Kanban and Visual Management Kanban is a lean method for identifying and managing the work and the flow, and it does so by creating a pull through environment. We will start by identifying the work we need to do. Each work item we need to do will end up on an individual card. The cards […]
In preparation for our trip to Eindhoven University of Technology to lecture on Configuration Management, we provide a brief excerpt on the evolution of the horseless cariage. Traditionally new market segments open due to the need to solve a problem. Such problems may be real as in the case of the environmental crisis solved by […]
Career; of Motorcycles and Trucks This blog continues from my last post describing the first part of my career. We continue with the tire pressure monitoring system. In those days, and for many years before that, my preferred form of transport was motorcycle. I had an accident a few years before taking this job that […]
My Career I have been very fortunate in my career, and that really means very lucky. Upon graduating from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, I had two job offers after sending my resume to more than 100 companies. That is not a very good yield, but it would be good enough. I selected […]
Value, Scope and Change Requests Change requests are part of any development project. Change requests are sometimes necessary as we learn by building and doing the work. In my experience, change requests often are born from requirements we thought we understood, only to learn by working with the product or system that we really did […]
Value Business is predicated on providing value to the customer, but it does not end there. The business itself needs to see value in the work, so this is really a value chain that is only as strong as the weakest link. If the value to the customer is too low or not existing, no […]
Queuing Theory Queuing theory is the study of waiting lines and is associated with business in determining resources needed to achieve service business throughput objectives, but it does not just apply to services and material handling. Queuing Theory and Billable Hours I have worked at companies that had a target for billable hours, that well […]
What does not work -duration Besides wasting time planning out many months into the future as if we could see and control that far ahead, there have been studies over the years that have established an inverse correlation between the length of time a project runs and project success rate. Perhaps this does not sound […]
Variation! Though sometimes we may refuse to recognize it, the world is a full of variation, even in the things we think or believe are constant. For example, my wife has been known to say, “you always do…” or “you never do…”, to which I retort, I am human and I am not that repeatable. […]
Estimating and Business Case Our last post explored the abuses of estimates. I thought it best to recognize the abuses, thinking acknowledging these thoughts from the no estimate crowd, may make them amenable to a discussion of how other see the problem and perhaps, eventually, a movement toward a solution that all find acceptable. Individuals […]