Kanban Articles
Did the 1973 Oil Crisis Create Lean Software Development?
US car companies were booming in the early 1970’s. Americans loved big cars and had cash to buy them. Demand for oil rose so quickly that, by 1969, the US began importing oil. Not long after, oil exporting nations began using US dependence on their oil to influence US foreign policy. During the first embargo […]
How I Used Lean and Agile . . . for Dog Training
We’ve re-entered the world of training service dog puppies. This time, the team is bigger – the whole family is participating. How do we keep everyone organized? Turns out, Agile is a natural fit. Backlog – All the commands we need to teach her The Puppy Raisers Manual describes all the commands the puppy must master. Each command […]
What is DevOps?
What is DevOps? The word DevOps is a clipped version of the words Development and Operations [1]. What does development mean? Development is the process of designing, building and testing software. This includes product design user experience, software architecture, software design and coding. What does operations mean? The term operations describes the process of building […]
Can you measure “quality”? (spoiler – yes you can!)
There are 3 main questions that I need to be able to answer in order to monitor a project. How many “thingies” can we get done each iteration? – a.k.a. Velocity yep, “thingies” is a technical term…the units of measure are neither man-days nor gummy-bears…they are just thingies how long will it take me to […]
Getting the Most Value with a Development Partner
What is software development? When we say software we typically mean a software product to sell to a market or a system to increase productivity. In both cases, doesn’t the customer have some idea of the cost and potential value before the project is initiated? If the initial estimated cost versus the expected value (Rate […]
The 30 Second Standup
The Three Pillars of Standup Meetings: What did you do yesterday? What are you doing today? What is blocking your progress? Everyone stands in a circle and takes their turn answering the questions. The whole meeting should last only a few minutes and gets everyone of the same page. But when you consider all the […]
My Ideal Software Project: 7 Values I Believe In…
At SEP, we have very diverse teams, clients, and projects. With all of that variety and diversity, comes a lot of variation in how projects are run. Almost every project, in my experience, has used different processes and techniques. I was recently inspired by one of my coworkers, Jennifer, by a letter that she wrote […]
Chris Shinkle Nominated for 2013 Brickell Key Award
Software Engineering Professionals (SEP) Director of Innovation Chris Shinkle has been nominated as one of six finalists for the 2013 Brickell Key Award. Awarded to two worthy individuals every year at the Lean Kanban North America Conference (LKNA), the Brickell Award recognizes those demonstrating outstanding achievement, leadership, and contribution to the Lean and Kanban community. […]