Category Archives: Agile Culture

LAST Conference 2012 Notes

Posted on August 4, 2012 by

Last week I attended the LAST Conference (Lean, Agile, Systems Thinking) held at Swinburne University.  The LAST Conference is a big departure from the Agile Australia 2012 conference I attended earlier this year.  There was no fanfare, no big build … Continue reading →

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Posted in Agile Culture, Lean Thinking, Lean-Agile, Software Development, Systems Thinking | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Innovation through customer collaboration and feedback

Posted on March 9, 2012 by

Nordstrom is one of USA’s leading fashion specialty retailers and is a Fortune 500 company (2011 – ranked 254).  When I think of a fashion retail company, innovation isn’t the first thing that comes to mind.  So how does a … Continue reading →

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Focus the change on the situation, not people

Posted on August 30, 2011 by

In the book Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard by Chip Heath & Dan Heath, the authors described the results of a study to answer the question: Would people with bigger popcorn buckets eat more at the movie … Continue reading →

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Learning from mistakes – it’s all about continuous improvement

Posted on August 18, 2011 by

Kaizen (改善), Japanese for “improvement”, or “change for the better” refers to philosophy or practices that focus upon continuous improvement of processes. Teams I coach frequently ask me for “best practices”.  Do not assume that “best practices” in previous projects … Continue reading →

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Posted in Agile Adoption, Agile Culture, Leadership, Lean Thinking, Lean-Agile | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

I am an Agile Plumber

Posted on July 10, 2011 by

I am an Agile Plumber – I eliminate waste, remove blockages and increase flow. This week we had an agile workshop to establish some goals and create some epics for next quarter’s release for the agile change team at an … Continue reading →

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Posted in Agile Adoption, Agile Culture, Lean Thinking, Lean-Agile | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

I want to run an agile project

Posted on June 21, 2011 by

This is all too funny!  Whilst the video is intended to be humorous, the pain of the “Agile Guy” maybe all too familiar for some.  Agile changes many things we have become use to over many years – agile questions … Continue reading →

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Posted in Agile Adoption, Agile Culture, Lean-Agile, Project Management | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Don’t collaborate here!

Posted on June 20, 2011 by

I saw a few of these signs posted up around an office site I visited today and was amused by it.  The office cubicles were also very high (‘Dilbert’ cubicles come to mind).  In fact they were high enough that … Continue reading →

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Enlightened trial and error succeeds over the planning of the lone genius

Posted on June 6, 2011 by

“Enlightened trial and error succeeds over the planning of the lone genius” is a quote from a great video demonstrating how teamwork and agile concepts at IDEO is used to successfully deliver innovation and solutions in a non-IT environment in … Continue reading →

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Posted in Agile Culture, Lean-Agile, Management | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Bridging Business and I.T. through Communication and Collaboration

Posted on April 21, 2011 by

How many times have you heard, “that’s what I said, but not what I meant or wanted”?  Too many times I would suspect.  Many symptoms of project issues are related to organizational, collaboration, and communication issues, not technology.  One of … Continue reading →

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Cargo Cult Agile – It’s More Than Just Stand Ups

Posted on March 22, 2011 by

Most people associate daily stand ups or daily Scrums when they think of Agile.  And they are often the first practice that is adopted. I have observed some teams adopt the daily stand ups and a little of other practices … Continue reading →

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Posted in Agile Adoption, Agile Culture, Lean-Agile | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments