1) The document discusses different strategies for interdependent agile teams to collaborate, including always prioritizing their own work first, prioritizing their own work and then helping others if blocked, or always prioritizing helping other teams first with their work. 2) A game simulation showed that having teams always prioritize helping other teams first with their work led to the most efficient results, completing all work across teams in the fewest number of sprints. 3) The strategy of always prioritizing other teams' work first forces the most collaboration between teams and eliminates wasted time spent negotiating work.

1. 11
Efficiencies in
interdependent agile teams
Steve Wells
giffgaff

2. 22

3. 33

4. 44

5. 55
We have
an idea!
We’ll
build it!

6. 66
“When a mess, which is a system of problems,
is taken apart, it loses its essential properties
and so does each of its parts. The behavior of a
mess depends more on how the treatment of its
parts interact than how they act independently
of each other. A partial solution to a whole
system of problems is better than whole
solutions of each of its parts taken
separately.”
Russell. L. Ackoff

7. 77

8. 88
Collaboration

9. 99
Scrum 1.0
You want to speak to my
scrum team about something?

10. 1010
Cross-functional teams are the way to go
Proper “T-shaped”?
LOL

11. 1111
Cross-functional teams are the way to go,
but...
not enough skills
to go around
3rd party
contracts
centralisation
for consistency
legacy
systems
different mix of skills for
different bits of work
non-agile
bubbles
structure
and politics
codebase
too big

12. 1212
Is there, in fact, always a conflict
between component teams
(Conway’s Law?) and cross-
functional teams?

13. 1313
Cross-functional teams are the way to go,
but...
In any organisation of any size...
yes, even giffgaff…
at some point…
there will be dependencies between teams
i.e. teams will be relying on other teams to do
work for them

14. 1414
So what is the most efficient
strategy for such
interdependent teams to use?

15. 1515
A Game Simulation. We like games at giffgaff...

16. 1616
∎ 4 teams
∎ Each team has a suit of cards
∎ They have to go round in turn playing cards in
order
∎ 3 of the cards need to be played by other teams
∎ The game is complete when all teams have
played all their cards
The Simulation...

17. 1717
Other Team’s
Work

18. 1818
1. Play own cards (do own team’s work) first. Only
play other team’s card when everybody is
blocked, or have played all team’s own cards
2. Play own cards first. If you can’t play a card, play
another team’s card
3. Play other team’s cards first
Three strategies

19. 1919
Other Team’s
Work
Starting Point...

20. 2020
Other Team’s
Work
Always do own work first
Work done after 4 sprints: 7 cards

21. 2121
∎ Email trail of 52 mails over a 3 week period - 10
minute job in the end (create a directory)
∎ One team blocked for 3 months while some work
negotiated onto another team’s backlog - 1 day’s
work in the end
Examples of this strategy...

22. 2222
Other Team’s
Work
Always do own work first; other’s
if blocked

23. 2323
Other Team’s
Work
Always do own work first; other’s
if blocked

24. 2424
Other Team’s
Work
Always do own work first; other’s
if blocked

25. 2525
Other Team’s
Work
Always do own work first; other’s
if blocked

26. 2626
Other Team’s
Work
Always do own work first; other’s
if blocked

27. 2727
Other Team’s
Work
Always do own work first; other’s
if blocked

28. 2828
Other Team’s
Work
Always do own work first; other’s
if blocked

29. 2929
Other Team’s
Work
Always do own work first; other’s
if blocked
Work done after 4 sprints: 12 cards

30. 3030
Leads to “fobbing off”...
Sprint 1
Other team’s
work
Other
Team
“Can you answer this
question so we can do
the work?”
Sprint 2
Answer
“Can you answer this
question so we can do
the work?”
Sprint 3
Can you answer
this question so we
can do the work?
Answer

31. 3131
Other Team’s
Work
Always do other’s work first
Work done after 4 sprints: 16 cards

32. 3232
Results...

33. 3333
Own First - 33 Sprints
Own First, Then Other - 27 Sprints
Other First - 13 Sprints

34. 3434

35. 3535
∎ No need for negotiation
∎ No “fobbing off” - “can’t start until you answer X”
∎ Increased - indeed, forced - collaboration
∎ Increases speed of delivery for the company as a
whole
∎ Reduce silos
Benefits of this strategy...

36. 3636
● I cannot possibly know how important your piece
of work is
● You cannot possibly know how important the
items on my backlog are
Therefore:
a. It is impossible for us to work out relative
prioritisation
b. We may as well not waste the time trying
Eradicate the waste of negotiation...

37. 3737
Eradicate the waste of negotiation...

38. 3838
∎ POs can take some convincing...
∎ What if unimportant stuff gets done first?
∎ Difficult to “own” other team’s work
∎ There is an assumption that it is clear what each
team actually “owns”...
∎ ...and there is trust to not just chuck stuff over
the wall.
However...

39. 3939
Doing other team’s work before
your own is the most effective
collaboration strategy
Key Takeaways

40. 4040
Using this strategy forces
collaboration and eradicates the
waste of negotiation
Key Takeaways

41. 4141
Ants will eventually take over the
entire world.
Key Takeaways
And possibly the rest of the solar
system, galaxy, universe...

42. 4242