901 Blogs: February 2011

Monday, February 28, 2011

Strategic Collaborator’s use of Personal Kanban

Pascal Pinck works as a Strategic Collaborator with individuals and teams who face high levels of uncertainty in their market context. More specifically, he educates and coaches leaders and team members who are working to:

increase performance through agile and lean thinking
improve distributed decision-making and delegation
heighten trust and transparency
build a culture of constant value creation
engage stakeholders to help mitigate risk
turn resilience into competitive advantage

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Pascal was my guest on the podcast to discuss Personal Kanban and as we did I felt like we touched upon on all the areas above. Pascal is an engaging speaker and I think you will find his discussion of these subjects and Personal Kanban quite interesting and entertaining.

About: Personal Kanban is neither a prescription nor a plan. The book provides a light, actionable, achievable framework for understanding our work and its context. This book describes why students, parents, business leaders, major corporations, and world governments all see immediate results with Personal Kanban.

Sunday, February 27, 2011

Why Lean Architecture is needed?

Jim ("Cope") Coplien was my guest on the Business901 podcast. We discussed his new book,Lean Architecture: for Agile Software Development but I found Cope’s view on Lean and Agile quite interesting. His knowledge of the subject goes far beyond the software practices that he writes about. Whether you are in IT or not, I think this podcast really helps in understanding Lean as a methodology and/or culture.

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Cope is a speaker and author whose works range from programming and architecture to ethnography and organizational design. He is a founder of the Software Pattern discipline and of organizational patterns, which in turn were one of the foundations of Scrum. Though he writes for a technical audience, his works focus on the human element of product development. His latest work, "Lean Architecture" is as much about how architecture helps make software usable, as it is about software maintainability on the technical side.

Other books:
Organizational Patterns of Agile Software Development
Advanced C++ Programming Styles and Idioms

Friday, February 25, 2011

In becoming Agile, did we forget about Quality Assurance?

On the Business901 podcast, Software Quality Assurance Podcast with Murali Chemuturi, we discussed Software Quality Assurance and what Murali considers best practice. I found his position quite different from the Agile and Kanban Software people I typically interview. I think most people in the IT field will find it interesting. This is a transcription of the podcast.

Quality Assurance in Software

J. Ross Publishing has recently published three books authored by Murali Chemutur

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Certainty is certainly not creativity.

From the Comments Section:

If the brain looses the ability to do mistakes, it looses the ability to be creative. Creativity is just an another act of brain, an uncertain one. Certainty is certainly not creativity. - - harsha

Albert Einstein would certainly agree. Here are two of his famous quotes:
"Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new."
"The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education." (I bet he thought of learning as a creative process) - Martin

Musician and researcher Charles Limb wondered how the brain works during musical improvisation -- so he put jazz musicians and rappers in an fMRI to find out. What he and his team found has deep implications for our understanding of creativity of all kinds.

Article: urbanitebaltimore.com
Home: Charles Limb at Johns Hopkins

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Coplien on Agile, Lean and Architecture

Jim (“Cope”) Coplien was my guest on the Business901 podcast, Why Architecture is needed even in Agile? We discussed his new book,Lean Architecture: for Agile Software Development but I found Cope’s view on Lean and Agile quite interesting. Even if you listened to the podcast, this transcription is worth a look. His thoughts on “Japanese Lean” are well worth your time.

Why Architecture is needed even in Agile?

Monday, February 21, 2011

Using Agile in Management

This is a transcription of the Business901 Podcast, Should you Manage your Organization with Agile Techniques?. My guest was Steve Denning’s, author of the new book, The Leader’s Guide to Radical Management: Reinventing the Workplace for the 21st Century (Jossey-Bass, 2010).

An excerpt from the podcast:

Joe: Software is more of a knowledge field. And you can understand, because to iterate knowledge is pretty easy. Can you really take it into a broader perspective into an organization?

Stephen: Well, I would say most work has become knowledge work. There are a few little areas where it isn't the case. But I mean, 100 years ago, most work was semi‑skilled work, but basically, you walk into any organization today, most of the work involves knowledge work and even work which doesn't appear to be knowledge work. In fact, the challenge for management is, "How do we turn that into knowledge work?" How do we take the routine parts of that and have it done by machines or computers? And how do we apply the brains and the talent and the energies and the ingenuity and the creativity in these people so that they can make a real contribution to the work?

So overall, I mean, a huge proportion of the work is already knowledge work, and the challenge is to make all of it knowledge work. So this software, in a sense, is pure knowledge work. And it is no surprise then that this would be the area where this emerged most fully because in this area, if you don't manage knowledge work effectively, then nothing happens.

Agile Techniques in Management

Steve is also the author of the award-winning books, The Secret Language of Leadership: How Leaders Inspire Action Through Narrative (J-B US non-Franchise Leadership) and The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling: Mastering the Art and Discipline of Business Narrative. Steve works with organizations in the U.S., Europe, Asia and Australia on leadership, innovation, business narrative and reinventing management. From 1996 to 2000, Steve was the Program Director, Knowledge Management at the World Bank.

Stephen Denning’s website: http://stevedenning.com

Saturday, February 19, 2011

7 Habits, Getting Things Done and now, Personal Kanban

I started practicing and finding Personal Kanban an answer to many years of frustration in looking for a time management system that allowed me to manage it rather it managing me.

How I started with Kanban:

Each year, I take one subject matter that I am going to concentrate on. I started doing it many years ago when a friend of mine told me he took one president every year and read about him. He is getting to an age now that he should be getting close to finishing.

In the latter part of 2009, I had become intrigued by Kanban and how I could use it for managing work flow and especially work in process. Trying to use a Value Stream Mapping process with sales and marketing people was a huge hurdle that I could not get over. The theory of the Kanban was closely related to Value Stream Mapping and through the use of post-it-notes I simply transferred a Value Stream to a Kanban board. I assigned numerous values from a budget perspective to the number of clients/prospects in a pipeline and so on. People seemed to understand that approach must better. As a result, I made Kanban my 2010 project of the year.

I have to admit, I did not get as far with it as I wanted. I was unable to attend a David Anderson workshop or pick-up a Lean Software Kanban client but I was able to learn a great deal about it and further engrained it into my Lean Marketing teachings. In fact, my next book, Marketing with PDCA has a chapter on Kanban.

However, these efforts led me into working with it on a personal level and that is how I became familiar with the Personal Kanban teachings of Jim Benson & Tonianne DeMaria Barry co-authors of Personal Kanban. In fact, the podcast Kanban too simple To be Effective? with Jim Benson led to others.

David Anderson, author of the recent book, Kanban appeared on the Business901 podcast and added 50 minutes of Kanban discussion. David covered a lot of ground in this discussion and answered a lot of questions for me that his book raised. David is a thought leader in managing highly effective software teams. He is President of David J. Anderson & Associates, based in Seattle, Washington, a management consulting firm dedicated to improving leadership in the IT and software development sectors. Related Podcast: Kanban, could we call this podcast anything else?

Bandit Software is the maker of an electronic Kanban tools for Lean Software and Systems development teams called Lean Kit Kanban. Related Podcast: Lean Kanban lessons from a Software Developer

Eric Landes is an Agile Project Manager who has been using Kanban for software development since 2007. He has worked with Scrum, XP and other agile methods for over the past 5 years, and has been managing software projects for over 10 years. Eric has his own blog, Corporate Coder which can be found at http://EricLandes.com. He is also a frequent contributor to http://developer.com. Related Podcast: Scrum + Kanban = Agile Discussion with Landes

Though this was not directly related to Kanban, one of my favorite podcast all year was Creating Flow with Don Reinertsen. Don Reinertsen is president of Reinertsen & Associates, a consulting firm specializing in improving the product development process. I have followed Don’s writing for many years and recognize him as THE leading expert in the field of Flow. His writings are insightful, packed full of information and readable. When editing the podcast, I could not bring myself to cut hardly a word out of it.

Each and everyone gave me a deeper appreciation for Kanban and it has been a great experience. This Tuesday I will have Patty Bielderman of Layers of Love discussing how she uses her Personal Kanban in her Nonprofit and in a grade school classroom. The following week, I will host Pascal Pink and the discussion of his use of PK as a Strategic Collaborator.

Enjoy the Book: Personal Kanban by Jim Benson & Tonianne DeMaria Barry

Related Information:
Kanban Cadence
Marketing Kanban
Marketing Cycle

Friday, February 18, 2011

Moving from Manufacturing to Healthcare thru Lean Six Sigma

This is a transcription of the podcast, Manufacturing to Healthcare, the Tale of a Lean Six Sigma Consultant that I had with Jason Kilgore author of the book, The Elegant Process: The Guide to Enhanced Quality and Reduced Costs. In the book, Jason demonstrates his value-based approach to simultaneously achieving quality and financial goals through process improvement and optimization. The Elegant Process shares Jason’s straightforward method for enhancing quality and reducing costs within any business setting by redesigning the systems that contribute to lackluster results.

Transitioning from Manufacturing to Healthcare

During the podcast, I discovered that in 2008, Jason transitioned to healthcare after 15 successful years in the automotive industry. He became a Business Process Manager for Riverside Health System in Newport News, Virginia, where he has utilized his expertise in Project Management, Lean, and Six Sigma (Black Belt). It made for a great topic as he discussed his transition.

Hope you enjoy!

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Kill the Sales and Marketing Funnel

The Sales and Marketing Funnel is a theory that needs to be laid to rest. A linear approach to predict, plan, and proceed is a precarious way to advance. This approach prematurely foresees a solution for the customer without ever understanding their problem. And if you consider addressing the application of social media, it does nothing to support inbound marketing. As we work our way down the funnel, it is just as likely evidence will mount that the proposed solution is wrong. However, we have so much invested we attempt to sway the course of action in our favor. Linear planning will increase the risk for a customer to engage in an inappropriate course of action.

A more correct way of customer introduction is utilizing a problem solving cycle such as PDCA (Deming/Shewart - Plan/Do/Check/Act Cycle). PDCA should be repeatedly implemented in spirals of increasing knowledge of the customer’s situation and converge towards the correct solution. Each cycle will become closer to this goal than the previous. This approach is based on the belief that both our customer and our knowledge and skills may be limited at the beginning but continuously improving.

It is very common as a customer goes through a decision making process that their minds will change. At the start of a project, key information may not be known. The PDCA provides feedback to justify our hypotheses and increase our knowledge. This allows both the customer and us not to be perfect the first time. It allows us flexibility in our course of action and with improved knowledge, we (also meaning the customer) may choose to refine or alter the needs. The rate of change or the speed of the improvement is a key competitive factor in today's world. PDCA allows for major jumps in performance not through massive breakthroughs but through frequent small improvements.

Another approach recently popularized is the OODA Loop introduced by Colonel John Boyd that describe how combatants observe a situation, orient themselves, decide what to do, and act, before observing the changed situation and moving through the entire loop again. Viewing combat as a series of successive loops underscores the importance of reassessment and readjustment as circumstances change, and the cumulative benefits of many small wins in successive iterations. Boyd’s OODA loop is a vivid example of an iterative loop to guide action under uncertainty and much can be learned from its study.

I am not advocating thinking of your customer in the sense of a combatant as the OODA Loop suggest. However, the strength in the OODA loop is the series of successive loops and small wins that is introduced. Few homeruns are in the market place today. It is more of a singles and doubles game. In fact, few of us can afford the strikeouts and must maintain a high enough batting average to survive.

PDCA is the fundamental concept behind Lean thinking. It is not just a problem solving method but a holistic approach to knowledge creation and improvement within an organization. Establishing a PDCA culture within your company will enable you to embrace this way of thinking with your customers and prospects. It will develop an outside-in approach to your organization that will allow you to really understand your role with customers and in the markets they participate in.

Seldom do you find a competitive advantage or a real break through in a service or product. If you do, it is only short-lived and commoditized rather quickly. The leverage it brings is an influx of innovative customers that are willing to be risk takers, the early adaptors. People that you can learn from and develop new knowledge and new products. PDCA allows for them to enter your cycle of learning easily and allows you to maximize that new knowledge.

The only competitive advantage that you have is in how quickly you develop new knowledge. Maximizing that through the use of PDCA is essential for your business survival.

This is why I believe the Future of Marketing is Lean!

A Future Framework for Understanding your Customers

I think this is an interesting framework that is worth exploring this year. This decision model closely resembles where I think sales and marketing might be headed. Our efforts will not be based on the traditional metrics as we know them now but how our stories, our content is being interpreted by our customers. For example, we will not place them emphasis on traffic to our website but rather the way our content is interacted with and the patterns that are created.

Cynefin, pronounced kuh-nev-in, is a Welsh word that signifies the multiple factors in our environment and our experience that influence us in ways we can never understand. In this video, Dave Snowden introduces the Cynefin Framework with a brief explanation of its origin and evolution and a detailed discussion of its architecture and function.

The Cynefin Framework is central to Cognitive Edge methods and tools. It allows executives to see things from new viewpoints, assimilate complex concepts, and address real-world problems and opportunities. Using the Cynefin framework can help executives sense which context they are in so that they can not only make better decisions but also avoid the problems that arise when their preferred management style causes them to make mistakes.

Monday, February 14, 2011

The Nuts and Bolts of A3 Thinking

Daniel Matthews is an expert trainer with 30 years of training experience including Lean implementation and Training within Industry (TWI). He has spent fourteen of those years with the Toyota Company where he created and made use of the A3 as a core component of continuous quality improvement. Dan is the author of The A3 Workbook: Unlock Your Problem-Solving Mind and presently employed at the Kentucky Manufacturing Assistance Center. Website: http://kmac.org email: dmatthews@kmac.org

Our Podcast discussed A3 thinking and problem solving. With Dan’s vast experience in the subject we were able to dig deep into the subject and talk about his experiences both positive and negative utilizing A3s. It was not about how to develop an A3 culture. It was a nuts and bolts discussion.

Monday, February 7, 2011

Rehearsing your next Sales Call, why not?

At the Serious Play conference, designer Tim Brown talks about the powerful relationship between creative thinking and play -- with many examples you can try at home (and one that maybe you shouldn't).

Tim Brown is the CEO of innovation and design firm IDEO, taking an approach to design that digs deeper than the surface. Having taken over from founder David E. Kelley, Tim Brown carries forward the firm's mission of fusing design, business and social studies to come up with deeply researched, deeply understood designs and ideas -- they call it "design thinking."

One thing that I have been encouraging lately is role playing. Since we have become a service society our product has become us. Have you ever videotaped or just talked into your webcam to see how you looked and sounded? Technology has made it so easy and at practically no cost. The benefits of a rehearsal can make all the difference.

How about role playing an issues they were having with your service team? Getting a few actors from your local college to role play for you could be a lot fun in a training session. Think about developing ways to mimic the problems your customer faces. If nothing else, you could be putting yourself in their shoes – not a bad idea at all!

Friday, February 4, 2011

Software Quality Assurance Podcast with Murali Chemuturi

I took a little different twist this week on the Business901 podcast and interviewed Murali Chemuturi, an information technology and software development subject matter expert, hands-on programmer, author, consultant and trainer. This podcast centered on Software Quality Assurance and what Murali considers best practice. I found his position quite different than the Agile and Kanban Software people I typically interview. I think most people in the IT field will find it interesting.

In 2001, he formed his own IT consulting and software development firm known as Chemuturi Consultants. Chemuturi Consultants help software development organizations achieve their quality and value objectives. The firm provides training in several software engineering and project management topics such as Software Estimation, Test Effort Estimation, Function Point Analysis, and Software Project Management, to name a few. His firm also offers a number of products to aid project managers and software development professionals such as PMPal, a software project management tool; and EstimatorPal, FPAPal & UCPPal, a set of software estimation tools.

J. Ross Publishing has recently published three books authored by Murali Chemuturi:

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Start making effective decision, start with yourself!

Dr. Reldan, “Relly,” Nadler was my guest on the Business901 Podcast, How does your State of Mind alter your Decisions. Our talked centered on leadership and developing the state of mind for making effective decisions. It is interesting what I learned about our mental models and as a result our everyday decisions. This is a transcription of the podcast.

Emotional Intelligence Tools and Strategies for CEOs

Dr. Relly Nadler is interviewed by local ABC channel KEYT InFocus. How do you become a star performer in your organization and lead others to become star teams? What are the major components of emotional intelligence? How does emotional intelligence impact success? Visit http://TrueNorthLeadership.com to learn more.

His newest book, Leading with Emotional Intelligence: Hands-On Strategies for Building Confident and Collaborative Star Performers, gives hands-on solutions to these problems and more.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Making Sense of Social Messiness

I encourage you to sample the first 2 minutes of this podcast. This is a tool-less conversation about social media. We actually started out the podcast with me commenting on the title and yes another book on social media which led to this comment:

Francois: I think a lot of people are like that. I wish we wouldn't have had the subtitle that says it's a competition by leveraging social media, because that's what people think: "Ugh, there's another social media book," and it's so not a social media book, it's really a business book.

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In The Hyper-Social Organization: Eclipse Your Competition by Leveraging Social Media , Francois Goissieaux of Human 1.0 and Ed Moran of Deloitte identify how (and which) social media are fundamentally changing core business processes and the way businesses and customers interact. These changes are being driven by what the authors call the “Hyper-Social Shift.”

An excerpt from the podcast:

I think this study from McKinsey that says that 60 to 80 percent of all buying decisions are made, without anybody from your company being involved and without any person from your company being used. So, they are made by people asking their tribe's members ‑ you know, their friends, their colleagues, experts that they respect and stuff like that, that's how they make their buying decisions. And so, you need to go a step beyond thinking of advertising and start thinking about how can I make, how can I develop content that people who are already making recommendations about my products and services are going to use to make better recommendations.

901 Blogs

Monday, February 28, 2011

Strategic Collaborator’s use of Personal Kanban

Sunday, February 27, 2011

Why Lean Architecture is needed?

Friday, February 25, 2011

In becoming Agile, did we forget about Quality Assurance?

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Certainty is certainly not creativity.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Coplien on Agile, Lean and Architecture

Monday, February 21, 2011

Using Agile in Management

Saturday, February 19, 2011

7 Habits, Getting Things Done and now, Personal Kanban

Friday, February 18, 2011

Moving from Manufacturing to Healthcare thru Lean Six Sigma

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Kill the Sales and Marketing Funnel

A Future Framework for Understanding your Customers

Monday, February 14, 2011

The Nuts and Bolts of A3 Thinking

Monday, February 7, 2011

Rehearsing your next Sales Call, why not?

Friday, February 4, 2011

Software Quality Assurance Podcast with Murali Chemuturi

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Start making effective decision, start with yourself!

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Making Sense of Social Messiness

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