On a Sunday night a got a mail that asked me to do a presentation tomorrow. New client. Want to put best foot forward. :) So I threw one together and here’s the run down of it. Thinking of recording it and put it up somewhere too. Lean Coffee is a way to hold meetings and gathering that allows for free discussions while still keeping some structure to it. It resembles Open Space Technology but is much easier to set up and run, and often run in small groups. Even thought the concept is called Lean Coffee is suitable for discussing most any subject and topics. Lean Coffee started in Seattle in 2009. Jim Benson and Jeremy Lightsmith first Lean Coffee group has inspired a lot of others around the globe. I’ve taken part in the one in Stockholm LeanKaffeSump quite a few time, but have also run them as...

I have a new coaching assignment at Tradera which is the Swedish branch of Ebay. I’ve been there about 30 hours during the last three years, mostly doing presentations and courses. In a way it feels like I’ve been part in what they have done, but only as a bystander. This gig looks like a lot of fun and I’ve always been impressed by the technical excellence there and the willingness to adopt new things and change. I was thrown right in at the deep end as they were about to reorganize their big team (30-40 people) into 5 smaller teams with particular features to look after. The first thing they wanted help with was some input around HOW to go about organizing this. And make no mistake - they we’re well on their way doing this in a excellent way already. I merely supplied some confirmation and ideas. The good thing...

As always it’s hard to boot up all processes in a new year. The blogging process apparently was down prioritized by my internal product owner. Well - he’ll have to stand back: I’m on it again. For quite some time I have pondered constraints. They fascinates me quite a lot. Especially the ones that we take upon ourselves. In fact: I would go so far as to say that nothing good comes from having no constraints. Let’s go back a bit in my thoughts and see if I can clarify why. In reality this post is just a couple of examples of self-imposed constraints and what good they can have. Toyota and TPS First let’s stop, again, at Toyota. Why did they invent TPS (Toyota Production System)? What drove them there? It’s a quest that they’ve been on since the 50-ies and never will be done with. Put simply; they...

I have a couple of slow weeks before my next assignment starts for real, so as an early Christmas gift Aptitud and I thought that we could give away some presentations for free. Please contact me on marcusoftnet at gmail or @marcusoftnet if you are interested in hearing any of the presentations below. No charge (saved any travel costs outside Stockholm… and the obligatory cup of strong, black coffee) and no strings attached. [UPDATED] I have now booked my calendar to a suitable level (almost full). The response on this post was just overwhelming and I got 7 different gigs including a whole day at one company and a contact in Brasil (!). Might do this again. Longing to be bored again. These are the presentations that I can give with an hours notice: Subject Description Level Duration A practical introduction to Kanban This presentation will give you introduction to Kanban and...

So as I wrote this Friday I have now left Avega Group after 8 great years. Many people asked me what I was up to now and I held the “news” until today to handle one feeling at the time. I also have been keeping this to myself and as quiet as possible out of respect to Avega. There’s nothing drastic going on (yet, he said mysteriously) in what I will be doing day-to-day; still consulting/contracting in lean/agile coaching, with a practical focus. I have a hunch that says that I will be doing more and more around ImpactMapping soon. But where? Where?!, they demanded over and over again. Well here’s the thing that really excites me; I’m going to a small (9 people) consultancy firm called Aptitud. Great people whereof many I know since before. Having met the crew a couple of time I can safely say that this will...

Today is the last day I work for Avega Group. It’s the best place I ever worked at to date. I’ve been there for almost 8 years and see the company grow from 50 people to about 400 people. During this time I’ve learned a lot from a lot of amazing people. I’ve grown as person and in my career to someone that I never thought that I could be. A lot of this has been due to the support Avega and all the people there have given me. To say good bye properly I recorded a little (8 mins) movie with some memories from the Avega office that I will carry with me forever. It’s in Swedish so for all you english people (68% according to Google Analytics) I’m sorry about that, but this one goes out to my colleagues at Avega. Avega - I love you! I've had the time of my...

Today I rode the tram to work and was faced with the barbarian horde of school kids going the other way; to their school. After I had managed not be run down and falling of the tracks from them running towards the closing doors of the train, I got an image in my head. School kids and teacher are excellent examples of command and control vs autonomy in action. In this blog post I’ll contrast the two models of management and see if there’s any similarities with our normal working conditions. Command and control Imagine the whole school going to a boring outing, probably to a place the have been to many times before. To learn stuff that they are not interested in (by now you realize that this is TOTALLY made up - that would NEVER happen in real school. right :)). For a school with, say, 500 pupils organising that...

I've just got my copy of the [Impact Mapping](http://impactmapping.org/book.php). It was long awaited for me and apparently for others too since it went out of stock in a couple of weeks. My own copy was 'hijacked' by a client that read it overnight and started to use Impact Mapping the day after. In this post I'll write down some thought after reading the book from cover to cover. I wanted to do this on Amazon but sadly I cannot since they only accept review from people how bought the book directly from the. Well - this will have to do instead then. I'll hint right now that this would be a 5-star review (to add to the 9 other 5-start reviews that's already on Amazon). ### What is it? Impact mapping is described to great effect at the official site; [www.impactmapping.org](http://www.impactmapping.org/). So here I'll present my own journey up to Impact...

Today I’ve experience a rare thing. I went into a restaurant in Stockholm. It was a new place to me I’ve never been there before, to my knowledge. The restaurant was crowded as it was lunch hours. One by one the queue in front of me disappeared and went out the door again. So I started to realize that something wasn’t right here. Food’s out? Food’s bad? Only veggies left? When I came up to counter to order the man behind the counter let me and then said: “The card machine has not been acting up during the last hours. Let’s see how this goes…” Sure enough - the card machine was broken. I couldn’t pay. So I put my card back into my pocket and turned around to go. Then he said it: “You know what … It doesn’t matter. Take a seat and we’ll bring you your meal...

I had the opportunity to do something exciting yesterday. I was invited by my good friend Tristessa to teach a class on programming for her 13-14-year olds. She teaches at the International School of the Stockholm Region and had introduced them to programming just a couple of weeks before I came. Since the first time I learned TDD I’ve always thought that it’s a bit like thinking like a child; challenging the code, come up with more examples, try to break/understand your code and just being curious. Also - when TDD works it feels much like doing a puzzle - the next piece just comes to you in a nice way, another kid-activity. So I thought I’d try to teach them TDD during an hour and a half. We did the Fizz Buzz kata together and during the class brushed on a number of interesting subjects. They also did somethings during...