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.
In a twitter exchange of ideas about kanban board designs - primarily between Pawel Brodzinski and Jabe Bloom, concern was expressed that showing people other peoples’ designs can stifle creativity and cause harm.
Well, it depends. It depends upon the people, the project, the chemistry in the room, and other stuff. People have different learning styles. The creative people may want to start from scratch with their very own design. But the “I’ll know it when I see it” people appreciate the opportunity to learn from others to avoid reinventing the wheel.
I have found that it can be very helpful to show people a variety of board designs and let them judge for themselves how a given design may or may not apply to their work. People understand that these are just examples that have been uniquely tailored for someone else’s use and can be modified without limit. People take what they want and toss the rest.
Kanban’s board design system is a marvel of adaptability. I show many board examples both from development and IT services, as well as from operations. People understand that their ultimate designs are for them and for them alone. There is no standard. There is no best practice. Nothing is cast in concrete. Their designs are meant to be re-designed as their work changes.
Kanban board designs should be uniquely tailored for the current process in use. Board designs, in reality rarely stay the same. They are more likely to change – perhaps even tomorrow, from someone seeing something from another board that looks promising. Often, perhaps usually, it’s a big help to have a starting nudge from an example or two or ten kanban board designs.
“Can the Kanban Method Avoid Becoming another management Fad” by Benjamin Mitchell. Actually, a 60 min video, Benjamin challenges the Kanban method by identifying some gaps and inconsistencies. It is both entertaining and thought provoking. http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Kanban-Management-Fad
The Lean Enterprise Software and Systems conference is underway this week in Stockholm - follow #Less2011. Katherine Kirk’s presentation on “Kanban and the Importance of Equanimity” received the “Best talk of the day” award - no surprise there. Katherine talks about navigating politics and data aversion at the BBC. Unfortunately, none of the presentations are being recorded - slides are supposed to be available next week. http://less2011.leanssc.org/
The Systems Thinking in Action conference is underway in Seattle - follow #stia11. Attendees say the keynote by Katie Salen was amazing and included a multi-player rock paper scissors game with 300+ people. http://www.systemsthinkinginaction.com/
