Criteria for Innovative Success

I've got this in my head and want to write it down. I'm still tweaking it, and would like feedback.

Criteria for Innovative Success:

• 1a) A Shared Vision of Success
• 1b) Willingness to drive towards that Vision
• 2) Reflective Problem Solving Staff

A Shared Vision is, well, shared. Everyone involved should be able to articulate it, write/draw it on a single white board.

I split 1) into two parts, or more specifically added the second part. I think that just having a vision isn't sufficient, the will to see it through and cut away what's not helpful is critical. I suppose the metaphor for 1b) would be chipping marble away to make a sculpture.

"Reflective Problem Solving" is a phrase I got from "Managing to Learn" by John Shook. I've got more to say about this book and will review it when I can, but having a team of people who refectively problem solve is very different than a team that does what it's told.

In my experience at the Lean Kanban conference I concluded that a Kanban board with WIP limits is a "concrete reflective tool". I'm now on the hunt for "concrete reflective" tools and ideas, with a strong belief that such tools will be adopted by more teams than abstract or prescriptive tools.

Presenting at Austin JUG tonight, Kanban

Update: The presentation went well, lots of good questions and conversation.

Link to the slides: http://gistlabs.com/john/pubs/2009/05/AJUG/


I'm presenting at the Austin Java Users Group tonight, on Kanban.

The slides will get posted there and on my company website, http://gistlabs.com, shortly.

Setting up our Kanban board

Last week one of my clients and I set up a Kanban board for the team. We did it as a physical board, and we're backing each card with an issue in a tracker.

We plan to use the issue tracker for these purposes:

• generate a Cumulative Flow Diagram (perhaps scripting an export to CSV or Excel)
• searchable index of activity
• release management tracking
• conversation (comments, emails, checkins) for details larger than a notecard
  

Here's what the board looks like:
Some details (that are hard to read):

• A Prioritized Queue on the left, highest priority on top
• Three workflow/VSM steps: InProgress, Review, Deployment
• Review is for developer peer review, and Staging (on QA for general review)
• Deployment Ready is available for production deployment, Deployed is recently deployed.
• Three swimlanes: two for development activities, one for IT operations support.
  

This is the current prototype for the cards:
Some of the tools that we use include sticky post-it notes and Stikky Clips. (Note: We found the Stikky Clips at a teacher supply store, not a big office supply store.)

My Lean Kanban trip report is...

Posted up on the Agile Executive Blog.

See the whole post here: http://theagileexecutive.com/2009/05/11/john-heintz-on-the-lean-kanban-2009-conference/

Back from the Lean Kanban Conference

I'm back and planning on posting to my blog more. I've been posting on Twitter (http://twitter.com/jheintz) fairly regularly now. Some stuff just doesn't fit within 140 characters...

The Lean and Kanban conference was awesome: both humbling and inspiring. My trip report will show up on The Agile Executive blog (http://theagileexecutive.com/) soon... I'll post a direct link.

Below is a summary of my twitter activity, just to get warmed up.

1. @TheOtherAlistai @RonJeffries Iteration is like metronome, Kanban is like multiple rhythms, from #lk2009 (must find who said that...)2:42 PM May 9th from Tweetie
2. RT have a YouTube link for this eating style ;) -- @jeremiahakin: Langston eats apples like mr peepers from Saturday Night Live9:36 PM May 8th from Tweetie
3. #lk2009 So long, Miami, and thanks for all the fish!3:02 PM May 8th from Tweetie
4. @agile_exec Picked up a Lean Kanban Conference preceesings book for Israel... Who really should have been here! #lk20091:10 PM May 8th from Tweetie
5. @alshalloway great conversation about how/why Kanban removes fear/impedemnts to individual learning, must blog! #lk200912:37 PM May 8th from Tweetie
6. @agilemanager why is introducing Kanban easier than Scrum? I'm suggesting Kanban provides concrete reflection tools, lowers barrier #lk20098:36 AM May 8th from Tweetie in reply to agilemanager
7. Err, I meant tuning WIP and workflow is easy for people that wouldn't normally contribute to retrospective #lk20098:26 AM May 8th from Tweetie
8. Tuning WIP limits and workflow on the board is low resistance, even fir people that normally would say a think in a retrospective #lk20098:24 AM May 8th from Tweetie
9. I said concrete introspection is maybe the reason kanban is different. Just telling people to reflect doesn't just work. #lk20098:22 AM May 8th from Tweetie
10. I said concrete introspection, I mean that most people won't retrospect. Getting more people thinking in the biz is the real win. (hypothes)8:21 AM May 8th from Tweetie
11. Laribee just compared Kanban boards to the RESTful web metaphor... #lk20094:40 PM May 7th from Tweetie
12. Any good survey of online kanban tools? #lk200911:20 AM May 7th from Tweetie
13. Any good summary of online kanban tools? #lk20911:03 AM May 7th from Tweetie
14. Alisson Vale contract agreements: problem solving, support, improvements for sustainability, new value #lk200911:02 AM May 7th from Tweetie
15. Alisson Vale defined four (social?) contracts with customers #lk200911:00 AM May 7th from Tweetie
16. Alisson Vale "long term relationships require long term contracts" #lk200910:58 AM May 7th from Tweetie
17. @carlacorkern Chaka what? :) I'm at the learning gemba, not vegetarian.10:42 PM May 6th from Tweetie in reply to carlacorkern
18. @dennisstevens I'm not sure TWI is right either, but I have a strong hunch that is has wisdom for teaching knowledge workers. #lk20094:12 PM May 6th from Tweetie in reply to dennisstevens
19. #lk2009 link to TWI resource: http://delicious.com/jheint... training within industry is a WWII management system that influenced Lean.4:05 PM May 6th from Tweetie

Hotkeys for Omnifocus/Firefox

Until I get a chance to try out this integration for Firefox and Omnifocus (http://forums.omnigroup.com/archive/index.php/t-4510.html) I wanted to make a record of the hot keys I'm using right now.

Goal: Get a link to the current page I'm viewing in Firefox into a new task in Omnifocus.

Steps:

1. Command-L to get the browser location URL highlighted.
2. Command-C to copy that location.
3. Control-Alt-Space to open a new Omnifocus inbox item.
4. Type a short description of the new task.
5. Command-' to open the entry field for the notes. (This is single quote, not back tic.)
   
6. Command-V to paste the previously copied URL.

It works, avoids using the mouse, but that is too many steps.