they do. More on that in a later episode. I'm going to talk about measuring everything we do. They measure everything they do, making sure that each change has a goal and is measured against that goal. But also they constantly adapt the plans of what's next based on the feedback they get from these experiments. In other words, they flow experiments to the market and adjust based on impact continuously is this super fast feedback loop that they've implemented. Because of course what they're trying to do is to maximize the business impact. The second step of this three step framework is that we need to fund software like we fund businesses, not like we fund construction projects. You should check out my episode with Maritlanti and Rami Serkia where they talk about Lean and Agile financial planning. They explain it better than I can, but the idea is that they talk about incremental funding and a completely different way to manage software development capacity. The link is in the show notes. It's a half an hour episode. There's a lot of details that we go through there. But that's the core idea is we fund software incrementally and we manage capacity in software differently than we would do with project management. Right? Project management would do upfront capacity planning and you know, even quite far into the future if you've looked at some of those Gantt charts, while when we fund software incrementally, step by step, we don't do that anymore. So check that out. The episode link is in the show notes, right. And the third of this three step framework is that teams need goals, not just endless backlogs. Teams need to be focused on what value needs to be delivered, not on the backlog. A backlog is a tool, it helps us prioritize and focus on our short term work. But we need teams to know what to focus on and make decisions on that continuously. And this means that we need to build teams around end to end ownership of the value that they produced. Whether it's a five person team or a team of teams, they always need to start from the goal. And I wrote about this in a blog post I published called OTOG or One team, one Goal Principle. Check out the link in the show notes. Make sure to read that as it explains in more detail what the goal is. What is the idea of having one team, one goal and why that's important. When we've completed this three step framework, that is accept that software is in constant flux, we need to flow value to the market. Second, we need to fund software incrementally, right? And we need to stop when it's not working or fund it more when it is working. And then third, that every team needs a goal. When we achieve these three steps, we get to continuous delivery, incremental funding and teams working from goals. When we are there, we can then move to this flow driven approach to software development that I advocate and wish for in 2025 and we get a very important benefit at the business level. And here's the key. When we get this continuous delivery, incremental funding and teams working from goals, we are now able to make quick decisions at the product portfolio level instead of making long expensive commitments to projects which we don't know if they can add any value to the business. So the key impact of this flow based software development is that we can now raise the agility to the top level, the portfolio level at the organization, and that's a huge win. That's one of the core ideas of Agile. Agile started in the software side, some would even say on the IT side, depending on the industry, but it needs to go beyond that. We need to bring that agility to the whole business. So that's my wish number one of five for 2025. If you want to see this in action, we have some real life stories we'll be featuring at the Global Agile Summit 2025 in Tallinn, Estonia and these stories will show what's already possible today. Real life first person stories of real organizations that are doing this flow based software delivery already today. It's not an illusion, it's not a utopia. It is happening today and we'll be featuring those stories at the Global Agile Summit 2025. So make sure you check it out. It's@globalagilesummit.com if you're listening to this in Christmas 2024 or around that, we have a gift for you. Our super early Birth ticket is now available. It gives you a 75% discount. That's not a 50%, that's 75. That's half off or of the half off from the final price of the Summit ticket. So don't miss it. Check out the super Early Bird and the introduction video@globalagile summit.com and I'll see you all in Tallinn. So this was the first wish of the five for 2025. So Merry Christmas and talk to you tomorrow. We really hope you liked our show and if you did, why not rate this podcast on Stitcher or itunes. Share this podcast and let other Scrum Masters know about this valuable resource for their work. Remember that sharing is caring.