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Dealing-with-uncertainty.md

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Ideas/techniques to help you be productive in the face of uncertainty
2020-11-28 21:26:07 UTC

Dealing with uncertainty

Contents

Basic idea

  • Uncertainty about what to build and how to build it can hugely reduce your productivity and happiness as a developer
    • Unclear goals
    • Unclear acceptance criteria
    • Unclear how to achieve things from the technological side
  • It can be useful to make this uncertainty explicit
  • There are some useful techniques for removing uncertainty
  • In some cases, you might be able to start "working around the uncertainty"
  • There are likely not only known unknowns but also unknown unknowns that only surface when you dive deep into the functionality or solution approach
    • Unknowns are fact of life in software development
    • It can be useful to make a conscious effort to tease them out early through mockups, prototypes, ... (see also Fail fast)

Analyzing uncertainty

Framework used at ThoughtWorks:

Uncertainty framework

(image source)

Axes:

  • Technical certainty: how well does the development team understand how to build the feature?
  • Business agreement: how well does business agree on what goes into the feature and how the system should behave?

Different areas of the diagram:

  • Red with cross: the task can't be done at the moment and you might also want to split/redefine it later on
  • Red: the task needs clarification before it can be started
  • Yellow: the task is not entirely clear, but it should be possible to start tackling it
  • Green: it's clear what to do, the implementation should be relatively straightforward and predictable

Benefits of the framework:

  • Makes uncertainty explicit
  • Can help to start conversations needed to get rid of the uncertainty
    • During conversations, focus on writing down what the questions and unknowns are that need to be resolved

Dealing with uncertain tasks

  • Prioritize getting rid of the uncertainty
    • In SCRUM, it can make sense to define a Spike for this (Spikes in Scrum)
    • For highly uncertain tasks, it can make sense to postpone the implementation to the next sprint
    • Assign someone to take the lead in removing the uncertainty
    • Make sure to keep a clear list of what questions need to be answered
  • If some parts are already clear, see if you can get started on implementing those
    • You might be able to "work around the uncertainty"
    • It might be possible to split off some unclear parts into their own tasks
  • It might make sense to prioritize clarification of unclear tasks over implementation of clear tasks
    • Tease out unknown unknowns as soon as possible
    • Ensure that the team is not suddenly blocked by a backlog with only unclear tasks
    • See also Fail fast

Removing technical uncertainty

Useful technique: time-boxing

  • Pick a predefined amount of time (2 hours, 1 day, ...) to spend on researching and experimenting
    • Can be done by one person or a small sub-team
    • Research by itself is often not enough. You might need to build some kind of prototype to really get a feel for what works and what doesn't. See also Fail fast.
  • When the time is up, get back to the team with the results
  • Decide together with the team if further time-boxed sessions are needed/appropriate

Why it helps to time-box:

  • Helps to prevent going down rabbit holes or getting stuck in analysis paralysis
  • Forces regularly checking in with the team
    • Can lead to useful ideas from the team for further time-boxed sessions
    • Allows correcting course if needed based on feedback from the team
      • The team can function as compass to help you focus on the essence
      • See also Fail fast
    • Allows re-evaluating whether the effort is actually worth it

Removing functional uncertainty

It often helps to do some kind of prototyping: mockups, wireframes, page flows, ... (see also Fail fast)

Resources