Steve Neiderhauser

Stop Managing Queues, Eliminate Them

In this article on Queueing theory and software development, the salient point is made to get rid of queues instead of trying to manage them.

Plan A in fixing the queue problem is to completely eradicate the queue, forever, by changing the system: the system of the organization, the system of development, tools, processes, practices, policies, etc.

E-Shaped Talent

I've heard about T-Shaped people before, yet in this article by Scott Prugh this is the first time I’ve heard of E-Shaped people.

In the age of the artist and Agile development, E-Shaped talent (expertise, experience, execution, exploration) has become the ultimate goal:

• Deep expertise in a few areas
• Experience across many areas
• Proven execution skills
• Innovating always

User Story-Writing Workshop and Affinity Estimates

When starting a new software product, I like to run a Story-Writing Workshop and then employ affinity estimates to story point the effort. 

Pro Tip: Show your team this dog grooming story pointing exercise to help them grep affinity estimates.

I created the following diagrams to depict how the story-writing workshop and affinity estimates can be played in concert. Note my modular design; the workshop and affinity estimates can be used independently or in combination.

Workshop and Dog Estimates.pdf

Scrum Standup Tips

Agile42 provides good tips for reviving your daily standup.

I had not seen this tip before: We have a set of lean and agile principles to guide us in the daily standup.

• Focus on outcomes over output (or results over activity)
• Focus on priorities
• Emphasize team ownership of results over individual assignment

Radical Process Change

The authors of The Lean Enterprise talk about the difference between radical process changes and incremental process changes:

We should explore and experiment with radical process changes—known as kaikaku in Lean terminology—in the same way we explore potential new business models.

We should try them out with a relatively small, cross-functional part of the organization, with people that fall in the “innovator” category. These people must be interested in the proposed process experiments and have the necessary skills to run them. For a change that proves to be valuable, this team can help other groups adopt it so it “crosses the chasm” within the wider organization until it becomes the standard way to work.

However, process improvement does not stop here. All teams will still make continuous, incremental process improvements, known as kaizen, as part of their daily work to reduce waste and increase throughput.