DEV3L on Sooner Safer Happier
Tags: bvssh, agile, businessagility, lean
Published: 2021-12-06 05:34:31

---
title: DEV3L on Sooner Safer Happier
published: true
description: Better Value Sooner Safer Happier (#BVSSH) is something every organization can rally around. Sooner Safer Happier - Anti-Patterns and Patterns for Business Agility, by Jonathan Smart, provides a toolkit that helps people achieve BVSSH outcomes in the turbulent age of digital within the emergent domain of product development.
tags: bvssh, agile, businessagility, lean
cover_image: https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/tukt4oiaygjd033vqwel.png
---

*Better Value Sooner Safer Happier* (**#BVSSH**) is something every organization can rally around. **Sooner Safer Happier - Anti-Patterns and Patterns for Business Agility**, by *Jonathan Smart*, provides a toolkit that helps people achieve *BVSSH* outcomes in the turbulent age of digital within the emergent domain of product development.

Applied to your current context, applying the patterns has proven to deliver on the promise of **Better Value Sooner Safer Happier**. We must consider the *Type of Work* when we determine our *Ways of Working*. The anti-patterns hit close to home for all who have been in software development for more than a of couple years - yet they continue to be actively practiced within many organizations.

---

![](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/meeqez6k3exo3eo0u810.png)
 
Churn rate for stock market more volatile than ever (DJI/SMP) - None of the original members of the Dow Jones Industrial Average are listed within the index anymore.

Match **Ways of Working** with type of work - The Age of Digital is emergent

![](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/9ri6wgrzk6hqefukdgk2.png)
 
`Practices = Context + Principles `
Practices are applied principles in context

No *best practices*, but there are **identified bad practices (anti-patterns)**

**Emergent Domains** contain *unknown unknowns* - deterministic ways of working lead to failure

```
Means of production has changed from brawn to brains
What are we optimizing for?
```

--- 

![](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/ymn42zh1vczf2ottvmgm.png)
 
## Agile
- 4 values
- 12 principles
- iterative & responsive

## Lean
- value (customer)
- value stream
- flow
- pull
- perfection

## DevOps
- locality & simplicity
- focus, flow, and joy
- improvement of daily work
- psychological safety
- customer focus

Utilize the **Cynefin Framework** to help determine way of working

![](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/ji267z4zrovv6va6dh1b.png)
 
```
Software is an agile created box
Delivered on a lean conveyor belt
```

Agile is not the goal, outcomes

Focus where work isn't,
Focus on the work, not the worker

![](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/4iztq1id0d4s0px8dvmf.png)

---

# Patterns

![](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/y99eimjsnhjduadenvcn.png)

### Pattern 1.1 - Focus on Outcomes

- Agile/Lean mindset - continuous improvement, irrespective of starting point and context

### Pattern 1.2 - Start with Why; Empower the How

- Nail it before you scale it
- Willpower as finite resource, when out fall back on habits
- Human systems entropy, need for continual gardening
- Grassroots hits a grass ceiling with organizational blockers

**Diffusion of Innovations**

![](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/m0hwgo4vh0nnn6ozvwc9.png)
 
### Pattern 2.1 - Achieve Big through Small

![](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/4y7ojw0xh6cho0za1pno.png)
 
### Pattern 2.2 - Descale Before You Scale

### Pattern 2.3 - Scale Agility, Not Agile, Vertically Then Sideways

-  Start with a `thin vertical slice` of the organization

![](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/hhnjvtzuy9cd4wfsy38o.png)

### Pattern 3.1 - Not One Size Fits All

- Frameworks are starting point, not the destination
- Focusing on reducing cost only increases hidden costs

```
V - values
O - outcomes
I - intent based leadership
C - coaching
E - experimentation
```

### Pattern 3.2 - Invite over Inflict

- Start with those who respond to invitation

### Pattern 4.1 - Leaders Go First

- First understand, then be understood

![](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/490zdeq6pgbueywh57cs.png)
 
### Pattern 4.2 - Psychological Safety

- [Happy cows produce more milk](https://www.foodandwine.com/news/happy-cows-make-more-nutritious-milk-study-says)

`Brake dependencies; don't manage them`

Object Oriented Principles applied to teams - loosely coupled that are highly cohesive

Fund value streams, not projects

![](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/kd5opmfkn5aunjw79hot.png)
 
### Pattern 5.1 - Optimize for Safe Flow of Value

- Find out where holes aren't
- Safest airlines, most safety reports

![](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/zbe92din4bv0ja4ugv7k.png)
 
### Pattern 5.2 - Outcome Hypotheses

- Assume wrong, prove right

`WSJF ~ Cost of Delay/Duration`

### Pattern 5.3 - Intelligent Flow

- Alignment

![](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/u1yesubo3ea7hedynz3a.png)
 
### Pattern 5.4 - Stop Starting, Start Finishing

- Kanban and Flow

![](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/g3jo19d0e6p2amh7ugin.png)

### Pattern 6.1 - Safety Within Safety

- Data breaches are new oil spills

```
If traditional quality applied to toast...
You burn - I scrape
```

"Safety Differently" - `Build Safety In << Shift Left`

**Psych Safety Dimensions**:
- attitude to risk and failure
- open conversation
- willingness to help
- inclusivity and diversity

### Pattern 6.2 - Organize Safety by Value Stream

### Pattern 6.3 - Intelligent Control

`Control Requirement = Control Objective + Context`

![](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/vscgb2g9gaoq0mg98xke.png)
 
### Pattern 7.1 - Go Slower to Go Faster

- Technical debt is compounding interest that can cripple a value stream
- It takes longer to write simpler code
- DevOps is a human problem - not just automation tools

![](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/dvn7iz0ff5wue2r5y7sf.png)
 
```
Continuous attention to technical excellence
and good design enhances agility
```

**Agile Technical Coaching** - expertise that leads to #BVSSH

### Pattern 7.2 - Continuous Technical Excellence

- [Agile Fluency](https://www.agilefluency.org/) - Level 2 is technical

![](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/mdrqs784r354m2oixzsn.png)
 
### Pattern 7.3 - Architect and Organize for Flow

- Support technical career paths to keep talent
- Technology products evolve with **Punctuated Gradualism**

![](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/5czh45rfxj1yau3q0k6u.png)

### Pattern 7.4 - Smart People and Smart Teams with Robot Friends

- Differentiate *checking* and *testing*
- Robots great for checking, humans great for testing

### Pattern 8.1 - Optimize for Learning

- There is no *done improving*
- Metrics become targets, be mindful of manipulation
- Cannot transfer *tacit knowledge*

**Information Lost In Handoffs**

![](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/jr6peag7fs3qft84yji1.png)

### Pattern 8.2 - Nested Learning with Built-In Feedback Loops

![](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/y6ky5tk7dcszmhwvtkt1.png)
 
![](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/cnfq0b0hlw6mv3hjvo1t.png)
 
### Pattern 8.3 - Communicate, Communicate, Communicate

- Celebrate wins
- Over communicate the vision x 3

### Pattern 8.4 - Be Comfortable with Uncertainty

- Pace of change is never going to be slower than today

### Pattern 8.5 - Measure for Learning

```
You cannot understand a system until
you try and change it
```

**Learning Loop**

![](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/wh2t5pj3illq0kpk04du.png)
 
# Anti-Patterns

- Doing an Agile Transformation
- Using Old Ways of Thinking to Apply New Ways of Working
- The Bigger the Capital “T” Transformation, the Bigger the Change Curve
- Scaling Agile Before Descaling the Work
- Grass Roots Hits a Grass Ceiling
- One Size Fits All
- Inflict over Invite
- Do as I Say, Not as I Do
- Psychologically Unsafe
- Deterministic Mindset
- Local Optimization
- Milestone-Driven Predicted Solutions
- Headless Chickens
- Start Starting
- Lack of Safety within Safety
- Role-Based Safety Silos
- Fixed Mindset to Risk
- Going Faster Leads to Going Slower
- Agile Hollow Shell
- Misalignment of Teams and Architecture
- Tools over People
- Information and Learning Silos
- Outputs over Outcomes
- Bubble Effect
- Applying a Deterministic Approach to an Emergent Domain
- Weaponized Metrics

---

Reference Journal Events: [Start](https://twitter.com/dev3l_/status/1462992369083629576), [Finish](https://twitter.com/dev3l_/status/1466591069731102727)