An Agile world without dependencies would be a wonderful place. Each piece of work could be executed independently of any other, in any order. In a perfect world it all works out just like this. 😛

But much as we would like it to be, it’s  not always like that. Dependencies are real.  For example: hardware might be required to provide the value the end-customer wants.  And until it’s in place – either for development, or testing, or production – you just can’t create that value.  Dependencies are especially common in large, distributed pieces of work where one team will depend on the work of another. Ignore them at your peril.

The board below is one of those situations. A large program of work spread across multiple teams, with dependencies between teams.  Caleche Watson, the project manager on this team has mapped out the dependency using a piece of string, so its clear where it lies.

A piece of string shows the dependency between two pieces of work.

Teams which depend on each other need to talk a lot to keep in sync and ensure the best outcome overall.   This piece of string makes obvious a conversation that needs to happen at their regular joint stand up.  As Caleche said:

“At the end of the piece of string is a conversation”.

Spotted:  Telstra Contact Solutions