According to a recent Forrester presentation, Lean is the way to promote BPM. One statistic that surprised me from that is that Agile, while the most common method for delivering BPM initiatives, still comprises only 34% of the approaches. Also surprising is that 20% still rely on Waterfall. Forrester suggests all should use agile. I …
Amazing Adventures of Kanban
OK, I couldn't stop laughing at Jon Miller's post taking a creative look at the 60 year history of Kanban. It is as instructive as it is funny. To get a flavor, here's an excerpt: Kanban Gains Superpowers Pokayoke has the power to prevent mistakes. Jiodka frees people to run machines intelligently, rather than be …
Ten Practices for Applying Lean Agile to Other Knowledge Work
Dean Leffingwell has a great post up with the above title. His approach and conclusions fit well with my Laws of Agile. Here’s a summary from Dean’s great work which is very practical: He offers that by replacing the word ‘software’ with ‘solutions’ in founding agile principle statements, they can apply broadly to other knowledge …
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Lean, Agile – Kanban, Scrum
David Anderson at Agile Management has two new blog posts that got me thinking. The first is How to Start with Kanban which lays out how to implement Kanban for software development in 10 easy steps (I like its simplicity.) The second is Blogosphere Buzz about Lean & Kanban which is a comprehensive review of …
What Happened at Lean & Kanban
The Lean & Kanban 2009 conference, wrapped up this week and there has been a lot of buzz about it. I like a summary by email from Dean Leffingwell over at The Agile Executive. Among Dean’s takeaways on the conference are: I obviously think Lean Software will be big. It will be to the enterprise …
Gartner Says Most Organizations Lack All the Skills Needed to Implement and Optimize Their Business Processes
While this article is not new, its title caught my eye while doing some other research. Quite a bold statement from Gartner. I wonder why there's not the typical 80% chance by 2010 parenthetical? I do agree with the extract: “Successful BPM requires an agile iterative approach to process change. Many internal IT organizations and …
Testing for Agility
I endorse a post by Dean Leffingewell on evaluating enterprise agility. In it he explains three key test areas: Variable Scope. Fixed Quality Incremental Value Delivery Empowerment and Accountability I am going to get picky here, so read the rest at your own discretion... Perhaps, I'd rearrange the sub bullets under different main headings. For …
Agile Development is so Old Fashioned
The functioning principles of Agile (and process improvement more broadly) can be found in lean manufacturing and six sigma. These concepts date back to just after World War II and include error proofing, eliminating waste, creating flow, adding customer value, and empowering workers. If you are interested in deeper understanding I suggest reading the above links and: …
Agile Development on Wikipedia
The great thing about Wikipedia is that you can make it say anything you want (at least for awhile.) So, I did it. Their definition of Agile Development now matches mine. As I've commented before, given the reach of this page, the content on it was disappointing. I gave the page a pretty good scrub. …
Development Kanban
David Anderson thoughts on Kanban from Agile 2007 summarizes his approach in 4 bullet points for success: Focus on Quality (fourth law of development) Reduce or Limit Work in Progress (what's wrong with pushing) Balance Demand against Throughput (first law of development) Prioritize I think these simple statements help focus on how the principles of …
Horizon Line Group 