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The secret to writing good automated tests is to be a good software designer. It sounds trivial - but the sad fact is that more often than not the attempt to implement test automation falls due to poor software design where people are struggling with...
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How would you like to be able to SMS or tweet your Excel data-crunching code? With Docjure, it is possible: (->> (load-workbook "spreadsheet.xlsx") (select-sheet "Price List") (select-columns {:A :name, :B :price})) This reads...
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I was talking to a group of project managers today in one of our inspiration meetings. One of the inspiring questions that came up was related to why we should use Scrum or agile methods. One short answer is this: if we routinely plan to spend 1/3 of...
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How would you rebuild a country after a world war? How would you reboot your management? This was the topic for my presentation at the Reboot conference. It concerned Deming's 14 principles for management, the humanistic, long-term thinking, keep...
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Deming 's work is the foundation of the Toyota Production System and modern-day lean. I recently conducted a workshop his 14 points for management . One exercise was to group them to get to their essence. Here is the the result: “Practise engaged...
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The recipient's of this year's Shingo Prize have been announced . The Research and Professional Publication Prize category is a great reading list for new lean books: Steven Spear - Chasing the Rabbit . A book on how to catch up with your lean...
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I have written an introduction to Deming's 14 points and how they can help you improve your IT-organisation. It is a 15-page PDF in Danish. You can download it here: Ud af krisen - http://www.ative.dk/media/989/ud%20af%20krisen%20-%20ative%20-%20a4...
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In a time where so many are excusing their failure with externalities and saying "it's the crisis" we need leadership and entrepreneurship more than ever. We are in a time of creative destruction and it is precisely these moments that offer...
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The Danish Computerworld magazine had a few pages on the 14 most common mistakes of project management recently. It is very illuminating to see how agile practices target these mistakes and help avoid them. 1. The project does not have the right people...
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There are only three types of buffers: extra capacity, extra inventory and extra time. This is one of the great take-aways from Factory Physics that I have frequently quoted since Thomas Blomseth introduced me to it on our lean study-tour to Japan earlier...
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One of the high points of my recent Japan excursion was visiting the Toyota factory in Nagoya. We did a factory tour and meet with Keiichi Fukunaga, the manager of Toyota's department for teaching the Toyota Production System to other companies. One...
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People often ask me about recommendations for the must-read books for lean and agile software development. Here is a list of some of my favourite lean books: W. Edwards Deming - the grand old man of the field, building on a strict statistical discipline...
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Sabine Canditt of Siemens showed an interesting curve for Scrum implementation in her excellent ScrumGathering presentation in London recently. It shows how introducing the Scrum initially creates chaos and then stabilizes with a quiz success and good...
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The Open space on the last day (Friday) of the Scrum Gathering 2007 offered many interesting sessions and discussions. Two of these sessions were: “Product Owner practices – prioritizing backlog items isn’t enough!” and “Integration Teams (from Scrum...
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Imagine you are in an organisation with a one-year release cycle and you miss your annual deadline by one minute. The cost? A one-year delay. Now, try to invent a control system to ensure that we avoid this kind of delay. You would probably add some middle...