Facilitating the Workshop

Purpose: a facilitator’s role is to guide a group toward shared understanding, decision-making, or problem-solving.

Style of Delivery: facilitation is interactive, encouraging active participation, discussion, and group dynamics.

Content: in facilitation, the content often evolves based on group input and collaborative activities.

Tools and Techniques: facilitators use tools like brainstorming exercises, group activities, whiteboards, or even timeboxing techniques to keep participants engaged.

Role of the Audience: in facilitation, the audience plays an active role, engaging in discussions and shaping outcomes.

Outcome: facilitation is more about collaboration, achieve consensus, or making decisions as a group.

Duration

Most WSJF Workshops can be completed in 2-4 hours. If the backlog is very lengthy, or complexity demands, it may require multiple sessions.

Presenting the Process

1. Introduction
   • What is WSJF?
   • Why is prioritization important in Agile?
2. The WSJF formula
   • Cost of Delay (CoD)
   • Job size (duration)
   • Formula: WSJF = CoD/Job size
3. Application
   • Identifying high-value features or tasks
   • Balancing effort against payoff across projects
4. Benefits
   • Faster delivery of high-impact work
   • Improved alignment on business goals
5. Example Scenarios
   • Use real-world or hypothetical examples to illustrate WSJF in action
6. Implementation Tips
   • Tools or frameworks (like SAFe boards)
   • Common challenges and how to overcome them
7. Q & A or Interactive Exercise
   • Let your audience practice using the WSJF formula

Example Board

Common Anti-Patterns

1. Ignoring relative estimation: using absolute values for cost of delay instead of relative estimation can spew prioritization and make comparisons difficult.
2. Overemphasis on one factor: focusing too much on one element of cost of delay while neglecting others like time criticality or risk reduction.
3. Static prioritization: not updating WSJF scores regularly based on changing circumstances and new information can lead to outdated priorities.
4. Misinterpreting job duration: misestimating job duration either by over or underestimating can result in incorrect WSJF scores and poor prioritization.
5. Ignoring sunk costs: calculating in sunk costs when calculating WSJF, which goes against Lean principles and can lead to inefficient prioritization.
6. Lack of collaboration: not involving the entire team in the WSJF process can lead to biased prioritization and lack of buy-in from team members.
7. Complexity over simplicity: making the WSJF calculation overly complex which can deter teams from using it effectively.