I just wrapped up three straight months of teaching vertical slicing workshops with different clients. I helped them learn how to slice initiatives into Minimum Marketable Features and MMFs into good user stories and how to sequence the work to maximize value and learning.
As I’ve said many time before, vertical slicing—organizing work around small increments of customer value—is the keystone habit that makes all the rest of the agile stuff work.
And I think a lot of people see that. It’s why our story splitting guide is still the most popular thing on our website.
But in most of these vertical slicing conversations, there was an elephant in the room.
Participants enthusiastically worked on their slicing skills. They understood why it mattered. And they got good at practicing it.
Then, at some point, a participant would say, “But our teams aren’t structured to work on vertical slices.” Cue the sad trombone. Because, while organizing work across multiple teams using vertical slices is possible, it’s painful, and it’s much less effective than having teams who can deliver increments of value.
Before I write more about this challenge, I’m curious if these groups were outliers or if this team structure struggle is more widespread. Which of these sounds like your situation? Click the option that best describes your team—whichever you click will take you to a page with a few free resources that might help.
- My team IS sufficiently cross-functional to complete vertical slices
- My team IS NOT sufficiently cross-functional to complete vertical slices, BUT IT’S FINE
- My team IS NOT sufficiently cross-functional to complete vertical slices, AND I WISH IT WAS
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