Every Lean practitioner goes through a phase of “waste elimination frenzy”. At least the ones I’ve met. Ah, well…. I did at least. This usually happen in the beginning of your Lean journey when you realize that if you can remove waste the flow would be improved and value will be created faster and more effective.

Now we go out on a hunt to find that pesky waste. Kill it! Off with it head! We search for it high and low. “This is wasteful - let’s stop it!”, “This report is that really adding value… I think it’s waste”, “Why should have this meeting/function/role/process? WASTE!”

I think this is where many Lean initiatives goes wrong. We’re so focused on removing things instead of adding value. It’s savings, reduction and removals where it should be improvements, values and focus on people.

From time to time I see people myself try to define...

I added this line in a README file for one application I’m writing now. Like I have done before many times. However, for the longest time I have written my tests first, maybe not TDD or even unit tests, but I write the test first. Most of the times.

But not this time. Because I was in a hurry and I didn’t think that this application would be something we’d use.

And of course we ended up using it. And creates a financial record and prints a receipt. It’s kinda of important that it’s correct.

It just struck me:

• how much harder it is to write the tests afterwards
• how much I change in my production code, that wasn’t in place, when I go through it and test it
• how much more boring it is to write the tests afterward
• how easy and tempting it...

At my current “client” we have been employing a lot of activities to increase the number of customer we serve per day. I’ve blogged about this before. Now it turns out that we have succeeded. The customers are pouring in. And the staff finds themselves with much more work than they have experienced in about 5 years. Yesterday was our best day so far and it was amazing to see the difference from a normal day;

• Everyone was moving fast - compared to sitting around waiting
• Everyone was focused - compared to not really knowing what to do
• Everyone was excited - compared to disillusioned and bored
• Everyone was tired after the day - compared to feeling tired of boredom

In the daily morning meeting the day after (today) we saw that people were tired and thought it was very stressful yesterday....

To many of my colleagues and friends, writing a book is at the top of the dream list or life goals. I have been very fortunate to have done that, but quite honestly I never even dreamt that I would do it. Or that someone thought that what I had to say was interesting enough to read it. Maybe I should have realized that after 500,000 views on this blog but still…

Okay, something really strange has now happened. I have been published again. The book is called Architect book, which is even more strange, since I don’t consider myself an architect. At least not on the levels that this book is about.

I was invited to write a chapter about Specification By Example about a year ago. That was a very busy time of my life since I was finishing up Read More

Here in Indonesia most companies and organizations have some kind of uniform or at least very strict dress code. For example where I work, the Salvation Army, we have Salvation Army uniform on Mondays and Tuesdays, a set batik shirt on Wednesdays, “pick your own batik” on Thursdays and training clothes on Fridays.

Here’s a collage for you to feast your eyes on be scared by; showing some of those shirts:

I must say… most of these shirts I’ve found really silly and ugly. The don’t sit right on me. I feel awkward.

Let me show you another uniform:

What kind of circus-uniforms am I looking at?! I would never put that on. I’d feel like a magician from the 60-ies.

Finally let show you a picture:

Read More

If I don’t write this down, I will forget it before the end of the day. That right there was the reason I started my blog, ca 900 posts ago.

A couple of days ago, I was, again, creating a big diagram on a whiteboard. This particular one was pretty high and a lot of data points had to go into it. It turned out to be hard and messy to both update and read. I have done this so many times that I’ve lost count. I never found a great solution. I don’t want to use a small A3 report because I want everyone to see it. And I don’t want to print a big A1 sheet every day because it’s too expensive. And I don’t want to use a projector because this needs to be physical and tangible. And in front of...

By Ben Currington, used under Creative Commons

Have you ever tried to lift a piano?

If you have, I bet you’ve had the same experience as me; you go up to the piano, take a good hold, and… nothing. It’s like it’s bolted to the floor, or something (oddly enough, my exact words the first time I tried to lift a piano).

This is impossible. We will never make it. But you get one more guy and then you make another try. Maybe if someone could just slide a mat underneath… And you try again. 1…2…3… and… IT MOVED!

Right there!

That split second is my favorite feeling in the whole world. Trying really hard and getting the first little sign that your efforts are in the right direction. When IT MOVED!

It, of course, doesn’t only apply to pianos or not even...

“Fry complaining” by Umberto Salvagnin, under Creative Commons

• As agile and lean practitioners, why do we always focus on the negative? “It’s management’s fault”, “This needs to go faster”, “The quality is substandard”, “You don’t use TDD” … tell me when to stop…
• Because that’s where we have “unrealized improvement opportunities”, dummy!
• But it’s not very attractive and makes our “sell” much harder.
• Yeah, but it sucks! So it needs to be improved.
• Is there maybe another way to say that so that the receivers don’t feel that they suck?
• Maybe… but it’s very much up to them. They still suck, are they ready to hear it or not? Also, I’m not actually telling them that they suck, of course. I just tell them that “we’re looking for better”.
• But that means that we’re never satisfied.
• No, exactly! I’m never satisfied.
• Sucks...