Showing 193 Result(s)

Limiting WIP? Or Containing the Work?

I’ve thought for some time now that WIP limits are a special form of explicit policy – one that is called out specifically because it is a core concept behind kanban systems. That has made be uncomfortable with the third Kanban Thinking heuristic; “Limit (with Policies)”. Limits and policies are a means to an end. What is that end (other …

Agile Central Europe Keynote

I’m really honoured to have been asked to give the closing keynote at this year’s Agile Central Europe conference in Kraków, Poland, 15-16 April 2013. ACE has a strong Kanban theme this year and I am going to ask whether Kanban isn’t just commons sense? Kanban: Isn’t it Just Common Sense? Many problems we are trying to solve in software and product development are …

Heuristics for Building the Right Thing

On Monday I had the privilege of spending the day with some really smart people. Organised by Gojko Adjic, other attendees included Chris Matts, Henrik Kniberg, Mary and Tom Poppendieck, Gabby Benefield, Jeff Patton, Aaron Sanders and Olaf Lewitz. The theme of the day was exploring how we can help organisations not just build the “thing right”, but build the “right thing”. …

Kanban Values, Impacts and Heuristics

A recent thread discussing the values behind kanban on the kanbandev mailing list inspired a couple of great blog posts by Mike Burrows on “Introducing Kanban Through Its Values” and “Kanban: Values Understanding And Purpose“, which have in turn inspired me make some updates to the Kanban Thinking model. The key points for me in Mike’s second post are these. First, …

Three Kanban Reminders

I seem to have had a number of conversations recently which have all had some common themes. The general pattern has been that someone wants to talk about Kanban and let me know how its not working for them in some way. When I enquire further, and dig into the background some more, I’ve found that there are generally 3 things missing …

A Review of Impact Mapping

I mentioned that I had a great conversation with Gojko Adzic at Lean Agile Scotland. During that discussion, Gojko also described a technique he call Impact Mapping. Since then has published a short book on Impact Mapping which I highly recommend. An Impact Map can be thought of as a structured mind map, with the following levels being used to articulate the …

Understanding Change with Cynefin

I have written a number of posts on systemic thinking, which I believe is at the heart of Kanban Thinking. I’m currently referring to systemic thinking, rather than Systems Thinking, in order to try and avoid any confusion with any particular school of thought, of which Systems Thinking could be one. I have also written an number of posts on Cynefin. This …

The Flow Impact

As I wrote yesterday about some upcoming Rallying adventures, I get to work on some exciting projects. A recent one is the “Agile for Business” book which is being put together in an iterative and incremental manner. Bob Gower, who is spearheading the initiative, wrote a blog post last month about the background to the book. One of my contributions …

From Capability to Potential

At Lean Agile Scotland last weekend I was chatting with Gojko Adzic over dinner, and one of the many topics we covered was whether capability was the right word for one of the three impacts I describe as desirable with Kanban Thinking. Earlier this year I described what I meant by capability, but more recently I’ve realised capability is more …

Management Improvement Carnival

I’m honoured to have been asked by John Hunter to host an edition of his Management Improvement Carnival. That means that I get to pick a number of links to posts and articles on relevant topics. Here they are… Agile Fluency One set of posts that caught my eye was on Agile Fluency. The original post by James Shore and …