Thursday, January 31, 2008
Kanban and Real Options in Dallas
Feb 22nd is the next chance to see me present the kanban approach to software engineering, at the APLN Leadership Summit in Dallas. Chris Matts is presenting Real Options on the same morning and this is great opportunity to see us both on the same day and understand how kanban and real options combine as a very powerful solution for scheduling and prioritization for optimal value delivery.
Please support the APLN by signing up for the conference and coming along to see Chris and I present in Dallas.
Posted by David on 01/31 at 05:19 AM
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APLN Leadership Summit - Dallas Feb
Don't miss the upcoming APLN Dallas Leadership Summit!"Agile Leadership: What is it? How do we do it?"February 21-22, 2008 Radisson Hotel Central, Dallas, TX
Connect with world-class Agile Leaders at the APLN Dallas Leadership Summit. Meet, talk and listen to leaders who have applied agile principles to their business enterprise. Discover how to lead agile in your organization and scale agile development practices. Be a part of one of the fastest growing trends in the technology industry.The APLN Dallas Leadership Summit educates attendees with dynamic presenters such as David Anderson, Chris Matts, Pollyanna Pixton, Todd Little and more. Hear panel discussions with agile leaders from Fortune 500 companies and participate in think tank breakout sessions. Network with agile leaders at breaks and social events.
For more information about the APLN Dallas Leadership Summit, sponsorship opportunities, and to register now visit: http://apln.org/summits.html
Posted by David on 01/31 at 05:09 AM
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Wednesday, January 30, 2008
APLN Seattle - Arlo Belshee
The next APLN (Agile Project Leadership Network) Seattle meeting is this coming Monday, February 4. Arlo Belshee from Portland will be presenting a talk on the fascinating work he is doing. A full description is below. If you attend, you probably will leave with a few more questions about how software projects could be done…
Who: Arlo Belshee
What: Naked Planning – Taking the Open Kimono Principle to one Extreme
When: Monday February 4, 5:30pm - 7:30pm
Where: Avanade Inc. ( 2211 Elliott Avenue, Seattle, WA)
Please RSVP to Dragos Dumitriu (dragosd at avanade dot com). If the door is locked call Dragos (425.260.9283) or David Socha (206.418.8201)
.
More information is at http://apln-seattle.pbwiki.com/.
Description:
What happens if we try to be completely honest and transparent while producing software? What are all the places where we automatically and unintentionally lie to ourselves? How can we be completely honest if we lie to ourselves?
Estimation encourages lying, because people want answers at higher precision than is actually available in the universe. So does cost-benefit analysis, or even detailed benefit-only analysis. Serial processes and iterations stack up more little lies – “we’re going to release the Foo on Wednesday,” “we’ll do Bob’s foo task, and then start Jamie’s task,” “we have some idea how many bugs or other distractions will happen, so we can account for that.” Legacy code causes huge lies – “we believe this code is safe to ship,” and “we’re going to work on task Foo today.”
However, there is a real, legitimate need for planning. Even more, there is a need for prioritization – for choosing the 90% of our great ideas that we are simply not going to do. How do you accomplish this without the lies? Is there any advantage to doing so?
Naked Planning is an attempt to eliminate all the places where we can’t help but lie. It draws strongly from other Kanban and continuous-flow-of-value approaches, using a small number of simple activities performed continuously. These satisfy the needs addressed by the former, self-delusional activities. We seek a ground where intuition guides us in the right direction, and physical constraints guide our intuition.
My current team has been planning naked for about 8 months. It has significantly improved our ability to get control of our legacy code and cooperate with the rest of the company. Naked Planning provides a simple way to empower everyone – from Sales to Dev to Accounting – to do what’s right.
Bio:
Arlo does a little bit of everything, but what he really does is inspire courage. He has gone back and forth several times between management and in-the-trenches development on technically sophisticated products. He challenges every assumption he can find, and helps people learn to change – always and continuously. He has been involved in Agile since 1999. Yet in the middle of that period he worked for 2 years in a rigorous, effective, and pro-people Waterfall development shop. He’s a strong believer in discipline and the agility that comes from it, in punctuated continuity, and in change as the only constant. Don’t do anything he says, but learn why he says it and come up with something better. The best compliment he’s recently received was when a co-worker termed him the Company Jester – because Arlo always has permission to laugh at the King.
Posted by David on 01/30 at 02:02 PM
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