Agile Project Delivery and Execution
What to Know
Delivery is about producing a potentially releasable Increment each Sprint and adapting continuously. Key concepts: the Definition of Done (shared quality bar), continuous integration/delivery, incremental delivery, backlog refinement, and impediment removal.
Flow concepts: WIP limits reduce multitasking and improve throughput; cycle time (start to finish) and lead time (request to delivery) measure flow; little's law (average WIP = throughput × cycle time) explains why limiting WIP shortens cycle time.
Ceremonies in execution: Daily Scrum surfaces impediments; Sprint Review demonstrates the Increment and gathers feedback; Retrospective drives improvement. Technical practices - automated testing, CI, refactoring - protect quality and enable sustainable delivery.
Traps
- "Done" means coded, not tested. The Definition of Done must include quality criteria; an item not meeting it returns to the backlog.
- Carrying unfinished work silently. Transparency requires surfacing it at the Review.
- Skipping the Review because "nothing's ready." That's exactly when feedback is needed.
- Confusing cycle time and lead time.
- Treating WIP limits as optional - they're the core of flow control.
- Equating continuous delivery with deploying to production every change - it means able to release on demand.
Rule of Thumb
If work is stuck, ask: is WIP too high, is the Definition of Done unclear, or is an impediment unremoved? Fix the system, not the person.
Worked Example
A team has 12 items in progress and long cycle times. Applying a WIP limit of 4 per column forces finishing before starting; cycle time drops and throughput rises - a direct application of Little's Law.