NetObjectives blogs

Chapter 1: A Developer's Guide to Lean Software Development

jim.trott@netobjectives.com — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:39:22 -0600

Chapter 1: A Developer's Guide to Lean Software Development This show continues a chapter by chapter discussion about the new book, Lean-Agile Software Development: Achieving Enterprise Agility, by Alan Shalloway, Guy Beaver, and Jim Trott. This show focuses on Chapter 1, An Agile Developer's Guide to Lean Software Development. The key question is, if Lean's goal is to focus on...

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The 5 whys of Lean as an answer to the But of Scrum

jim.trott@netobjectives.com — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 11:36:59 -0600

In this blog I discuss the need to get to the root cause of why so many teams are not having success with Scrum. Merely saying management is not removing impediments or labeling it "Scrum but" does not give much indications as to what or where the problems are. The question is "why does this happen and what can we do about it?" I will suggest one of Lean's problem solving...

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Complex Adaptive Systems Redux

jim.trott@netobjectives.com — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 09:00:00 -0600

This is a variant of a post I recently made to the Lean-Agile user group. On the group there has been a lot of talk about the apparent disconnect or conflict between Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) and Lean-thinking. Complex adaptive systms are diverse and made up of multiple interconnected elements (and so are a part of network science) and adaptive in that they have the capacity to change and...

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An Overview of Two New Books

jim.trott@netobjectives.com — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 13:40:06 -0600

An Overview of Two New Books In this show, we give overviews of two new books by Net Objectives which we think you will find helpful: The Lean-Agile Pocket Guide for Scrum Teams and another is Lean-Agile Software Development: Achieving Enterprise Agility. We talk through both of these books: their motivation, their contents, why they are useful. In the next podcast, we will talk about the key...

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Learning to Manage What Matters – Not Always Intuitive

jim.trott@netobjectives.com — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 17:55:53 -0600

The Intuitive Solution – Not Necessarily Correct If there is one established measure of business success it is return on investment (ROI). ROI is the mantra of business. If you are a business executive and establish a high ROI for a sustained period of time – you are golden. ROI is easy to calculate – it is a measure of your profits (revenue-less expenses) divided by your expenses. ROI can...

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The Difference Between "Inspect and Adapt" and Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA)

jim.trott@netobjectives.com — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 08:42:14 -0600

In our book, Lean-Agile Software Development: Achieving Enterprise and Team Agility, we mention that the "inspect and adapt" is not the same thing as Plan-Do-Check-Act. Yes, they sound the same, but they are manifestations of different causality models. To fully understand the differences in inspect and adapt and PDCA, we must look at these causality models (which we will do shortly)....

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Types of Processes - by Don Reinertsen

jim.trott@netobjectives.com — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 05:49:53 -0600

In May 2009, there were some discussions on the Kanban Dev group about types of processes. The dialog that resulted is an important part of the Lean thought process and I thought it'd be useful to reproduce that here. The discussion on the quality and pressure thread pressed me into thinking deeper on what I consider an important issue - can effective software development be defined. I had...

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Pragmatic Lean

jim.trott@netobjectives.com — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 04:19:50 -0600

I am writing this blog to create a better context for my current blog series on Lean. As CEO of a company that helps other companies transition to becoming more effective in their software development efforts I am mostly interested in helping companies achieve enterprise agility. Enterprise agility is the ability to be agile at the enterprise level. That is, when a quick response is needed, the...

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An Overview of Lean Software Development

jim.trott@netobjectives.com — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 04:36:16 -0600

In starting out this series of blogs on Lean I intended to go through the sequence I feel is best for people to understand what Lean Software Development is. However, after having started this I realized a quick overview - to create a road map would be best. Some of this re-thinking is also because I believe I can turn this series into a short book I believe I'll call Lean Software...

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The Dangers of Complex Adaptive Systems

jim.trott@netobjectives.com — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 09:10:48 -0600

There has been some talk about CAS systems in software. My own experience (albeit limited and I am wanting to learn more) is that CAS is mostly useful at the team level. I believe there are some dangers at higher levels in most organizations. Furthermore, I tend to view CAS as a good explanation of things - but not necessarily a good predictive model. In other words, can you use CAS as a model...

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The Foundations of Lean (and Kanban)

jim.trott@netobjectives.com — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 13:54:03 -0600

I hadn't meant to imply that the page or two on the essence of Lean of my earlier post covered the scope of Lean. In this blog, I'll talk about two foundations of Lean - systems thinking and respecting people. This will open the door for follow up blogs on Lean-Management and Lean-Learning (continuous process improvement).Systemic Thinking and Respecting People. I like George Box's...

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The Essence of Lean (and Kanban)

jim.trott@netobjectives.com — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 14:21:06 -0600

There is a lot of buzz about Kanban these days. There seems to be an equal confusion about what it is. Since Kanban for Software Engineering is really Lean applied to software, I am going to make the two synonymous for the purposes of this blog. I am going to refer to Lean throughout this article. I provide the alternative title because I think the essence of Kanban is the same as the essence...

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Comparing Scrum to Lean - Not Quite Apples to Oranges

jim.trott@netobjectives.com — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 00:58:58 -0600

There have been several posts from those in the Scrum community (Ron Jeffries, Tobias Meyer, to name two) that say it is folly to compare Scrum and Lean/Kanban. The supposition is that they are different tools and therefore you can’t say one is better than another. Apples to oranges they say. I don’t agree. The odd theory is that they are different tools in your tool box. I say “odd theory”...

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A New Series

jim.trott@netobjectives.com — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 16:04:39 -0600

A New Series This podcast kicks off a new series for Lean Agile Straight Talk. We have been busy finishing several books focused on Lean-Agile. One is called the Lean-Agile Pocket Guide for Scrum Teams and another is Lean-Agile Software Development: Achieving Enterprise Agility. We are proud of both of these books and wanted to introduce them to you. In this show, Alan Shalloway and I talk...

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Mid-Management in the Lean-Agile Enterprise: Competencies Required

jim.trott@netobjectives.com — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 15:54:04 -0600

There are many catch-phrases and metaphors used in the Agile space to try to define the role of management [1]. Examples include "servant-leader", "Chickens not Pigs", facilitator, motivator, etc. After all, the notion of "self-organization" can easily be construed to mean no management required. Many Agile practitioners handle this dilemma by focusing on traits of...

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Creativity, Art, Software and Process

jim.trott@netobjectives.com — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 08:37:17 -0600

I was recently surprised when someone said I had said software is not creative. I was surprised because I can’t imagine myself ever saying that. On reflection, I realized I had said software is not like art. But I meant that it is not like art because art does not have a particular customer nor does it need to follow particular rules. Art speaks to whoever it speaks to. It comes from the...

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Lean is more than a set of tools

jim.trott@netobjectives.com — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 18:11:19 -0600

I hear a lot of people talking about Lean as if it were just a set of tools. I also hear a lot of people saying it doesn't make any sense to try to contrast Scrum and Lean. If you believe the first, you will likely believe the second. This blog is an attempt to show how Lean has a set of tools, but isn't just a set of tools. By tools, in our case, I mean the practices with which to...

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Software Quality and Daily Life

jim.trott@netobjectives.com — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 10:58:29 -0600

I recently had to install a driver for a network printer in my home. This is, I would say, a pretty commonplace thing to do in modern life. I don't want to suggest that what happened was limited to a particular vendor, so we'll leave the company name out… however, it is one of the most prominent and successful printer companies in the world. Not some little podunk knock-off, in other...

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The Case for One-Piece Flow (Part 3/3)

jim.trott@netobjectives.com — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 14:58:15 -0600

Part 3: Managing Enterprise Agility In parts 1 and 2 of this series, we discussed how the principles of queuing theory and capacity utilization suggest that keeping people busy actually works against minimizing cycle time. When applied to software development organizations, we begin to see how having too many projects underway unintentionally hides wasteful activity. In part 3, we pull together...

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Is Part of the Agile Community Acting Like the Waterfall Community of Old?

jim.trott@netobjectives.com — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 09:04:24 -0600

When I started writing this blog I had one answer to the question it presents, but after having written it, I have another. I will say that my initial answer was "yes, it feels similar." You'll have to wait until the end to get my current answer. I have spent the last few months trying to explain why Kanban works to people who have mostly done Scrum. I'll admit that I have...

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Carnival of Agilists

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Kaizen and Lean Manufacturing thoughts | Gemba Panta Rei

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VersionOne - Agile Software Development - DSDM, Scrum & XP Project Management Software

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