Learning Validation

An attempt to identify useful Patterns to build a Learning Organization.

Context

The Creative Team has just finished a Creative Episode and needs to validate the underlying assumptions and hypotheses of the respective “Done” work.

Problem

There must be closure on the state after development is over, and having completed a checklist of anticipated outcomes does not alone ensure that the expected outcomes have been achieved, or that the team will take the appropriate next steps in development.

A Creative Team works as an Autonomous and a Self-Organizing Team on Potential Value Additions, completing Potential Valuable Items (PVIs) as they understand them, in light of a Learning Goal that provides context and focus.

Solution

Finish each Creation Episode with an event to validate the original assumptions and hypotheses, assess the status of the value proposition, business model, product, service or process and to learn about end user needs, risks, opportunities, problems and likely completion dates to ensure the work of the Creative Team is moving in the direction of Greatest Value.

The Value Stream Team can validate its completed work in two ways:

• By delivering the new Potential Value Addition to a statistically significant set of the end users and measuring its effects against the metrics that were specified when discussing the Learning Goal for the Learning Cycle during the Learning Challenge session.
• By inviting stakeholders to attend a validation event: together they discuss what parts of the Potential Value Addition are and are not ready for delivery or need to be improved, achieve consensus about delivery decisions and tentative future plans, and reflect about the lessons learned during the Learning Cycle.

Regardless of the chosen validation method, the Value Stream Owner has the final say concerning future delivery dates or plans, as well as new Potential Value Additions.

References

• Scrum Guide — Sprint Review.
• ScrumPLoP — Sprint Review (similar concept, similar text).

Final note: This is a work-in-progress.