These days more and more organizations think they are Agile A couple of years ago when you talked to people about agile a common response "why should we", "it won't work here", or "so this is the new fad? What will come next?" Times have changed. And a sign of the fact that agile is becoming more mainstream is that it being diluted and a common response these days is "but we are already agile!". I want to share a [...]
Background Energizing a kanban system has been an area I've been thinking of lately ( see my lkbe11 talk). One of the key areas of focus is how to expedite handling of exceptions to flow. What are those exceptions? Blocked items as well as "struggling" items that are not making the progress you expected. Identifying what is struggling is a non-trivial task especially in the face of variability, some of it inherent to knowledge discovery processes and unavoidable. I blogged [...]
What is Rightshifting? When I looked at the program for Lean Kanban Benelux 2011 I found a couple of sessions talking about something I wasn't familiar with - RightShifting. Since I had to speak at the same time, I didn't have a chance to go check it out. Come Lean Kanban Central Europe 2011 I saw another session on RightShifting, again a conflict - this time with my Pecha Kucha talk. But I was curious enough to try and check it out, [...]
To Team or not to Team? If you look at the definition of Kanban or Lean, you wouldn't find teams anywhere there. If you look at the Agile Manifesto, you can find "The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams" Scrum is quite clear about the topic (Quoting the Scrum Guide 2011) "Scrum Teams are self-organizing and cross-functional. Self-organizing teams choose how best to accomplish their work, rather than being directed by others outside the team. Cross-functional teams [...]
If you didn't have the chance to see me talk at LSSC11, you can check out the video over at the LimitedWipSociety WIKI. More videos are available to LSSC members - anyone interested in Lean/Kanban/Systems Thinking should seriously consider joining and checking those videos out!
A couple of months ago I ran into Think Testing - a new magazine for testers in israel (published in Hebrew). I found it very interesting, and decided I want to contribute. My article has been published in issue number #3. It tries to provide some insight on the experience of a tester when his organization/team decides to go Agile. (Update: article no longer available in original location so use slideshare now) I also like the design work they are [...]
Interested in what the hell is this flow I'm going to talk about in Agile Israel 2011? Check out this video - in hebrew this time... Secure online registration is now open, and readers of the blog can take advantage of 10 speaker discount coupons I got. use yycom0001 to get the discount. If you use this before March15 you also get a hefty Early bird discount... Offer available while supplies last ;-)
A client I worked with about 2 years ago mentioned that in senior management training, his organization was emphasizing Fair Process as a key tool for enhancing decision quality and team commitment. It sounded interesting, but I didn't have a chance to dive too deep into the concept. Over time, it made more and more sense. What is Fair Process? well quoting http://meatballwiki.org/wiki/FairProcess: FairProcess, or procedural justice, universally requires adherance to three principles: Engagement. Involve individuals in the decisions that involve them. [...]
I was recently interviewed by Joe Dagger from the Business901 blog/podcast. His list of interviewees is impressive, it's an honor to appear there. Anyhow, the podcast went live today at Yeret on Agile and Kanban :: Business901. Some of the topics we spend some serious time on were aspects of Planning, Commitment, Estimation in various Agile/Kanban environments. If you care at all about what I write about here, you will find it interesting I hope... While you're at it check out [...]
Recently, the issue of motivation is permeating our work as agile consultants. And not surprisingly, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink is the main model we're currently excited about. Our resident AgileSparks CST and team coaching expert Danko is leading that charge... Today, while Danko was describing the Autonomy Mastery Purpose (AMP) model in our Agile Forum meeting, I thought of an exercise that can be used to learn and internalize the model. Here it is, [...]