Lean-Agile in Tough Times In times of economic slowdown, you have many choices to make about how to allocate scarce time and people and money. Is it at all relevant to invest in Lean-Agile software development? Why? What would you say? Alan Shalloway believes it is more important than ever. And it is why he places so much emphasis on Lean for those who need to become more Agile. Focusing on local team efficiency is good... teams become more able to create product with a minimum of wasted effort. But the more important objective - and even more so now - has to be ensuring that the organization is delivering true value to customers as quickly as possible. This requires the entire stream of product creation to working effectively.  The goal is not really to speed up software development. The goal is to speed up delivery of software that customers can use. To be faster now and faster in the future. Perhaps you would call this Enterprise Agility.   I ask Alan to comment on this and on a couple of related questions: In tough times, is it best to start with small pilot projects? Opinions are mixed. Where do assessments fit in the improvement mix? What lessons can we draw from successes and failures that we have seen in the transition to lean-agile? Recommendations - Online Resources The TOWS Matrix - Going beyond SWOT Analysis (MindTools) Recommendations - Training by Net Objectives Lean Software Development for Management Music used in this podcast “Pizzaman” and “Chocolate” ©2006 William Cushman: ghostnotes.blogspot.com For more information, contact info@netobjectives.com or visit us at https://www.netobjectives.com/ Blog Type: PodcastLog in or register to post comments

Lean-Agile in Tough Times

Discussions of all aspects of applying lean and agile methods for effective software development: lean product development, agile analysis, design patterns, test-driven development. A series of podcasts by Net Objectives.

Technology

Tech News

Podcasting

Gadgets

Software How-To

The Six Lean Transitions that Got Us to Where We Are At a recent meeting, Al Shalloway discussed the six key transitions in Lean that has led to where we are in the application of Lean to software development. We found it very helpful in understanding where we have come from, the advantages that each phase offered as well as the challenges inherent in them that needed to be addressed. Looking back helps to get a good perspective of how we got where we are and it helps in thinking about what may lie ahead. Al suggests there have been six major transitions or phases: Lean Manufacturing, Lean Thinking, Lean Product Development, Lean Software Development, Lean Flow, and Lean-Agile Software Development (the current state of the art). We can now say that for an approach to be Lean and useful to software development, it must include the following: Systems thinking, using management to improve system, attending to quality, emphasizing just in time, attending to time, attending to how people learn, driving from value, and maximizing feedback. Here is a book to help you go deeper: Lean-Agile Software Development: Achieving Enterprise Agility You can use the forums on the Net Objectives Portal to ask questions about the webinar. Music used in this podcast: “And So It Begins” and “Easy Lemon” by Kevin MacLeod © Incompetech Inc. Blog Type: PodcastLog in or register to post comments

The Six Lean Transitions that Got Us to Where We Are

Acceptance Test-Driven Development: A Quick Introduction Ken Pugh and Jim Trott talk about ATDD: who is involved and who leads the effort, what is involved in writing acceptance tests, how ATDD compares with regular "analysis" you have done in the past, how ATDD compares with TDD, and the language of Acceptance Tests. Ken describes why he is so passionate about ATDD and the tangible benefits he has seen with his customers. They wrap up with some practical ways you can learn more about ATDD and what Ken has in store next. Here are helpful resources to learn more: Articles about ATDD White Papers on ATDD Ken Pugh's Book: Lean-Agile Acceptance Test-Driven Development, Better Software Through Collaboration, www.acceptancetestdrivendevelopment.com Music used in this podcast: “And So It Begins” and “Easy Lemon” by Kevin MacLeod © Incompetech Inc. Blog Type: PodcastLog in or register to post comments

Acceptance Test-Driven Development: A Quick Introduction

Bringing Your Internal Coaching to the Next Level Steve Thomas and Jim Trott talk about internal coaching in Lean-Agile transformations: why coaches are needed, what is involved, the difference between internal and external coaches, who makes good coaches, can manager make good coaches, how to develop internal coaches, coaching as a career, and metrics to use. This topic had a lot of interest and we could only cover some of the many questions we received. For more information, go to www.NetObjectives.com and search for "coaching academy" or use the forums on portal.netobjectives.com to ask questions.  Note, you will have to register on the portal to do so. Music used in this podcast: “And So It Begins” and “Easy Lemon” by Kevin MacLeod © Incompetech Inc. Blog Type: Podcast   Transcript Introduction Steve Thomas and Jim Trott talk about internal coaching in Lean-Agile transformations. View Full Transcript Jim Trott: It's October 18th, 2016, this show Bringing Your Internal Coaching to the Next Level. [background music] Jim: Hello and welcome to another edition of "Lean Agile Straight Talk," a regular podcast series from Net Objectives. I'm your host, Jim Trott. In this show Steve Thomas discusses what is involved in bringing internal coaching in a lean agile transformation up to the next level. Why coaches are needed? What's involved? The difference between internal and external coaches? Who makes good coaches? What's involved in developing internal coaches using matrics and so on? We had lots of questions from the audience, so clearly this is a topic of interest to many people who are engaged in a lean agile transformation. We need to visit this topic again. Before we get started, I want to remind you that you can explore more about this topic by jumping over to the resources section of www.netobjectives.com. I suggest you search for Coaching Academy. There's a lot of good resources on there about this topic area. At Net Objectives, we're committed to discovering effective software development methods so that we can assist organizations in becoming more successful. We combine our experience to continuously extend the capability of what is possible in creating effective software development organizations. We provide these approaches to our clients and the community in general so that we can assist people in achieving their goals in making their organizations more successful. We'd welcome the chance to work with you. We're always learning and invite you to join in. Visit us at www.netobjectives.com. Please subscribe to the Lean Agile Straight Talk Podcast on iTunes and rate the show. That really helps. Let's keep the conversation going. Today's presenter is Steve Thomas. Steve is a certified Scrum Master and product owner, and an Agile and Lean coach. He is an experienced facilitator of Agile transformations in large organizations and in all phases of the software development life cycle. In addition, he has been a CMMI authorized instructor. One of Steve's passions is to work with cross functional teams, managers and organizations to establish work environments where collaboration blossoms, and productivity and results sharply rise. He brings systems thinking, Lean and Agile principles in a pragmatic outlook to this work. The general topic today is on bringing your internal coaching to the next level. Let me set the stage. Almost all medium to large size organizations that are trying to make a Lean or Agile transformation must develop an internal coaching capability. Relying on external coaches is just too expensive and it's not tuned enough to the needs of the organization. Organizations have a clear need to leverage some of their internal talent and people to coach the organization through the transition and into the next stage of transformation. In most transformation journeys, we're going to start with bringing in some trainers or coaches to help the organization understand the basics. Once the transformation journey's

Bringing Your Internal Coaching to the Next Level

Skills that Developers Need to Acquire to Achieve an Agile Transformation Amir Kolsky, Rob Neppel, and Jim Trott talk about eight essential skills that developers need to acquire to work in an Agile transformation. Some of these skills are certainly taught in university; some are not as common... but are still essential. These are essential for any professional developer. The essential skills are: Programming. The programmer needs to know how to program. The act of taking a design and implementing it in a language and environment. Design. Creating a good Object-Oriented design based on design patterns. Depends on understanding the specification. The challenge in Agile is that the specification is always changing. You need to know how to create emergent design. TDD helps here. Refactoring. Pre-factoring (before you make changes to the code) and Post-factoring on legacy code to deal with the code smells. Analysis: Domain analysis and technical analysis. Working with stakeholders to understanding the specifications and to create specifications up front on what is necessary. ATDD is essential here. Communication is critical here because developers are actively engaged in every aspect of the process. ATDD and TDD helps to facilitate communication. Testing. This can be learned from the testers in the organization. Estimation. DevOps. Looking further down the value stream, extending the definition of done into deployment. Continuous Intergration is just the start of this. Process Improvement. This is a discipline that the entire team must embrace.. You can use the forums on the Net Objectives Portal to ask questions about the webinar.  Note, you will have to register on the portal to do so. Music used in this podcast: “And So It Begins” and “Easy Lemon” by Kevin MacLeod © Incompetech Inc. Blog Type: Podcast   Transcript Introduction In this show Amir Kolsky, Rob Neppel, and I talk about the eight essential skills that developers need to acquire in order to achieve an Agile transformation. Now, some of these skills are certainly taught in university and some are not as common, but they're all essential. They're essential for any professional developer to have. View Full Transcript Jim Trott:  It's September 27, 2016. This show, "Skills That Developers Need to Acquire to Achieve an Agile Transformation." [background music] Jim:  Hello and welcome to another edition of "Lean‑Agile Straight Talk," a regular podcast series from Net Objectives. I'm your host, Jim Trott. In this show Amir Kolsky, Rob Neppel, and I talk about the eight essential skills that developers need to acquire in order to achieve an Agile transformation. Now, some of these skills are certainly taught in university and some are not as common, but they're all essential. They're essential for any professional developer to have. In the course of this podcast, Amir Kolsky will describe these eight skills and I think it would be helpful to list them out right at the start just so they're fresh in your mind. Here are the eight skills that Amir says all developers need to know. First of all, how to program. How to design, creating a good object‑oriented design based on design patterns, emergent design. Refactoring, both before you start to make changes and dealing with legacy code to reduce code smells. Analysis, both domain analysis and technical analysis, and effective communication. Testing, one of those great skills that we can learn from our testers in our organization. Estimation, DevOps looking further down the value stream extending the definition of done into deployment, and the discipline of process improvement. Rob and Amir are going to talk a lot more about all of these in the podcast. Before we get started, I want to remind you that you can explore more about this topic by jumping over to the resources section of www.netobjectives.com or going to our portal, portal.netobjectives.com. At Net Objectives, we're committed to discovering effective software devel

Skills that Developers Need to Acquire to Achieve an Agile Transformation

Start Stronger, Get Better, and Do More: A Conversation with James Sutton and Marc Danziger James Sutton, Marc Danziger, and Jim Trott talk about transformation, systems thinking, the borders that Agile erects that can inhibit scaling, coaching, and why Lean thinking requires you to start with understanding the existing culture. Jim Sutton summarizes this as "Start Stronger, Get Better, and Do More." Start Stronger involves "how to start with much-better value candidates"; Get Better focuses on how to walk into a transformation; and Do More is the Lean principle of Perfection. This comes from their long experience with Lean, systems, and helping organizations and programs both large and small scale and succeed. With Lean thinking and Agile practices. Because the reality is that Agile transitions do not always scale up. As Jim Sutton says, success in a little thing does not mean you will have success just by doing more and more of that little thing. Scale requires more approaches, different kinds of thinking. At first, I wondered if this would seem a little academic. But, as we got into it, it became apparent how helpful this is, especially to someone who is having to coach a transition in an organization. There is a lot to think about. You can use the forums on the Net Objectives Portal to ask questions about the webinar.  Note, you will have to register on the portal to do so. Music used in this podcast: “And So It Begins” and “Easy Lemon” by Kevin MacLeod © Incompetech Inc. Blog Type: Podcast   Transcript Introduction In this show, Jim Sutton, Marc Danziger, and I talk about transformation, systems thinking, the borders that Agile erects that can inhibit scaling, coaching and why Lean thinking requires you to start with understanding the existing culture. View Full Transcript Jim Trott:  It's September 8th, 2016. This show, "Start Stronger, Get Better, and Do More", with Jim Sutton and Marc Danziger. [background music] Jim:  Hello. Welcome to another addition of "Lean‑Agile Straight Talk", our regular podcast series from Net Objectives. I'm your host, Jim Trott. In this show, Jim Sutton, Marc Danziger, and I talk about transformation, systems thinking, the borders that Agile erects that can inhibit scaling, coaching and why Lean thinking requires you to start with understanding the existing culture. Jim Sutton summarizes this as, "Start Stronger, Get Better, and Do More." What he means is Start stronger ‑‑ how to start with much better value candidates. Getting better focuses on how to walk into a transformation. Do more is the Lean principle of perfection. This comes from their long experience with Lean systems thinking and helping organizations and programs, both large and small, scale and succeed with Lean thinking and Agile practices, because the reality is that Agile transitions do not always scale up. As Jim Sutton says, "Success in a little thing does not mean that you will have success just by doing more and more of that little thing. Scale requires more approaches, different kinds of thinking." At first, I wondered if this would seem a little academic, but as we got into it, it became apparent how helpful this is, especially for someone who is having to coach a transition in an organization. There's just a lot to think about. Before we get started, I want to remind you that you can explore more about this topic by jumping over to the resources section of www.netobjectives.com, or go into our new portal, portal.netobjectives.com. At Net Objectives we're committed to discover effective software development methods, so that we can assist organizations in becoming more successful. We combine our experience to continuously extend the capability of what is possible in creating effective software development organizations. We provide these approaches to our clients and the community in general so that we can assist people in achieving their goals and making their organizations more successful. We welcome the chance t

Lean-Agile in Tough Times

Download our free app to listen on your phone