I hear this a lot.
“We want to be smarter and more innovative, give the Dev team something to stir up their creative juices. Impossible though, we’re all too busy”.
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Lead time versus Cycle Time – Untangling the confusion
Despite being a fan of Lean and using Kanban I’ve stopped talking about “Cycle Time”. The problem is that there are two conflicting definitions of Cycle Time. And one of those definitions is identical to Lead Time. Given the competing definitions for Cycle Time, and that the variations have alternative unambiguous names, it is easier not to use the term at all. All I need is “Takt time”, “Order Lead Time” and “Production Lead Time”.
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Are you leading or just going for a walk?
If you fancy yourself as a leader, have a glance behind you … is anybody following? Are you leading or just going for a walk?
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Look for Product Owners in the Business
You cannot lead what you don’t understand so I often recruit product owners from the business.
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Make BlackOps development the Corporate Standard – Embrace Microservices
Contrary to how they are perceived in the media as lumbering dinosaurs, most large organisations have loads of clever people and good ideas.The trouble is these organisations can’t deliver against the ideas. The answer is not “Blue Sky” R&D departments or “BlackOps” teams. The answer is to make the BlackOps approach standard; create an innovation platform built from microservices with new services deployed swiftly into production.
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Employing too many ideas people leads to Zombie Projects
Employing too many ideas people leads to Zombie Projects. Resuscitate the Zombies or kill them off.
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“Mad, Relentless, Scary, Fun” – my year on Digital Growth
“Mad, Relentless, Scary, Fun” is how my programme director – Stuart Mays – described the initiative we’ve been running at at Global Media and Entertainment.
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Delivery Manager – A new role for an Agile world
Rich Lewis is the best I’ve worked with. When I met him he was a Business Analyst who, on the sly, was Scrum Master of a small team. He was good at this but capable of much more. I invited him to be the Delivery Manager on the programme I was running at the time.
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Disruptive Innovation is an Illusion Hiding Efficiency
The way I see it disruptive innovation is an illusion to observers who have not had the same focus. From my experience that apparent disruptive innovation actually comes from companies who have invested and honed very tight, very frugal or cost effective product iterations on what is ultimately a predictable destination. In other words, to be truly innovative in a digital landscape you just need to be very efficient.
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Programmes are above Projects on the Value Ladder
The Value Ladder highlights how a supplier contributes to the success of the customer. The way I see it programmes and projects can be mapped onto the Value Ladder.
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