The Mobius Loop
An iterative process model for rapidly developing digital products.
The Open Practice Library is organized around this model.
The buttons below will show you practices that fall on the relevant part of the loop.
1-2-4-All
Tap into the wisdom of crowds
10-for-10
The ultimate brainstorming exercise!
15/5 Reports
Reporting for people who don't have time for reports
4Ls Retrospective
A team activity to understand what was liked, learned, lacked, and longed for at the completion of a sprint or project.
6 Dimensions of Discovery
Gather, document, sort and prioritise our challenges and bright spots across 6 dimensions.
Abstraction Laddering
Reconsider a problem statement by broadening or narrowing its focus
Action steps
Commit the first step towards action
AEIOU Observation Framework
A heuristic framework used for ethnographic observations.
Affinity Mapping
Identify insights, patterns and trends in research and ideas
Agile Agenda
A flexible way to manage the agenda for an in-person workshop.
Agile Health Check
A quick team assessment based on agile manifesto principles
Alternative Worlds
Use different perspectives to generate fresh ideas
Architectural Decision Records (ADR)
Open & Transparent Decision History
Autoscaling
Cloud native applications reacting to demand.
Backcasting / Pre-mortem (Premortem)
Performing a project or product premortem
Backlog Refinement
Understand, prioritise, and clarify items in the backlog to ensure they're ready to work on.
Blameless Postmortem
Turn incident into an investment in future reliability
Blue Green Deployments
Always have a fall back solution
Burndown
Visualisation of work left to do within a specified time period
Business Priorities Exercise
Get alignment on what will drive value and realise goals.
C4 Architecture
Allows for simple layers of abstraction for different components of an architecture design
Canary Release
Exposing a small number of real users to a new version
Candy or Swag?
Demonstrate the value of open organization principles like collaboration and transparency
Celebrating failure
Raise the team's collective awareness of product failure root causes
Change Agenda
Capture and define the strategy changes or shifts that an organization or engagement needs to achieve in order to realize their desired outcomes
Check-ins
Foster deeper connections and belonging with simple questions
Code Review
Also a review on the developer's ego
🧠 Cognitive Loadometer 🌡
A simple tool to measure cognitive load and improve focus
Cohort Analysis
Which group are you in?
Confidence Voting
Gains consensus around a team's agreement or disagreement on the current activity, event or questions
Container
A software package that contains everything the software needs to run.
Continuous Delivery
Automated testing and releasing of software.
Continuous Deployment
Deploying changes more frequently to get faster end-user feedback.
Continuous Integration
Submit small, frequent changes instead of large, infrequent changes
Contract-First Development
Get agreement upfront when creating reusable services
Crazy 8s
A fast sketching exercise to generate solution ideas
Creativity Warmups
Break down mental barriers and stretch creative thought before ideating solutions
Daily Standup
A short time-boxed synchronization of the team activities that occurs in a cadence determined by the team
Dark Launches
Letting a small group of interested users test features before others
Lightning Decision Jam
A workshop to solve any problem, with any amount of people
Defence in Depth
Layering security controls through your application
Definition of Done
Shared knowledge and understanding regarding what it means for a work item to be done by a team
Definition of Ready
Shared knowledge regarding what it means for a work item to be ready to be worked on
Design Retro : Active
Improve the quality and usability of your product design
Design of Experiments
Learn Fast, Move Even Faster
Design Sprint
A five-day process for testing new ideas
Design The Box
From ideas to essential features and outcomes
Disagree and Commit
The key to collaboration: enabling everybody to commit to action, without needing consensus.
Dissent Cards
Create an environment in which people can disagree in a productive way.
Docs As Code
Have the whole team deliver current, useful, documentation using the minimum of effort.
Domain Storytelling
Learn domain language. Talk about requirements. Tell domain stories.
Dominating Forces
Surface risks and issues, identify metrics, and define the impact of strategy execution before it starts.
Double Diamond
A structured approach to tackle challenges in four phases, from exploring to taking focused actions.
Dual Track Delivery
A collaborative practice for developers and designers to build shared understanding in service of outcomes based delivery.
Emotional Journey
How users feel at each stage of the experience
Empathy Mapping
A collaborative tool for gaining insight about humans (customers, users, stakeholders, etc.).
Establish Shared Principles
Principles Over Practices
Event Modeling
To model Event-Driven Software Systems
Tormenta de eventos
Un método rápido e interactivo de descubrir los procesos de negocio.
Event Storming
A rapid, interactive approach to business process discovery and design that yields high quality models
Everything-as-Code
Save everything as code - configuration, infrastructure and pipelines
Example Mapping
Involving stakeholders in defining acceptance criteria
Expand and Contract Pattern
A pattern to help in modernisation and migration projects.
Experience Mapping for Agile
Understand individuals' actual experience through a process, to identify priorities from a new prespective
Feature Toggles
AKA Feature Flags/Bits/Flipping/Controls
Fly on the Wall
A Crowdsourced Approach to Problem Solving
Force Field Analysis - Force Field Map
Understanding change/goals
Formal Relational Contract
Govern highly complex relationships that demand collaboration and flexibility which exist in an ecosystem
Funnel Analysis
Go all the way ... through the funnel
Futurespective
Looking to the future
GEMs
An alternative to OKRs (Objective Key Results) for those that think in experiments
GitOps
If it’s not in Git, it’s not real.
GROW Model for 1-2-1 Coaching
The purpose of coaching is to unlock people's potential to maximise their performance, facilitate personal and professional development . Here's a tool to structure your coaching interaction.
Guerilla Testing
Lean, agile and low-cost method of quickly capturing user feedback
Hackathon
A collaborative event; encouraging teams to come together and build solutions
"Hello, World!" networking event
Say "Hello" to the World and the World will say "Hello" to you!
Heuristic Evaluation
Provide expert review of UX designs
How Might We _____ ?
Turning insights into questions that spur creative solutioning
How-Now-Wow Prioritization (Matrix)
Experiments Prioritization
"I Have a Dream"
Build deeper team relationships
Impact & Effort Prioritization (Matrix)
Prioritization of Experiments
Impact Mapping
An engaging, graphical, strategic planning technique
Iteration (Sprint) Planning
A collaborative meeting, where the Product Owner together with the team define the work and effort required to meet the Iteration (Sprint) goal.
Kanban Picture
The Kanban Picture suggests a "work dynamic" for teams starting with the Kanban Method.
Kanban priorities
Prioritise tasks on the board before daily standup to facilitate better communication and team work
Kanban
Visualized workflow management method to maximize efficiency and become more agile.
Kano Model
Easily visualize and explain the impact and priority of different features
Knowledge Sharing
Share what we know, and what we wish to learn.
Leaders Eat Last
Building Trust Between Leaders and Teams
Lean Canvas
A 1-page business plan template to help you focus on problems, solutions, key metrics and competitive advantages.
Lean Coffee
Democratically generated agendas for more valuable conversations
Lean Inception
how to align people and build the right product via the MVP
Lean UX Workshop
Solve real problems for real users
Lean Value Tree
A simple tool to align people and initiatives across all levels of the business
Lego Labs
Experiment with processes for rapidly developing digital products. Go from problem to prototype with feedback and iterations while building a Colony on Mars (with legos)!
Lightning Talks
Short, highly focused presentations
Limit Work in Progress
Pipes that aren't clogged increase the flow through the system
Manage Flow
Optimize the processing work items
Means to End
Define and communicate Vision, Mission, Strategy, Goals, Tactics & Objectives
Meditation
Generate positive emotions for the team and help to develop an empathetic mindset towards team members
Metrics Based Process Mapping
Map your process in detail and collect key baseline metrics
Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
MVP/ETP - Develop, Get feedback, Repeat
Mob Programming
Like pair programming but with the whole team
Mood Board
Find and share inspiration for solutions, features, and/or design elements
Mood Marbles
A mechanism for gauging team sentiment
Motivation Mapping
Understanding the motivation
Moving Motivators
Uncover what motivates your colleagues and yourself
Network Mapping
Build a network of relationships in your organization or team
Measuring Psychological Safety
How to measure the Psychological Safety in teams and organisations
News Headlines aka Cover Story
From idea to essential product features and outcomes
Non-Functional Requirements Map
A collaborative approach for capturing non-functional requirements
Observability
Handling the unknown unknowns.
Offboarding
Practice destroying and re-creating your applications
One Minute Mindfulness
Calm the mind and body to help team members manage stress levels
Open Decision Framework
How to make transparent, inclusive, and customer-centric decisions
Open Leadership Mindset
A specific fusion of behaviors and mindsets characterizes the next generation of leaders.
Opportunity Solution Tree
Show how your product solutions map back to a desired outcome
Pair Programming
Increasing the knowledge sharing and communication between team members
Parking Lot (Car Park)
A visible area to help track important items, ideas, questions, and issues that may not be important to discuss at the time, but the group does wish to discuss later.
Personal User Manuals
Connecting with colleagues in a deep and meaningful way
Ping-Pong Programming
Where Pair Programming meets TDD
Plan Your Trip
Manage risks by considering the 4Cs: Costs, Consequences, Context, and Choices.
Plus, Minus, Interesting (PMI +-?)
A quick team retrospective, or way to evaluate ideas
Priority Sliders
Facilitate conversations about relative priorities to focus upcoming activities
Proto-Persona
Define your target users
Quote Wall
A collection of quotes or phrases captured from the team that may be motivational, inspiring, or down-right hilarious!
Raison d'être
Defining the teams reason for being
Realtime Retrospective
Getting feedback faster and improving the overall experience of your event.
Relative Sizing
Facilitate conversation and gain shared alignment on sizing of complexity and value
remote:af backlog filter
Identify and action high complexity backlog items in any context.
Retrospectives
Reflect, inspect and adapt ways of working to drive continuous team improvement
Risk Management
Identify potential problems that might occur during the course of your project and identify ways of avoiding them. Risks, which are occurring, will become issues.
Risk Radar
Keep risks in view for effective monitoring and control
ROAM Boards
A Foundational Practice for Risk Management
Rose Chart
Identify knowledge gaps and create learning focus areas for team members
Rose, Thorn, Bud
Understand what's working, what's not, and areas of opportunity
Security checklist
Shift left security by running through a checklist during code review.
Service Blueprint
A business process diagram analyzed from the people perspective.
Service Level Indicators
Quantify the quality of your service
Showcase
An event to demonstrate and show the outputs and outcomes of a team's work over a recent time period
Silent Brainstorming / Brainwriting
Generate greater diversity of ideas and foster inclusivity
Social Contract
Build a constructive, fun team culture
Spaghetti Wall
An always-open space for collaborating on new problems and ideas
Split Testing - A/B Testing
Quantitative testing of two alternative designs to learn which better leads to a specific goal
Split Testing - Multivari Testing
Quantitatively test how multiple factors influence the success of a design
Stakeholder Map
Create a stakeholders map to build a communication plan
Stakeholders Interview
Help identify concrete objectives, targets and main priority areas
Start At The End
Describe what success looks like and use this to define the goal of effort
Start With Why
Connect to your purpose
Stop the World Event
Empower team members to stop everything when they feel engagement is off course
Story Kick-offs
The act of explaining a story to the pair of developers right before they pick it up.
Story RePointing
Improve Story Pointing over time
System Diagram
A method for describing a system at the highest level possible
Systemic Consensing
How to find minimal viable decisions in a group
T2R2 - Talk, type, read, review!
Help everyone be heard, understood, and move to act.
Target Outcomes
Capture and articulate the goals and outcomes a team are striving to deliver
Team Sentiment
Track the mood of a team with visible feedback
Team Workspaces
How to create the right workspace(s) for high-performing teams
Team Success Beacon
Gather team sentiment and observations to incite team discussions
Technical Debt
The cost of reworking quickly implemented solutions
Test automation
Shortening the feedback loop and increasing the quality of code.
Test Driven Development
Improving your software in short development cycles.
The Art Gallery
A collection of doodles that are captured from the team
The Big Picture
A simple workshop for getting shared understanding in a complex space
The Matrix of Principles
A reflection tool to capture how stakeholders understand Deming's 14 Management Principles.
The Theory of Constraints
“Any improvements made anywhere besides the bottleneck are an illusion.”
Threat Modeling
A practice to learn What Could Go Wrong and What Are We Going To Do About It
Tribute Wall
Share and spread feedback to the whole team.
UI Design Workshop
Quickly sketch rough ideas for the user interface.
Usability Testing
Observe and learn from real users
User Story Mapping & Value Slicing
Create lightweight release plans by slicing value out of collections of features
Unicorn, Skunk, Rat (USR)
Ensure your meeting/workshop stays on track
Virtual Office
Identify pre-existing dynamics and build team spirit when forming a new team
Visualisation of Work
Visually represent all aspects of your team's work
Value Stream Mapping
Visual Representation of how Value flows through your system and identify metrics to inform improvement decisions.
Weighted Shortest Job First
Practice for quantitatively assessing and agreeing backlog prioritisation
Westrums Cultural Typology Assessment
Organisational culture bears a predictive relationship with safety and performance
What If...
Lightly challenge rules and norms to spur innovation
Wheel-of-Misfortune
A game that aims to build confidence via simulated outage scenarios.
Where to Start
Solve the problem of choosing properly which product should be treated in a digital transformation journey
Whole Product Plotting
A visual approach for scoping the most important features of a product/service.
Yes! And...
Improvise to create more good ideas, and build strong team work skills.