How far have we come?

January 30, 2015

A few days back, I said something to my client that apparently many people on Twitter found interesting:

My client, the hospital that I’ve written about many times before, has a big project ahead. We are going to be accredited for quality in all our processes. So… there’s a lot of documentation, implementation, and training to be done.

Nobody really knows how much. We think, from hearing about other projects, that it’s about 6 months and made that our goal. But we haven’t got a clue how much work it is left for us.

Assessing Progress

So I asked them:

How far have we come?

The answer...

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Review: Cucumber for Java

January 30, 2015

Imagine that you want to learn a new technology or tool. Who would you want to learn that from, and how? For me I’d want to sit down and pair program with the creator (not The Creator, but you get what I mean) of the tool, and then someone who has vast experience implementing this and finally someone who knows this tool well on my platform. Preferable all three together.

This book is exactly that. It’s an opportunity for you to learn Cucumber from Aslak Hellesøy (the creator of cucumber), Matt Wynne that has consulted and trained on the tool for a long time and Seb Rose that have build the Java Implementation.

Now, the important thing to remember about Cucumber is that it’s not about the tool. Specification by example (BDD) is first and foremost a communication and collaboration technique that doesn’t really need a...

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Koa and the 'ReferenceError: Promise is not defined.'

January 27, 2015

M: “… hahaha, exactly. And speaking of RT*M, you know what I did yesterday?”

H: “No, but I like it already. Tell me more.”

M: “So I wanted to whip out a fast little Koa site. It’s soo good for those.”

H: “Yeah, I know. You told me like a million times.”

M: “Ok… sorry. Off to the terminal I went and went through the usual steps:”

mkdir newAwesomeApp cd newAwesomeApp git init npm init npm install koa koa-route --save touch app.js

H: “Dude, is this a screen cast or are you going to tell me something interesting already?”

M: “Well hang on for just a few seconds more. I wrote my first simple route, to verify it. And I’m glad I did.”

var app = require("koa"

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How we created the need for an emergency lane

January 27, 2015

In my last post, I discussed practices and policies around emergency lanes. Today, during my visit to my client, I realized that we, ourselves, had created the need for them. The good news is, if we created the need, we can also eliminate it.

Let me explain.

The board at my client’s hospital doesn’t resemble your typical kanban board. However, we identified another need. Although it’s in Indonesian, I’ll guide you through it. Here’s how the board looked a couple of weeks ago:

Old Board

  • The board comprises 4 lanes:
    • The top 2 lanes are for larger projects lasting up to 6 months.
    • The lower 2 lanes, labeled “Perbaikan” or “Improvements,” are for smaller tasks targeted for completion within 2 weeks.
  • Each project includes:
    • A brief project description.
    • “Untuk Besok” (Until Tomorrow) section listing tasks to be completed by the...
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Things I say often: I don't care about efficiency

January 26, 2015

I’ve talked more about effectiveness vs efficiency than you all care about. The reason for this fascination might be that the word is mixed up in Swedish I guess; there’s only one word for these both concepts. Booh… Swedish.

Because the difference is paramount.

In the excellent book the Goal Dr Goldratt puts it like this:

Productivity is meaningless unless you know what your goal is

This is the same thing. I hear many people talking about efficiency, or that we should become both effective and efficient and yes, but all means, become efficient. BUT don’t speak another word about that until we all have a shared view on what the goal is. Without a clear goal - there can be no effectiveness. And then efficiency is pointless, as Dr Goldratt said.

My favorite explanation for the difference of effectiveness and efficiency makes this very clear;

Usian Bolt...

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Emergency lanes - some tips

January 26, 2015

One of the things that first made kanban known and loved was the introduction of emergency lanes. Or at least the lack of fixed scope for a sprint where sudden urgent work items was hard to handle in other methods.

Many kanban boards have an emergency lane. However often I see it abused (or being feared to be abused) and hence it will not be as useful as it could be. It’s a really great tool, both for “product owners” and the team alike. In this post I wanted to share some policies that I’ve found useful to manage emergency-lanes (or equivalent).

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Things I say often: I run on feedback

January 22, 2015

This [thing I say often](https://www.marcusoft.net/tags/#Things I say often) “thing” is quite new and a bit personal. It’s very important for me personally and I hope that you like it.

I’ve had the great, but scary, opportunity to play a couple of times under the late James Watson. For any non-brass-players he’s one of the truly great trumpet players of the world, brought up as a wonder boy in the brass band movement. Later in his career he returned and made the world famous Black Dyke Band into a new being - possibly changing what people thought a brass band could be for ever.

Also - he’s know for being very … direct … even mean sometimes during rehearsals. But I fondly remember a lot of things from the hours I got to spend under his direction.

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Things I say often: I'm into leadership - not management

January 22, 2015

This is just a short one. I don’t know where I picked the thought up, probably from David Marquet or Simon Sinek.

But really I’m so tired about talking about management for organization and teams. Manage. That’s what I do with computer resources, stuff and sheep.

I have higher thoughts for just about every person I ever met. If something these people need a leader. Someone that points, with clarity, towards the better future we are trying to reach, creates an environment where I can feel safe and give room and be challenged to be the best I can be.

I much rather talk about leadership and leading than management and managing. Leadership is what you use on people, management is for your pens or hard disks.

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Make it smaller - some practical experiences

January 21, 2015

One of the “clients” I work with right now is a hospital. We have tried to turn their performance around and they are improving immensely. In fact - I think they will be just fine. I did not think that just 4 months ago.

One of the things that we have talked with the management team about is trying to do smaller things often and act on the feedback we get from that. Nothing new … in software development or other lean practitioners, but in this setting. I hear eyelids popping open everyday.

How does that look? What have we done? Most of the work we have done has not directly with health care to do but rather change management and business in general. Very practical stuff mostly. In this post wanted to share two of our current projects (or Focus areas as we call them) where our approach made...

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Things I say often: NO! This is how you tear off a post-it

January 21, 2015

I’ve said this so often that we even wrote about it in Kanban In Action. It’s not a book about tearing off post-its, but it’s the printed kanban literature with the most geeky sidebar.

Post-its are such an integral part of agile that I’ve often joked the founding members probably own stocks in 3M.

I know embarrassing amounts of information about post-its; how they were accidentally invented, why the color is pale yellow, why the glue is where it is, how to open a pack with one hand, or a knee, etc.

But this simple little trick is something most people I tell it to have not reflected on.

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