Tom Cargill. Bell Labs.
It sounds a bit funny, yet so many times it’s true. The question is why?
The reason is what I call: “The Waterfall Trap.” Any project, at the moment it starts, uses logic, knowledge, experience and good practices to guess the future. That’s right the plan is at best a very good educated guess.
Waterfall methodologies for software development, or project management turn this guesses into stone. Stones usually called Milestones, Targets or Deadlines.
The funny thing is as time goes by, everyone can see the future more clearly, everyone can guess we won’t make it. But the Waterfall Trap includes a clause of Inflexibility, no target is ever revised, any revision is seen as a failure from the plan. So instead of improving the prediction, the team often goes to a land of overtime, where quality decreases, morale falters and even health suffers. Only when disaster strikes in these circumstances are plans revised, but usually under an unfair banner of targets missed.
The truth is, we can only guess-timate the future. Can you even predict you will be alive tomorrow for sure? Now you can’t! A car could hit you, you may slip down the stairs, etc. So if we can’t predict our own tomorrow, it’s no surprise projects where multiple resources and challenges are involved, are hard to predict. It’s actually rather remarkable that Waterfall projects, or any project with dates set on stone makes it within the 90-90 rule!
The Agile Way however, is quite different, it embraces chaos and unpredictability, through open, sincere communication, it prepares and adjusts for change, and for unexpected problems. It is not against planning, but rather as we move forward in a project it adjusts to reality on the ground. As a consequence it allows the team, our “troops” to work hard, but with strong morale, and good pace, to deliver a quality product.
General Patton once said:
Make your plans to fit the circumstances.
It doesn’t get more Agile than that. Agile planning means intelligent decision making, every step of the way, including revising estimates, and moving the team to victory. An Agile Team should never live the 90-90 rule, they should be close to 100% every time, simply because they acknowledge reality, and plan for it.
Over 16 Years Ago an Ad Agency Imagined the Future for AT&T and It Came True
Albert Eistein said: “Imagination is more powerful than knowledge.”
Few times has this quote been so true as shown by the amazing accuracy of these series of ads, entitled: You Will. Paid for by AT&T they feature the unmistakable voice of Tom Selleck, and with over 90% accuracy of the future, it really amazes me.
It is a future we live today! Tablet computers, iPhone like devices, Internet Tele-conferencing, super-fast Pay Tolls, and more.
As IT, and business people we tend to focus too much in the here and now, and forget the future. But if we could envision that future, we could help to shape it, and perhaps, even make a few dream come true.
Kanban: Fly Different - An Introduction.
Several people have asked me to explain the basics of Kanban’s Agile approach to Software Development. This presentation is a simple, straight forward, fun way to get what Kanban is all about. Feel free to comment on it, or contribute for a future revision.
You can click above to see it, or get the full file here in iWork, I do recommend you use Safari or Firefox for best results.
![More is Less: >=<
One key concept to grasp in any form of goal setting, project management, or actual effort in life is that we should strive to never do more than needed, but have a goal of simple elegance. We must realize that More is Less.
Perhaps one of the best ways to illustrate this principle, it to quote Seth Godin with some comments added by yours truly:
Good enough, for those that seek perfection, is what we call it when it’s sufficient to surpass the standards we’ve set. Anything beyond good enough [MEANING MORE] is called stalling and a waste of time.[ MEANING LESS]
Ultimately, when maturity arrives we will also discover that LESS is MORE. We will eventually notice that if we remove stuff from a project, product or service, and yet keep it elegant, and good, we will reach excellence.
In book writing this comes from editing a 1000 page manuscript to 250 good pages. In software interfaces this means a beautiful, simple UI that even a kid can use. In projects it means simplicity over bloat. One side benefit of this philosophy is that you will have more time to enjoy life!
Image Credits.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lndm0uGNbP1qdkzato1_r3_400.jpg)
More is Less: >=<
One key concept to grasp in any form of goal setting, project management, or actual effort in life is that we should strive to never do more than needed, but have a goal of simple elegance. We must realize that More is Less.
Perhaps one of the best ways to illustrate this principle, it to quote Seth Godin with some comments added by yours truly:
Good enough, for those that seek perfection, is what we call it when it’s sufficient to surpass the standards we’ve set. Anything beyond good enough [MEANING MORE] is called stalling and a waste of time.[ MEANING LESS]
Ultimately, when maturity arrives we will also discover that LESS is MORE. We will eventually notice that if we remove stuff from a project, product or service, and yet keep it elegant, and good, we will reach excellence.
In book writing this comes from editing a 1000 page manuscript to 250 good pages. In software interfaces this means a beautiful, simple UI that even a kid can use. In projects it means simplicity over bloat. One side benefit of this philosophy is that you will have more time to enjoy life!
Image Credits.
Less noise, less “information”, leads to less stress and that equals more peace.
Image Credits: here.
Which is actually one of the main principles of Kanban: Limit Work in Progress. A blog post about this topic will come since it’s also an essential part of HKanban.
However in the meantime this post by Matthias is a good introduction to the subject.
(Source: jhurtado)
Mobile Apps are definite Trend in the world today. Apple annouced this morning, Jan. 22nd. 2011 that they have reached 10 billion app downloads!
Think about it, the App Store opened in July 2008, and in 2 and a half years they reached that milestone. It took the iTunes Music Store almost 7 years to reach that number! People are downloading and buying Apps at an unprecedented speed.
What can we learn from this? First that Apps are here to stay, And second Apps are the new normal, the standard way software will be delivered from now on. Now wonder Steve Jobs put an AppStore on Mac OS X, why? Over 10 billion reasons.
Note: iTunes Store opened in April 28, 2003, and reached 10 Billion songs downloaded on Feb 24 of 2010.
HKanban - A Holistic Approach to Getting Things Done
STANDING ON THE SHOULDERS OF GREAT MEN
Like so many Project Managers and busy professionals I too have discovered that is not just enough to manage other people, or the work at hand, we have to manage our efforts in and out of the office, and daily life can be the biggest challenge of all.
The first author to show us ways to improve our productivity was David Allen, his Getting Things Done book was a landmark that I continue to browse occasionally. However I could not get the system to work for me. I wanted something simpler, but still effective.
Upon discovering the Kanban Method, and especially David J. Anderson’s book on the subject it became clear to me that the principles behind Kanban could be taken beyond software development, or manufacturing into our daily personal life.
Kanban is an Agile Software technique and set of tools that makes work visible by dividing it into individual tasks, and then those tasks are grouped into different stages in time. We have a backlog where all the inventory of stuff to be done is located. A Ready stage where we place the relevant tasks from the backlog, think of it as the list of tasks or projects we believe we can handle in a period of time, usually a week or a month. Secondly we have the Working area where we track the efforts we are doing now, and finally a Done area to archive our success.
Jim Benson, also noticed that Kanban’s division of effort into a logical work flow, from backlog to done, not only helps in software projects, it also helps regular people. It achieves this by reducing complexity, and making work visible. Our brains can not handle unlimited efforts; we have to limit those efforts in time, and in quantity. Kanban calls this Limiting Work in Progress (WIP.) When we limit WIP we suddenly see our work actually move from Ready, to Working to Done fast! We reduce complexity, and life starts to make more sense, we have this wonderful feeling of accomplishment. Jim has written extensively about this, so I won’t go into all the details, but I recommend you check his site: PersonalKanban.com, and yes he will have a book quite soon. By the way Jim, thanks so much for your comments on the first draft of this article.
THE H IN HKANBAN
As you have probably guessed it, the H in HKanban stands for Holistic. I would also call it humane, and human friendly.
HKanban goes beyond simply achieving goals, its main objective is to achieve goals but to do it while keeping your health and well being intact. What’s the point of achieving goals and dreams or being super effective, if we get a heart attack, lose our family or stop enjoying life?
Happy Thanksgiving America!
A time for celebration, family reunion and rest. Why not unplug for a day, reduce your mobile, and computer use and actually enjoy this day with people, in person?
The people at Offlining actually think that is a great idea, and experts say it may help you prevent the Computer Stress Syndrome.
Enjoy the turkey, and be grateful for all the good things you have!
Firesheep - One More Reason to Be Very Careful with Open Wi-Fi
Like most people, I love free WiFi, at Starbucks, the Airport, wherever. However I’ve always been careful about what I do on an open connection. Suddenly now, being careful has become a must.
Firesheep is a Firefox exension that makes it incredibly easy to capture session information from people on an open HTTP connection.
Solution, from now on use HTTPS always, and be very aware of open WiFi, is not as good as you think it is. In case you haven’t heard, HTPPS establishes an encrypted connection between you, and the site you are visiting. But make sure, that connection is continous throughout your connection, and not just for the user / password combination. How do you make sure? Check on the top line in your browser, does it say HTTPS or HTTP. If it is the latter, you are in trouble, a tool like Firesheep on an open network can take your identity in a second. Be careful.
Note: More information and source code from Erick Butler, creator of this plugin here.
Beyond the 3 Project Management Constraints - The Agile Kanban Contribution
Traditionally Project Management has identified three constraints that must be managed to achieve success on any project, namely:
- Time: or the schedule, to meet deadlines and deliver
- Money: our available budget, and financial resources
- Scope: extent of work that has to be performed.
Collectively they are known as the Project Management Triangle, and for decades they have been the focal point for the project manager’s efforts.
Lately however the Project Management Institute (PMI) and Agile Kanban have noticed that this simplistic 3 constraint model is incomplete. PMI today does add three new constraints: Risk, Quality and Resources, while leaving the door open to even more constraints that might be identified (PMBOK 4th. Edition, page 6.)
On this article however, I’d like to focus on Kanban’s contribution to the classical 3 constraint model. One that I believe is sometimes overlooked, because it gets lost in the details of the Kanban Method itself. Although I have not seen these constraints formally identified before, they are fundamental to the Kanban Method and they are present in most documents from different authors.
Luckily any reader familiar with Project Management should be able to follow this discussion, without knowing the Kanban method. However, for those who would like a quick introduction I recommend the following: Dr. Dobbs Introduction to Kanban, the Kanban Definitions by the Limited WIP Society.
In my opinion, Kanban identifies 4 additional key constraints for a project success:
- Value - Mission First
- Flow - Healthy pace
- Focus - Less is More or LWIP
- Waste - Quality by default
On this blog post I will concentrate on the first two.
1. Value - Mission First
“A Kanban System visualizes some unit of value.” Karl Scotland, founding member Lean Software and Systems Consortium.
Unlike other Project Management methods, the Kanban Method emphasizes that we must first identify what is the key value the system must deliver, and then improve on it.
We can see this focus on value at the micro project level on this typical scenarios Kanban ask us to answer: what value does this User Story delivers?, What is the purpose of this Requirement? What do we really need to deliver for this Minimal Marketable Feature to deliver value to the customer?, What is the key value we are delivering in this project?
At the macro level the Kanban Method can evaluate whole departments and even an organization by mapping the value stream and asking: how can we deliver more value? How can we improve from here? How can this department deliver more reliable code? What do we need to do to ensure the customer is satisfied with our customer service? How can we reduce time to market for our key new product? How can we foster innovation at our development department?
Once people, and management start thinking in terms of delivering value, not just for shareholders, but for every person on the organization, value creation in the company grows and a culture of Continuous Improvement (Kaizen) is born.
2. Flow - Healthy Pace
“Are we outraged that work-life balance is considered the pursuit of the soft, lazy and uncommitted?… Are we outraged that overtime working is expected?” David Anderson. Speech at UK Lean Conference, 2009.
Kanban sees Flow, and the optimization of workflow as fundamental to a project success. It optimizes flow by identifying bottlenecks, and using a variety of tools (mostly from the Theory of Constraints) to remove or minimize bottleneck impact.
Some of the tools used to identify bottlenecks are: work flow diagrams, demand analysis, and the Five Focusing Steps from the Theory of Constraints. By using those tools Kanban is able to make continuos improvement to the overall flow of work, and keep progress steady and predictable.
However Kanban does not recommend Flow optimization so high that workers can barely cope, and it strongly discourages over-work. It advocates sustainable pace, and therefore work-life balance. A good Kanban Flow must have slack so that the people who work on the system, can remain productive, healthy and motivated.
Comments, contributions? Do let me know. Next week I will cover the last two constraints.
