Monday, August 02, 2010

Problems with DZone RefCard

[I’m updating this blog entry to reflect unfolding events…]

Today DZone published a Kanban RefCard written by Janice Linden-Reed based on 3 chapters of my book and as such it carries my name as co-author. The document was a draft that had no review or copy edit. DZone chose to publish this draft despite the fact that they knew there was a revised edited and reviewed copy just one day away (and available to them today Monday August 2nd.) I reviewed the document on Thursday and heavily red-lined it and took the opportunity to clarify terms and language used and to make some updates to reflect how I currently teach Kanban and present it at conferences.

Hence, the document currently available for download has a number of inaccuracies, some older material and uses some words and terms that are likely to confuse the reader. It is therefore currently not in a good state to be representative of good guidance on “Getting Started with Kanban.” This is no criticism of Janice and her work. As all of us who write know, writing a succinct articulate technical document is incredibly challenging and requires several edit passes and peer reviews. Any first draft is bound to have issues. It’s unfortunate that this draft leaked out, and I had to use my name and position within the community to discredit what DZone had published. Had DZone been more willing to work with us and remove the offending content while it was reviewed none of this would have been necessary, nor would it be public. I, therefore, apologize to Janice if I’ve made her look bad as a result.

After some difficult discussions on the phone and exchanges via public online forum, and back channel discussions through my network within the Agile community, DZone have agreed an edit process to fix the issues. Once this process is complete I will communicate to the community that the Kanban RefCard from DZone is good and available for download. Meanwhile, if you have downloaded it, I’d ask that you discard it, or if you find some elements of it confusing please ignore it and wait for the revised version.

Meanwhile, I am reconsidering my request to DZone to remove the document completely. Currently, I have not authorized publication and am withholding my copyright on the material. I will discuss this with legal counsel later today. If I choose to refuse DZone copyright permission for the document, I will find another way of publishing the content as there does appear to be demand for a succinct handy guide to Kanban such as the RefCard.