Context
Imagine driving at night on an unfamiliar road. Because your visibility is limited and you are unsure of the road conditions, the car’s headlights should mostly be on high beam. The more uncertain and risky the situation, the slower the car will move. The high and low beams will alternate based on the circumstances.
This situation is directly related to the ability to handle risk. For example, if you are driving a tank and there are no obstacles on the road, you could justify turning off the lights and moving at full speed.
However, in product development, we need to take potential risks seriously. We require a method to manage risk with a certain degree of predictability. Although Agile emphasizes adaptability, it doesn’t neglect the need for predictability. Planning involves estimation, forecasting, risk assessment, and adjustment. The ability to use both the high beam and low beam, and knowing when to focus on each, is the key to effective forecasting.
Similar Concept
The high beam represents your vision, allowing you to understand the overall situation ahead and predict potential risks. The low beam, on the other hand, represents your pace, ensuring that you can move forward safely. On unfamiliar and dangerous roads, your vision narrows because you need to be more cautious, and your pace slows accordingly to avoid mishaps. As the road becomes safer and more familiar, your vision can extend farther, and your pace can quicken, enabling you to move forward with greater confidence. The relationship between pace and vision occurs simultaneously; the more chaotic and uncertain the environment, the closer the vision aligns with the pace.
In product development, this relationship between vision and pace is just as important. When faced with uncertainty and potential risks, you need to shorten your vision, focus on current details, and slow down to cautiously advance the project. But as you gain a clearer understanding of the overall situation and the safety improves, you can expand your vision, look toward further goals, and accelerate your pace, pushing the project forward with more confidence.
Key Characteristics
Concept
In the product or project lifecycle, the continuous understanding of the overall delivery process is the high beam, while the low beam represents the detailed arrangement of current goals. The focus of both high and low beams is the same: demands. Our perspective should pay attention to waiting and puzzles. Constantly clarifying and calibrating waiting and puzzles is the essence of the dual-beam plan.
Overall Progress (High Beam)
- Overview:
- The estimated total of all outstanding “brick demands” that need to be developed within the current scope.
- Progress:
- Compared to the user’s current perception, how much progress has been made, or how much remains to be done.
- For a brand-new product or project with no progress, an estimate (a guess) needs to be made.
Current Arrangement (Low Beam)
- Current:
- What is the current goal or outcome?
- Are there any unclear or confusing issues?
- Arrangement:
- What are the blocking items? Who is responsible? Who is waiting?
- What are the confusing questions? Who is responsible for answering them?
Roles
Prompter
The Prompter could be a business or requirement-related person, or a facilitator.
Responsibilities:
- Ensure that all overall progress is placed on a single platform: This could be a digital tool or a physical board, such as a burndown chart, cumulative flow diagram, or user story map, showing the progress.
- Ensure all risks, waiting items, assumptions, and uncertainties are also visible on the same platform: This gives the team a clear view of potential blockers.
- Drive team collaboration to update the overall progress.
- Ensure all waiting items and puzzles are fully recorded in one place.
Participant
Other team members involved in forming the overall progress and driving task execution.
Process
This process can be called the Requirements Alignment Meeting:
- Update overall vision and goals: Review the overall progress, waiting items, puzzles, and stage outcomes.
- Update current tasks and execution details: Identify the next steps, waiting items, and puzzles.
- Formulate action items: Assign responsibilities for handling waiting items, clarifying puzzles, and determining when to hold the next requirements alignment meeting.
flowchart TD
start1([Start])
end1([End])
start1 --> big[Update Overall Vision and Goals]
big --> cal[Calibrate Waiting Items and puzzles]
cal --> big
cal --> small[Update Current Tasks and Execution Details]
small --> cal
cal --> todos
todos --> end1
Related Content
Requirements Refinement, QuickStart, and Inception Considerations
- Quick Start / Inception (Project Initiation):
- The high beam focuses on broader topics such as the product vision, market strategy, and key success indicators.
- The low beam helps the team quickly kick off by clarifying short-term tasks and milestones.
- Requirements Refinement (Project Mid-Stage):
- The high beam focuses on a clear understanding and prioritization of requirements to ensure alignment within the team.
- The low beam zooms in on the details of current or upcoming iterations, ensuring each requirement is clearly assigned and executable.
- Flexible Adjustment of Frequency and Focus:
- Depending on the complexity of the project and the team’s needs, you can flexibly adjust the frequency of meetings and the focus of each part.
- In a mature team, the high beam may only need light updates daily, while more attention is paid to the low beam—current task execution. Conversely, in the early stages or when uncertainty is high, more high-beam analysis may be required.
Stand-up Meeting Considerations
- Clarify Waiting Items: Identify tasks currently waiting due to external dependencies or internal resources, and assign someone to follow up to prevent progress delays.
- Clear Up puzzles: Address any unclear points in the tasks (such as unclear requirements or technical issues) and quickly assign someone to clarify and resolve them, ensuring the team is not confused.
- Form Action Items: Based on the waiting items and puzzles, create concrete action items, assign responsibilities, and set deadlines to ensure progress is tracked in the next stand-up meeting.
Atomic Agility Considerations
In atomic agility, the team not only focuses on the precise execution of current tasks but also needs to maintain flexibility in adapting to changes. By Broader Perspective, the team, like relying on high beams when driving at night, can see the big picture of the project, identify potential risks and obstacles, and make reasonable adjustments as they move forward. This broader perspective helps the team avoid getting bogged down by local issues and keeps them on the right track.
At the same time, having Stronger Discipline is akin to using low beams to ensure each step of the journey is clearly visible. The team needs to break down the current tasks in detail, clarify execution steps and responsibilities, and ensure smooth progress in all areas, preventing small issues from delaying overall progress.
For waiting and puzzles within the project, this is where Clearer Gray Areas comes into play. The team doesn’t need to choose between waiting for a perfect solution or completely ignoring the problems. Instead, they can find a middle ground, flexibly addressing waiting items and puzzles, and using moderate compromises to keep the project moving forward. This gray-area thinking ensures agility and control when dealing with complexity and uncertainty during the project’s progress.