Archive for the ‘Visual Management’ Category

Multitasking game from Alan Cyment

no comments | Posted on Wednesday, January 25th, 2012 | Read more articles about 'Agile, Games, Sustainable Pace, Visual Management'

In the agile world we have a few exercises to show the effects of multi tasking.

Last year I when I did a personal agility workshop with Gerry Kirk, he teached me a new one. He learned it from Alan Cyment

It became my favorite exercise about MT.

We divide the  group in two. The two parts are standing in a row facing each other.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We do 3 exercises in multiple ways.

 

  1. a complex hand exchange (like in a child song)
  2. Count from 1 till 10 with your partner using your fingers. (Person 1: shows 1 finger, then person : 2 fingers, person 1 shows 3 fingers…)
  3. “sing” a song. Person 1 says one word and then her partner says the second word and then again person 1.

The first round we do the exercise in sequence. First exercise 1, then exercise 2, then exercise 3.  What makes this exercises harder is that for each exercise you have a different partner. So after you have finished exercise 1, one row shifts one position to the left. (and the first person moves to the last position.) And the same again after you have finished exercise 2.

In the second round, people start the first exercise and when the leader says so, the group switches to exercise 2 or 3. Now this is when it becomes interesting as people have to remember where they were and they have to find their new partner and remember at what part of that exercise they where.

This exercise reminds most participants about their worklife. Always changing priorities, finding partners back. Before you can do a small task, the priorities have changed again.

One of the interesting things about this exercise, is that everytime I did this, in the first round all 3 exercises are finished in less time then finishing the first exercise in round 2.

So switching priorities does no help, not even to give the impression that things move faster.

 

Yves

 

 

 

 

ATQ: Visual Management, the monday answers

no comments | Posted on Monday, January 2nd, 2012 | Read more articles about 'Quiz, Visual Management'

Here are Xaviers answers for his Agile Thursday Quiz on Visual Management

What is Visual Management about?

C. Work and workflows

E. Signs and signals

 

What are the benefits of Visual Management?

A. Creates transparency and trust

D. Exposes lazy and useless people

E. Enables people to decide what they have to do next


Which of these are desireable attributes of your taskboard?

A. It should be clear and simple

C. It should be in a public space

D. It should be comprehensible by random people

E. It should be clean and tidy


What are the drawbacks of Visual Management?

A. It kills trees

B. It does not work well with distributed teams

D. It cannot be used by the blind

F. It is not suitable for highly regulated environments

 

You can learn more Xaviers blog about Visual Management

Gemba Panta Rei blogs about Visual Management from a different point of view
Visual Management is an important part of Kanban so check out David Andersons book on Kanban

I personally also like Personal Kanban and use Visual Management in my personal life.

While we wait for Xavier to write the book about Visual management, here is a list of a few books that are related:

Agile Thursday Quiz: Visual Management

3 comments | Posted on Thursday, December 29th, 2011 | Read more articles about 'Quiz, Visual Management'

This weeks ATQ is coming from my friend Xavier Quesada. I thought I understood Visual Management, and then I started working with Xavier.

 

1) What is Visual Management about?

A. Drawings and pictures

B. Mind maps

C. Work and workflows

D. Arrows, boxes, and other shapes

E. Signs and signals

F. Graphs and charts

 

2) What are the benefits of Visual Management?

A. Creates transparency and trust

B. Spawns higher quality work

C. Enables command and control

D. Exposes lazy and useless people

E. Enables people to decide what they have to do next

F. Exposes projects behind schedule

3) Which of these are desirable attributes of your taskboard?

A. It should be clear and simple

B. It should be as big as possible

C. It should be in a public space

D. It should be comprehensible by random people

E. It should be clean and tidy

F. It should capture and show as much information as possible

4) What are the drawbacks of Visual Management?

A. It kills trees

B. It does not work well with distributed teams

C. It works well only in startups and small organizations

D. It cannot be used by the blind

E. Traditional management doesn’t like it

F. It is not suitable for highly regulated environments

Why I think you should publish your e-books on the amazon website…

3 comments | Posted on Thursday, November 10th, 2011 | Read more articles about 'Reading, Visual Management'

dear author, publisher, readers

I read a lot of books. I always have.

September 2010 I bought my first kindle. In less then a year, after reading 45 books, I prefer reading on a kindle. And not just because of the screen. Even more about the whole reading experience.

Let me tell you a little story to tell you how far this goes:

A few months ago I started reading Continuous Delivery on the train in the hard copy version. In less then 10 pages I realized I did not like reading this version. I turned on my kindle and ordered the digital version. Less then a minute later I was again reading, but now on my kindle. Yep that is how I buy new books these days, on a train in the middle of nowhere, miles away from my computer.

I know that lots of publishers don’t like the way amazon treats them. To avoid working with amazon, they offer their electronic books on their website. Because they know people like reading on a kindle, they offer them also in the kindle format. From their point of view, problem solved.

I’m sorry that does not work for me. Let me clarify that. I’m sorry for your lost sales.

I think it’s time to talk about the reader point of view, I will give you a few examples on how the e-books experience is different for me then reading dead-tree books.

Ordering

old books:  I order a book when I heard about it and I thought it would be a good one to read. The book sit on my stack ToRead, together with tons of others. Sometimes a book is out-dated before I even started, sometimes I’m no longer interested in the topic because I moved on professionally (most technical development books would go in that category)

kindle books: When I hear about a book, I send the sample to my kindle. I put it in the category ToRead (it now contains +200 books). When I pick up my kindle to read, I first finish the book I am currently reading. If I don’t have energy for that one, I go to my category Reading, (that has a WIP limit of 6) and I pick another book to read.

If the Reading category contains less then 6 books and I have energy for none of them, I browse my ToRead category and pick up a sample. I start reading the sample. When I finish the sample book and the books fits my current interest and energy level, I buy the book from my kindle. & I continue reading. Even when I am at home, I don’t go to my computer to buy a book.  If I would go to a computer (or similar device) the chance is pretty high I end up reading my e-mail, twitterfeed or anything else that keeps me from reading a book.

Notes:

Old books: Most of the books I am reading, are business books. In an old book I would write notes on pages, I would underline stuff. That works fine in old books. Some people don’t like it as it “destroys” the book. I don’t mind, a book is a tool, it’s not sacred for me. Sometimes I add a dog-ear as a visual management tool to find an note back. That only works if I look in to the correct book. (Finding the correct book can take a long time…)

Kindle books: With my kindle (V3), I first select the text, then I start typing. I have to admit, using the small keyboard with his limited default characters took me a while to get used to. Now I love it.
Why?

  1. I can read it. I have a horrible handwriting and when I take notes in a sidebar with little place, it usually got worse.
  2. I can find it! I can search in my kindle for comments over all the books I have. No need to remember what book I read something in.
  3. I can share it! I have the choice to record my comments local or share it on the internet. This creates a total new experience. Other people react to what I wrote and I get a much deeper understanding of the topic. (the author is no longer the sole source of knowledge)
  4. With every public comment I make publicity for the book (it does not matter if I like the book or not). For me these kind of comments are recommendations on speed.
    Sharing comments on the internet does not work when I buy a kindle book outside amazon. So not only you have a high chance of missing out my sale, if you do get my sale, you miss out my referrals.

 

Do you now buy more or less books?
Yves you said you know have +200 books in your ToRead list. Does this not mean you buy less books then before?

Interesting question. The answer is both yes and no.
Yes: I don’t buy books anymore I won’t read.
No as I now don’t doubt anymore before I adding a book to my ToRead list. (in other words this list is longer as the books I would buy before (my kindle) ready to be picked up to read)
This has a significant influence on publishers statistics: books that are only bought for show, won’t show up. So in kindle stats you will only see books that are actually read (at least if people buy kindle books like I do, which I think they do.)
That was a nice consultancy answer, can’t you give me hard numbers?
You are right, we change artists always think that there is more then 1 truth.
You ask for hard numbers, well I have + 45 books in my Read category. I’m pretty sure I never bought 45 hard copy books in one year for myself.

 

If you are an author please talk to your publisher about uploading your books to amazon.

Update: I got a remark in a personal e-mail that the author did not have time to put into comments. That author said I was supporting amazon’ monopoly. And it was reducing competition.
I don’t think it is a monopoly, I think that Amazon is creating more competition, but at a different level. Dean Wesley posted a nice blog post today claiming that traditional publishers make more money with digital books then with paper books.

+ I want to stress that I ask for publisher to ALSO publish on the amazon site. Not for not publishing on other places.

 

yves

Slides of my surprise talk at ALE2011 (The Agile & Lean Mindset

2 comments | Posted on Saturday, September 10th, 2011 | Read more articles about 'Agile, ALE, Children, Diversity, Iterations, mindset, Slides, Visual Management, WorkLifeBalance'
The agilemindset v5

Using kinect wih a agile wallboard

no comments | Posted on Friday, August 26th, 2011 | Read more articles about 'Daily Standup, Estimations, Self-organizing teams, Visual Management'

This is a cool video on how to use a kinect with your wallboards.

Now as you know I am not a big fan of electronic boards, but with tools like this, you have the best of boths words.
Check out their website for more: atlss.in/kinect-wallboards

When will you implement this?

My ideas:

  • use this in combination with a real (paper) task board
  • use QR codes to recognise the stories.
  • Use this with a projector.
  • Use this in the teamroom to have people make changes while sitting down (wild idea that needs more thoughts..)

Agh I really want to try this out

Agile bookreading

6 comments | Posted on Thursday, June 9th, 2011 | Read more articles about 'Agile, Coaching, mindset, Reading, Visual Management, WorkLifeBalance'

As an agile coach I try to apply agile principles to a lot of parts of my life.
One of these places is reading books.
As you can see on my libarything or my kindle read page, I read a lot of books.
95% of these books are non-fiction.

I love reading and I also love my time.
When I read a book and I don’t have the right state of mind for that book. I stop reading it. Then I select another book that has a better match with my mood.

To do this with dead-tree books, I needed at least 3 books in my backpack.
And a few dozens at home. To be able to select what I want to read when I started reading a new book, I bought almost every book that interests me immediatly.

The problem with this, is that it costs me a lot of money at a moment I did not have time for a book. In lean we would call this inventory.
This invenory becomes waste when a new version of the book comes out before I have read it. (I have at least 10 books like that in my library)
Its even worse when a I loose interest in a book before I read it.
This happens (a lot) when it’s a book about a technology that I no longer use.

When I bought my kindle I changed my buying pattern. My kindle offers me the opportunity to buy a book whereever I am. And I have the book, in less then a minute on my kindle.

To keep track of the books I want to read, I download the sample of the book.
I have at this point 194 sample books on my kindle. I know because I add them to a category “ToRead”.
When I want to start to read a new book, I read the sample book. If it is what I want to read, I buy the book and add it to a category “Reading”. (I remove the sample book at that time.)
When I have read the book, I add it to a categoy “Read”.

The effect is that I never buy books anymore that I don’t read.
Except for the books that don’t exist on kindle. Yes I still buy some of those, but unfortunately for these authors, I don’t read them. [hint hint]

Although this looks bad for the book business, I don’t think it is. I actually read a lot more books then before. And books that I have read are books that I recommend. (OK only if I like them ;-) )

Now I don’t only limit the number of books I ‘m buying, because I have a category with books I’m reading, I am reminded about the other books I am reading.
When I want to read something else, I have more chance of restarting one I already started.
Because it is visual I now try to limit myself to reading 6 books at the same time.

Let’s recap what agile idea’s I’m using to read more books:

- Reducing waste
- Limit read/books in progress
- Stop starting, start stopping
- Visual Management

Shared Vision

5 comments | Posted on Saturday, May 14th, 2011 | Read more articles about 'BootCamp, Daily Standup, Diversity, mindset, Retrospective, TheCoreProtocols, Visual Management'

Shared-Vision

 

 

 

 

 

 

In every book about teamwork, software management, etc you will read the same, great teams have a shared vision.
My idea of a shared vision is different from what you will find in most books. These books talk about creating a shared vision statement. For me a shared vision is a state, not a statement.

Yes creating a statement together is one way of creating such a shared vision state. I’m afraid that people reading about such a workshop, only think about the visual result (the statement) and try to be efficient and come up with a statement themselves.
No matter how smart you are, no matter if you found the best shared vision statement, you wasted all your time and probably made the life of the team member a lot more miserable. Although I’m not a big footbal expert, my nicest example of a shared vision state is when one player runs along the line with the ball and then passes to the other side, without looking, knowing his colleague is there.

The visions statement of such a team could be as simple as “we will win as much as possible” or even “have fun all the way”. Does this mean the statement does not matter at all? Once a shared vision statement is created it’s most important work is done.
Now it is used to remind the team of the state of shared vision.
While I’m working, I’m completely in a flow going in one direction, and that might not be in the direction of the team. When we have a shared vision statement. This statement will remind me about the vision space I shared with my colleagues.
Getting teams in that space called shared vision is one of the most powerfull ways a coach can help a team.

Jim and Michele McCarthy think a shared vision is so important that they spend 4 days from their 5 days Teamwork Bootcamp on it.  As unbelieveble as its sound, they have found a predictable way to bring teams in a state of shared vision. (Everytime I participated in a bootcamp I saw working. Ok, that is exagerated, everytime except one, and I also know why it did not work that one time.)

Although I think it is the best way. It’s not the only way. You also have Lyssa’s journey lines or the Strategic Play creating a Vision with lego.

 

Agile Practises that support a Shared Vision:

Books & Articles to read

Books recommended by others:

It’s easier to ask for forgiveness then to ask for permission.

2 comments | Posted on Tuesday, May 3rd, 2011 | Read more articles about 'Iterations, mindset, Refactoring, Retrospective, Self-organizing teams, Visual Management'

Related to “Just do it” is this theme. The title is a quote from Grace Murray Hopper one of the amazing IT women (I added a book about her in the booklist at the end.)

A special case of perfectionism is people waiting for permission . Complaining that their bosses take to long to take decisions, or that they are moron’s that don’t take the right decision. Complaining does not help your situation.
Agilists are professionals. Professionals take decisions for their work.

Most perfectionists look for some kind of recognition. For some of them that locks them from starting anything without permission.
In reality most chefs are very happy when people come with solutions instead of problems.
Even happier when they execute things and report on the progress.

Some managers have not enough experience with this kind of behavior. Maybe you are a manager and this idea makes you afraid. What will people think of me as a manager when my people take decisions?
Will they consider me as a good manager?
Hold this thought for a while.
Let’s first focus what this could mean for your time.
- A lot less boring meetings
- A lot more time to do all the things that you are supposed to do. And you know do in the evening.
- You will finally have time to help your boss be successful.

⇒ Imagine you can focus on helping and making your boss successful.

Now go back to that thought you had before.
How will she think of such a manager?
Right, she will want more managers like you!

Do you see a pattern?
A perfectionist boss, creates perfectionist teams.
This is called team==product.

Agile Techniques Supporting “Ask for forgiveness instead of asking for permission”:

  • Retrospectives
  • Self-Organization
  • Refactoring
  • Visual Management
  • Small Iterations
  • Continuous Integration
  • Unit Tests
  • TDD
  • BDD

Books:

The importance of receiving feedback:

2 comments | Posted on Thursday, March 24th, 2011 | Read more articles about 'continuousIntegration, Daily Standup, Iterations, mindset, Retrospective, Testing, TTD, Visual Management'

Do you remember the first time you drove a car?
I still remember my first time.
I was very intensely holding the steering wheel. I was only looking through the front windshield.
I was sure I did not move the steering wheel and yet the car moved from left to right.
When I made a correction move, I overshot and moved to the other side.
Last year I drove from Belgium to Bordeaux. I think that at some places I drove 100 kilometers without making correcting moves. At least that is what it felt like. In reality I think I made an incredible amount of micro changes. What has happened in the 20 years between my first ride and my ride to Bordeaux is that I enhanced my system of receiving  feedback and responding to it. Yes, baby steps again.
And every time I ride an unknown car, I have to adapt my system, actually sometimes when my car comes back from a service, it behaves different. Not much, but I feel it has changed and I adjust my driving style.

Now imagine that your front windshield is closed. And the only feedback to drive is your rearview mirror.
That means that the only thing you can see is behind you. Did I hit something along the way?
That is like only doing retrospectives (lessons-learned) as a post-mortem. The patient has died. They do a it to find who did it and to prevent future dead’s. I don’t like that kind of feedback. CSI might look nice on television, in real live I prefer check-ups to keep the patient alive.
Please take a pencil, a baseball bat or anything with that shape. In a moment I want you to:

  • put this post aside
  • put the pencil with its smallest part on the index finger of your main hand.
  • try to keep the pencil (or whatever object you have chosen) in balance.
  • while you do this, you keep track of the time.
  • come back to this post :-)
  • write your time in the comments and continue reading.

Ok, now it’s time to do it.
How did this go? Was it easy?
Now I want you to do the same with your eyes closed.
How did this go? Did you achieve the same time?
I don’t think so. (if you do please tell me in the comments)

Feedback makes a difference even for such a small task.
Now what if someone else would be your eyes? By now you might be tired of these exercises, if you aren’t, please try the following;
you close your eyes and while someone else gives you feedback, you do the balancing act.

Does it work better? If it doesn’t, maybe change PM euh feedback person.
Does this new person allow you to be back at your original level?

If you are like most people, you aren’t. Looks like your feedback is better than the delayed feedback from other people.
What if you are allowed to open your eyes for one second every 10 seconds?
What if you would do it every 5 seconds?
I don’t think you need to try this, to know that the shorter the feedback cycle, the better the result.
The agile mindset is about shortening the feedback cycle.

If you need another story, check out Lisa Crispin’s nice posts  about how shorter feedback helped her with donkey driving.