Just heard this quote on a webinar today about Lean and Theory of Constraints. I found it fascinating and challenging. Tell me your thoughts in the comments: “Kanban is an admission of failure to achieve one-piece flow”
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The Mechanics of Flow: You don’t have to be the fastest to beat the fastest.
In the past year I watched the Amazon series Patriot. From a plot perspective, the show is about an American agent who takes on a “non-official cover” with a pipe company to prevent a nuclear threat. At a deeper level, the show is about the complications of flow, mentioned several times as the simplicity of …
Continue reading “The Mechanics of Flow: You don’t have to be the fastest to beat the fastest.”
The iceberg in the glass: Two views of Agile, and what they say about your team.
If a team’s initial response to Scrum is that it’s restrictive, prescriptive, and high-overhead, consider this the tip of the iceberg floating above the water.
Counter-pitching freelance gigs as Agile engagements
A recent discussion in one of my tech forums turned to a question of how to price yourself when you’ve been approached about freelance development gigs. Much good information was shared on topics including new developers getting their first paying gig, race and minority status in the job market, the temptations that lead to undervaluing …
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On Good Coworkers & Business Humility
“What makes a good coworker in tech? What makes a bad one?” I saw these two questions posted in a coding forum today as part of JC Smiley’s daily questions, which he then reposts with the answers to his LinkedIn feed. If you’re getting started in development, you should follow him. “What traits or actions …
A Root Cause Retrospective
My goal with this Retrospective is a format allowing teams to break down a few specific issues into constituent parts, look for themes in root cause analysis, and take actions to prevent the recurrence of those factors. Some specific choices about the Retrospective, and why I made these choices: A. This Retrospective serves as an …
Expressing Pain
One theme on my mind right now is the proper expression and treatment of “Pain” as a core part of Scrum Agile working as intended. Schwaber and Sutherland said they promise one thing only from Scrum, everything else is a nice side benefit. Scrum will show you all of your problems. In order for that …
“No amount of calculation or technique can rival the power of clearly understanding the fundamental nature of the problem”
Asynchronous Agile 5:
Typical Approaches to Solving for Time What are the ways we typically try to resolve time problems? There is the appeal to work ethic. Bob, in sales: “Come on guys, work your magic!” This assumes that all the resources in the process are already under-utilized, and by appealing to one resource (the people), they will …
Asynchronous Agile 4:
Temporal Distribution Thus we arrive at temporal distribution. Because humans are so bound by time, we do a poor job of considering it. We are fish, rarely contemplating the water. We frequently and easily think of distributing objects (everyone on this floor needs paperclips), knowledge (all the new developers need training), and people (one person …
The Agile Couch 