My book reading demand is higher than my capability to read them all (too much book reading WIP),
so I love it when other people read and summarize books.
This week, we look at some new practical books and writings.
News
Troy Magennis (@t_magennis) published a new book, “Forecasting and Simulating Software Development Projects”.
It describes optimal WIP limits using Monti-carlo simulation for a board and a backlog of work.
Chapter 2 (Example Modeling Scenario) is currently free. Beta simulation software is available.
Send feedback to @AgileSimulation. http://www.focusedobjective.com/books-and-publications
Joe Dager (@business901) summarized Terri Griffith’s new book, The Plugged-In Manager .
“She discusses an evolution for managers, not a revolution.” Her 3 core practices are:
1. Stop-Look-Listen: What do your data say? What do you already know that will help you with this project?
2. Mixing: How do you balance your available resources?
3. Sharing: How can you achieve better results by integrating your choices with other team members? http://business901.com/blog1/are-your-managers-managing-technology-or/
Official “Kanban - Successful Evolutionary Change for Your Technology Business” Class
with Daniel Vacanti (instructor)
This intensive 2-day Kanban training class provides an introduction to Lean, Pull Systems and Kanban and will explain how established industrial engineering theory can apply to software development process.
This class is based on David J. Anderson’s book “Kanban - Successful Evolutionary Change for Your Technology Business”. Attendees of the class will receive a copy of the new book.
Register today!
Regular price $1,350 per person
EARLY BIRD SPECIAL $995 per person!
Enter Discount code: EBMIAMI
expires Dec 16, 2011
Participants in the class will learn how to use the simple process of limiting work-in-progress as a driver of change. Kanban is a change management method and a different approach to striking agreements between IT and the business.
You’ll learn how to define the policies that constrain the collaborative game of software development. You’ll learn how to use those policies to manage risk and to reset negotiations and recast them as collaborative problem solving.
Used effectively, Kanban will change you and your organization. If your workplace has been stagnating and you are looking for new ideas to unleash productivity, innovation, collaboration and creativity, take 2 days and come along.
What you will learn
Day 1
Kanban Mechanics
- Demand Analysis
- Value-Network Mapping
- Visualization
- Work Item Types
- WIP Limits
- Classes of Service
- Service Level Agreements (SLA)
- Kanban Simulation Game
Day 2
Why Kanban
- Recipe for Success
- Case Studies
- Improvement Opportunities
- Understanding Variation
- Bottleneck Management
- Economic Cost Model for Lean (Waste)
- Metrics
About the presenter
Daniel Vacanti, MBA, was a contributor to and a primary reviewer of David Anderson’s Kanban book. He is a 15 year software industry veteran who specializes in the leading, mentoring, and coaching of teams in agile practices. He has a record of delivering customer valued results working with teams and companies of varying sizes. His emphasis is on the business-appropriate use of technology to help companies achieve their specific financial goals. Daniel has worked with David Anderson for over 10 years and was a Development Manager on some of the earliest kanban implementations with David.
Is this for you?
If you are a software development executive, project manager, development manager, project lead or developer and you would like to learn how Lean, Pull Systems and Kanban can provide a useful perspective to consider the entire value chain beyond the pure software development, this Kanban class is for you!
Location:
Miami, FL, USA
Venue:
DoubleTree by Hilton Grand Hotel Biscayne Bay
1717 North Bayshore Drive, Miami, Florida, United States 33132-1180
Tel: 1-305-372-0313 Fax: 1-305-539-9228
There’s been a flurry of activity in South America and on the kanbandev yahoo group this week and some are noted below.
It’s been challenging to get to all the Kanban articles and discussions popping up everywhere.
If you should come across something worthy of this forum, please call my attention to it.
Using the Mutual Learning Model to achieve Double Loop Learning
by Benjamin Mitchell (@benjaminm) (50 min)
An entertaining video on learning. I like the part about, “The gap is greatest under conditions
of embarrassment or threat.”, where the gap in this case is the difference between what you say and what you do. http://vimeo.com/30599611
An older post by Karen Greaves, Kanban Evolution, resurfaced on twitter this week. While some of the terminology
has since changed (ex: “Balance demand against throughput, has been replaced with “Balance demand against capability”),
it’s still a nice concise overview of the Kanban Method. http://scrumcoaching.wordpress.com/2010/02/13/kanban-evolution/#more-20
Apologies for missing last week’s post. I was completely immersed working with a team in NYC helping them design their first kanban board. Hopefully the extra content will make up for the delay.
An article titled, “Scrum and Kanban: Both the same only different”, by Liz Keogh includes an especially interesting section, “Kanban visualizes what’s happening; Scrum visualizes an ideal.” It points out that with Kanban, a key ingredient is making process policies explicit, so they can be addressed and improved upon. http://lizkeogh.com/2011/11/20/scrum-and-kanban-both-the-same-only-different/
With no videos recorded at the recent Lean Enterprise Software and Systems conference (#LESS2011), we look at some write-ups and summaries posted by attendees. We also take a look at some kanban board design discussions.
News
Hakan Forss’s summary of LESS2011 focused on two of the four main tracks (Complexity & Systems Thinking and Beyond Budgeting). It sounds like Carl Savage’s presentation on “Overcoming Education Inertia” was a winner. http://hakanforss.wordpress.com/tag/less2011/
Alan Shalloway posted his notes from his “Non-Linear Birds of a Feather” session at LESS2011. And, as a bonus he included definitions of the three “M” words: Mura (unevenness of work) causes muri (overburdening of workers) which causes muda (waste). http://www.netobjectives.com/blogs/LESS2011-birds-of-a-feather
That “Birds of a Feather” session led to a series of twitter exchanges regarding kanban board design which then generated some interesting discussions on the topic. http://blog.brodzinski.com/
Lean Software Systems Conference – Boston 2012
Registration for LSSC12 is open. Check it out. The Twitter hashtag is #lssc12 http://lssc12.leanssc.org/
Please contact .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) with questions.
