Posted by Christophe on March 30, 2009
In this Qcon 2008 presentation, David Anderson presents a brief history of the kanban system through case study reports from teams at Microsoft and Corbis. Kanban acts to limit work-in-progress and focus the team on achieving a continuous flow of value to the customer and innovates on accepted agile management practices by providing an iteration-less process with a regular release cadence.
Posted in David Anderson, Kanban, Videos | Tagged: corbis, David Anderson, Kanban, QCON, work in progress | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christophe on March 27, 2009
The Agile Success Tour in Los Angeles, hosted by RallyDev, was a great event.
Zach Nies and Israel Gat blogged the event already, no need for dup info.
Posted in Event | Tagged: Event, israel gat, rallydev | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christophe on March 17, 2009
High performance depends on the self-organizing capability of teams. Understanding how this works and how to avoid destroying self-organization is a challenge. Until you understand complex adaptive systems and how Toyota works it is difficult to improve team velocity.
Jeff will discuss three core topics:
1. Shock therapy as a strategy for booting up teams.
2. The Cosmic Stopping Problem, otherwise known as the choice uncertainty principle.
3. Punctuated equilibrium – how software systems evolve
Posted in Jeff Sutherland, Scrum, Videos | Tagged: Jeff Sutherland, Scrum, self organization | 1 Comment »
Posted by Christophe on March 16, 2009
The Los Angeles Department of Animal Services runs with a budget shortfall of $400,000.
The voucher system that provided free spaying and neutering services to low-income owners?
Zip. Kaput. Gone.
Savings? $150,00. Nice!
Another piece of information I found today:
With the elimination of the spaying and neutering program, it is estimated that a large number of dogs and cats in the streets will have to be put down, at a cost 4x higher cost.
So voila:
1. take care of problems at the source, don’t fix the symptoms
2. align individuals, teams and departments along value stream goals
3. optimize the whole, not the parts
And for value streams in the government, well, that’s a while different story…
Posted in Lean, Value Stream Mapping | Tagged: government, Lean, Value Stream Mapping, waste | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christophe on March 12, 2009
In this interview at Agile 2008, Pollyanna Pixton tells us that within a culture of trust leaders must stand back and if they don’t then they are hampering and restricting the productivity and the creativity and the innovation of teams. She discusses how leaders can foster a culture of trust and what they must do to get the most out of Agile teams.
Posted in Agile2008, Leadership, Videos | Tagged: Leadership, Pollyana Pixton, trust, Video | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christophe on March 10, 2009
What do Bill Gates, The Beetles and Mozart have in common?
They all super achieved.
Why?
Because they all were born geniuses?
Not necessarily.
Malcolm Gladwell, best-selling author of The Tipping Point and Blink, exposes in his newly released book Outliers: The Story of Success a very different reality.
According to Gladwell, extraordinary success is related to
The bottom line is that practice, practice, practice, and more practice is necessary for high performance.
As a leader, are you creating a framework for repeat practice?
As a team member, are you relentlessly paying your 10,000 hour dues?
Posted in Books, Dilbert, Jokes | Tagged: book, Dilbert, Malcolm Gladwell, success | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Christophe on March 3, 2009
So an agile team strives to work at a sutainable pace.
Great.
It’s even in the agile manifesto -well, on the second page:
“Agile processes promote sustainable development. The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a constant pace indefinitely.“
But what about the managers? and the executive layer?
According to a new book, Elsewhere USA (Dalton Conley), things have dramatically changed in the past few decades:
Excerpt from the book description:
Boundaries between leisure and work, public space and private space, and home and office have blurred and become permeable. How many of us now work from home, our wireless economy allowing and encouraging us to work 24/7? How many of us talk to our children while scrolling through e-mails on our BlackBerrys? How many of us feel overextended, as we are challenged to play multiple roles–worker, boss, parent, spouse, friend, and client–all in the same instant?
Conley shows that the higher the position, the more people feel their work is intangible, pushing them to work longer and longer hours, everywhere, all the time. He doesn’t condemned the practice, but rather tell people to accept and live with it.
So here’s a question:
Given that
Are executives really helping their company when working 24/7?
Posted in Books, Dilbert, Leadership, Productivity, Theory of Constraints | Tagged: book, Dilbert, spare time, sustainability, Theory of Constraints, ToC | 4 Comments »
