There are some great blogs in the list that I’m already aware of and a heap more that I’m going to trawl my way through. Let me know if you come across any that are worth a look…

Oh, and the irony of being a non-developer appearing in the list isn’t lost on me either!

Andy asked the audience to put their hands in the air if they had ever read an e-mail from a manager within their business praising the success of a project. 100% of the hands in the audience went into the air. Andy then asked the audience to raise their hands if they had ever received a similar e-mail that was congratulating someone that had tried something bold and risky and had failed. No hands went into the air.

Today I had a conversation with an expert on innovation. He walked me through a very interesting model that he has developed that helps frame the dynamic of innovation within an organisation. He has three dimensions that he walks through, one of them being leadership. He argues that it’s the role of leaders to create a culture that accepts a degree of controlled failure, as it’s these activities that move the organisation forward.

Are we encouraging the right behaviours?…

There are two types of thinkers in the world, frog thinkers and bike thinkers. If we are given the task of optimising the way that a bike works we can take it to pieces and investigate all of the individual components of the bike. We can improve them or rebuild them to improve their efficiency and performance. We can then rebuild the bike and there is a good chance that the overall performance of the bike will be improved. Try to do the same thing with a frog!

Frogs are more complex systems, where modifying each ‘component’ has major effects on the rest of the system. This to me is the heart of systems thinking - not all systems, in fact most systems in my experience, behave like bikes.

I find it interesting to reflect on how this relates to problem solving techniques. We’re often taught to (more…)

The event is going to be held at the Four Seasons Hotel in Sydney on the 15th and 16th October.

If you’re looking for a good reason to come to Australia then this is it! The event promises to be great and I know the organisers are working on a great line-up for the event. Presentation submissions are being called for now; the deadline is early June so get moving. There is also the standard early bird discount.

As a frequent traveler I  should share that there are some great rates available on airfares at the moment, particularly from Europe and the US. And you can all stay at my house, so no excuses! I hope to see you there….

Ross has an interesting history as he has worked as a COO, CIO and CTO prior to becoming a consultant. In my opinion he’s one of the few people in the world that understands the application of Agile and Lean concepts at an executive management level.

In his presentation Ross makes some interesting comparisons between our current IT divisions and the industrial model of production and scale, encouraging us to think of the Detroit of today as our IT Division of the future based on it’s current trajectory.

It makes a nice prelude to a presentation that I’m working on for events later in the year, primarily JAOO in Denmark (October 4-9). I want to look at the background of our organisational structures in IT and then talk about the interesting changes I’m seeing take place. I want to split things into concepts that I’ve seen repeatedly applied and succeed, concepts that are emerging and working well and concepts that are yet to be applied but are tipped to be solutions to outstanding problems. This will give me a platform to talk about concepts like change models, systems thinking, process re-engineering and design, organisational structure, incentivisation, strategy deployment, throughput accounting amongst other ideas.

If you watch Ross’s presentation then let me know what you think…

I’ve changed my mind though. I’m currently running an offshore Agile project for a client, my first delivery gig in a couple of years, and I have to say I’m impressed. I’m working with the client on-site in Melbourne while the rest of the team are based in our office in Beijing.

On first instinct you’d have to guess that the distance would make an Agile process unworkable as it’s an immediate barrier to collaboration. Well, I think the art lies in project selection. You see, we’re working on the re-write of an existing application, which means the team can always use the existing application as a reference.

I’ve learned a lot about how to make offshore projects work over the last couple of years. Here’s a summary…

• Select the right projects to be off-shored.
• Plan to rotate key staff in both directions.
• Invest in collaboration tools (IM, Video Conferencing…)
• Bring the offshore leads on-site for inception.
• Have 2 stand-ups a day (One local. One with the remote team).

One of the key things that I’m learning, and my Lean experience is helping me deal with, is the fact that your buffers need to change in an offshore model. When the team is co-located it’s possible to let the stories get to very low levels as the ability to communicate quickly can always get you moving again. This is harder in an offshore model so we have to give the minimum and maximum levels of stories in each column more thought. We’re currently below our minimum and the developers are traveling so quickly we can’t get back to the right side of comfortable; we’d really like to have a dozen more stories analysed in the backlog to be in our sweet spot.

I have to say that the cost model is compelling. I’m actually for the first time quite worried about the future of on-shore development….

So, what should a good assessment include? I structure my assessments around people, process and technology. Each of these areas can pose their own barriers to change and often present their own challenges to successful adoption.

People

In this category I assess things like the current people capability, the perceived capacity for change, the staff demographics (PM, BA, QA) by roles and the organisational recruitment plans. It’s important to get early line of sight in these areas as it’s important to develop plans to improve skills and change the ratio of roles early.

I recently coached a team that had just started on the early stages of their project. I hadn’t been involved in the inception of the project and I was only there for a few weeks to help them get going. Unfortunately they had planned using their old (more…)

(1) The People Break

The first thing that starts to hurt are the people. A big ‘orrible coach comes in and starts to introduce crazy ideas and people naturally push-back. They will make a lot of noise, some will adapt, others won’t, but the people within the organisation will be the first barrier to change. I’ve never worked on an engagement where we haven’t been able to get through this first challenge. Applying models like the Dreyfus model (of skill acquisition) and other change management approaches improves our chances of being successful at this stage. We have to stick with it - this stage will pass.

(2) The Tools Break

Once the people have settled into the new model, they often start to prefer the improved levels of control and collaboration. The next thing to start to hurt (more…)

Enjoy.