Dependency Ring

The Value

When implementing agile at scale, especially at the beginning of the journey, we often find squads managing a multitude of dependencies in their work, both internal and external. In many environments this is seen as a standard expectation with regards to managing complexity, but when do we take a step back to observe systemic bottlenecks that may arise from the squad design model?

By taking every dependency captured in your digital tool (in this example, Jira) and mapping out the relationships between squads (the coloured arcs in the ring), we can gather insights around:

• Which squads have the most dependencies (largest coloured arc)
• Common dependency patterns (where dependencies converge)
• The complexity of each dependency (are they 1:1 or 1:many?)

With this view, we can start making informed decisions around the current state of the operating model, and identify ways to further optimise squads around value streams.

If you'd like to know how this visualisation could be implemented in your organisation, feel free to contact us!