Posts in the Uncategorized Category

    Lean at starbucks (lean without the social side isn’t lean at all)

    The article I’ve clipped from here is a response from John Shook to an article in the Wall Street Journal regarding a Lean transformation effort in it’s early stages at Starbucks.

    But that’s not why I’ve clipped it.

    The aspect of the article I wanted to draw attention to was the emphasis on the social aspects of Lean. As I see more people talking about Lean and Kanban in software engineering environments I wonder – who is owning this process, the team or the coach? As John puts it, who is the scientist?

    Clipped from www.lean.org
    The problem with Taylor’s Scientific Management: Who is the scientist when it comes to process improvement? Scientists must see real work to do science on the work.
    Toyota revolutionized the social dimension of work, respecting workers brains as well as their hands
    By redefining roles, Toyota changed the answer to the question of who is the scientist in scientific management.
    The technical side of lean without the social side isn’t lean at all.Read more at www.lean.org
     
    August 22nd, 2009 in Clog, Uncategorized | No Comments

    Frog thinkers and bicycle thinkers.

    A delightful metaphor that cuts to the heart of systems thinking.

    Thanks to Richard for sharing!

    Clipped from www.richarddurnall.com
    There are two types of thinkers in the world, frog thinkers and bike thinkers
    This to me is the heart of systems thinking Read more at www.richarddurnall.com
     
    August 21st, 2009 in Clog, Uncategorized | No Comments

    As a manager define outputs, not process

    Liz haz written a great post here describing a situation where the deployment team needed to learn for to leverage the development team to achieve a more effective rout out of development into QA and live environments.

    The line that made me smile was -

    Ask for consistent outputs, not consistent processes

    This is a big leap for many managers and senior stake-holders. I worked with a team recently who had been told to do daily stand-up meetings. They were told that each must answer three questions (you know the three, what yesterday, what next and what’s blocking). The teams manager had a team member minute the meeting and send him an e-mail to save time.

    I was asked to have a chat with the team about why they seemed unhappy with this new “agile” approach. The first step was to invite the manager to write a contract in terms of his information requirements and agree that so long as the team could fulfil the contract he would accept their approach.

    A short retrospective later and the team are posting key information on a board for all including the manager to see, the minuting of the meeting has stopped and they have taken back their stand-up whic it turns out they quite liked now it could move faster without minuting.

    So thanks for the reminder Liz and thanks for sharing.

    Clipped from lizkeogh.com

    Ask for consistent outputs, not consistent processes

    Read more at lizkeogh.com
     
    August 20th, 2009 in Clog, Uncategorized | No Comments

    5 wrong reasons to adopt Kanban

    All true!

    I see a significant risk that Kanban becomes a new and exciting way for teams to fail.

    I do believe that there are good reasons to apply a Kanban approach but more on that another day.

    Clipped from www.targetprocess.com

    #1. User Stories Diversity

    #2. Failed Iterations

    #3. Failed Retrospective Meetings

    #4. Shared People / Functional Departments

    #5. Simplicity

    5 Wrong Reasons To Apply Kanban

    Read more at www.targetprocess.com
     
    August 11th, 2009 in Clog, Uncategorized | No Comments

    Scrum meeting late fees

    It’s good to see someone speaking out against this practice.

    Also nice to see Rachel and Tobias chiming in.

    Punishing lateness avoids the root cause and can breed resentment as the team feel that the process is being imposed.

    Clipped from powersoftwo.agileinstitute.com
    In order to deter people from showing up late to their daily “Scrum” or “stand-up” meeting, some teams charge the culprit(s) a fine, or make them do some embarrassing activity (such as singing) for the team. Some teams use the money to buy lunch for the team once a month or so. (If that’s you: Please stop it! You’re rewarding the wrong behavior.)
    Read more at powersoftwo.agileinstitute.com
     
    August 11th, 2009 in Clog, Uncategorized | No Comments

    Tweetboard up and running

    I’m experimenting with tweetboard. Take a look here if you’re interested or follow the link above.

    Drop me a line if you visit, if only to let me know if the thing is working :)

    July 28th, 2009 in Uncategorized | No Comments

    My first open space

    I ran my first open space the other week.

    What is open space?

    For those that haven’t experienced it this is an approach to running meetings or conferences that leaves the agenda open for the participants. The way I have seen this applied is for attendees to do a very short elevator pitch regarding a subject for discussion at the beginning of the day. They then place a card on a large wall plan of the day indicating time slot and location of the session. This free form approach allows for small group discussions to be held in parallel. Throughout the day attendees move from session to session selecting subjects of interest from the board. Sessions tend to be run as open rooms so attendees are free to drift between sessions if they wish.

    With some trepidation I requested that time was put aside in the schedule of my companies quarterly gathering. As you would expect I had some concern that no suggestions would be forth coming and the days schedule would have holes in it. In fact, attendees came up with a wide variety of ideas for discussion and all concerned appeared to enjoy the day.

    If you have considered running an open space either for a local user group or at your place of work I can recommend it highly. I believe that the key to achieving active participation in a work environment is to be clear that sessions are informal, thus minimising prep work, and enable many sessions to run in parallel, enabling small group discussions on niche subjects.

    June 16th, 2009 in Uncategorized | tags: | No Comments