Edge of Chaos | Agile Development Blog

UX

Touch interfaces are a logical replacement of point-and-click devices like mouse. Here is a great concept: Reinvent desktop human-computer interaction. I really like it, since it is quite easy to build and learn. It looks like an advanced touch-pad and some gestures are already implemented in MacBook. Also it utilizes Zooming user interface ideas, which is cool. Hope we will have something similar in laptops really soon!

Chaos

Outstanding and very interesting BBC movie The Secret Life of Chaos. It shows unexpected relations in nature and chaos theory and explains some fundamental principles of the complexity science like Butterfly Effect, Feedback, Simple Rules. I promise you will enjoy it :)

Changes

Decent article about changes Understanding How To Respond To Change. “Isn’t it odd that so many companies fight change instead of embracing it?”. I especially like this phrase “The good thing is, that the people who change, are the people who wins. The problem with change is trying to make it stop, or trying to catch up to it.”

Complexity

Thought provoking posts by Rafe Furst. Here are some nice quotes:
1. Certain actions generate more future possibilities than others. In my experience, those actions tend to be the cooperative ones, ones that produce network effects: financial, social and otherwise.
2. By surrounding yourself with people who have the same vision as you do and want similar things as you do means that you will all have help in getting there.
3. When you are successful at something, others notice and their reactions to that noticing will make it easier for you to succeed in the future

January 13/14 is the Old New Year holiday. Seems like today is the latest appropriate time to look back  and recall the most interesting blog posts by TargetProcess in 2009 :)

Based on visitors count, the posts are ranked as follows (descending order):

1. Lean and Kanban Software Development Digest: In May 2009, this digest came along right on time as Kanban adoption started to grow. We’ve been sifting through the Lean/Kanban buzz and considering if Kanban might be a good tool for our development process, so this post has the most valuable findings we’ve made and shared with agile community.

2. Refactoring vs Rewrite: This post is a real train of thought of a Product Owner trying  to make a decision on how to proceed with product development — rewrite or refactor. Can well be used in textbooks for software product management :)

3. Mind Maps: Scrum, Extreme Programming, Lean: Another by-product of our research on agile development processes. The specific value of mind maps is that they help grasp complex things with visual representations.

4. Tale: Deadline and Technical Debt: Once upon a time…  Who could ever expect that the fundamental principles of product management can be outlined in a fairy tale ? :) There we go:  smart Arthur, the cunning king, quest for princess — the metaphorical expression of the danger of technical debt in software development.

5. 5 Wrong Reasons to Apply Kanban. For some reason (no pun intended), 5 wrong reasons ranked higher than 5 right reasons. Maybe it’s just human psychology — to go from “what’s wrong”  instead of  ”what’s right” …

6. How We Use Kanban Board. The Real Example:  Once we figured that Kanban process is just the right thing for us and put it in action, we shared this  experience with our blog readers.

7. 5 Right Reasons to Apply Kanban: There they are :)

8. Zero Defects? Are You Kidding Me? : Can this juicy frog be sure that it swallowed the very last bug? This post is a warning against the so-called “zero defects mentality” in software product management.

9. Simple Rules, Complex Systems and Software Development: Complex systems function at their best when guided by simple rules. Look at ants, birds, space rockets and … software development.

10. BDD and User Story Specification: Examples — This post includes some real user story specs in BDD for TargetProcess product. Enjoy and use.

These are the TOP 10 posts  in 2009 from TargetProcess agile blog (click here for more)

Happy OLD NEW YEAR! :)

• Interesting post from Joel Spolsky The Duct Tape Programmer and even better reply from Uncle Bob. Uncle Bob’s hottest phrase is “I want you to ship, but I don’t want you to ship shit.” I personally like it very much. It is a paramount of software development.
• 10 Useful Usability Findings and Guidelines. Very good list of practical UI advices. For example, do you know that the ideal search box should be 27-characters wide?
• Two posts about how to inject User Experience into Agile development: Twelve emerging best practices for adding UX work to Agile development and Agile + UX: six strategies for more agile user experience. “Unfortunately, the iteration cycle, “agile”, and phrases like “team velocity” were confused with “fast”. The biggest problem with lots of user experience methods is that they’re not necessarily fast. They’re not necessarily slow, but they do take time.”

• What is Cadence? Great post explaining cadence using nice pictures. “The purpose of a cadence is to establish a reliable and dependable capability which demonstrates a predictable capacity. Cadence gives some confidence in the upcoming work when we are triggering rather than scheduling work.”
• Series of amazing Danilo Sato posts about Velocity anti-patterns: Done is not done, Making up points, Used as a performance measure.
• Alan Shalloway has interesting and thought provoking post “Is Part of the Agile Community Acting Like the Waterfall Community of Old?” “The pattern is unfortunate – it seems that there are those who don’t like discussing some thing have taken one of two approaches. If they can intimidate people who are using Scrum Alliance certifications for their livelihood, they do so. If they can’t, they attack the integrity of those people they don’t like (e.g., David and myself and others I haven’t mentioned). “

Lean and Kanban software development adoption is growing. More and more companies setup Kanban Boards, limit WIP and eliminate Muda.

This collection of links will help you understand all that buzz around Lean/Kanban and decide whether it is worth trying. I’ve read all the articles and posts below, so this list is a truly selected thing ;).

Articles and Blog Posts

• Lean Software Development. Wikipedia summary about lean software development. It is a good start to digg into the topic (as usual).
• Kanban Development Oversimplified. Most likely the best article to start with Kanban. Very clear, very detailed. Good work!
• Kanban, Flow and Cadence. This blog post with many nice pictures describes three important properties of Lean: Kanban – Controlled Work, Flow – Effective Work, Cadence – Reliable Work.
• Scrum-ban. Interesting attempt to mix Scrum and Kanban, taking the best from both worlds. Kanban with iterations is possible.
• Beyond Scrum: Lean and Kanban for Game Developers. Article describes real Lean/Kanban implementation for game development industry. The section on how to improve The Flow (3 strategies: Time-boxing, Levelling workflow, Reduce waste) is especially good.
• Adventures In Lean. Series of posts about Lean approach with focus on real problems solving (handling bugs and emergency fixes in Kanban, setup pipeline, bottlenecks, etc.).
• Lean and Kanban. Several posts on the topics in this blog.

Presentations

• Kanban for Software Engineering . Detailed presentation about Lean and Kanban. Focuses on many problems and solutions in a software development process.
• Kanban: A Process Tool . Another good presentation that emphasizes the simplest rule in kanban: Limit the number of things in work to a fixed number. Maybe a good start indeed.
• Practical Experiences and Tools Applied to a Kanban Sustaining Engineering System . Fantastic presentation about Lean/Kanban implementation with real examples by Alisson Vale.
• Kanban vs. Scrum. Rich and lengthy presentation that compares Scrum and Kanban. A very good visualization (which is a key in Kanban :). Shows why Kanban fits better for multiple development teams working on the same project. I tend to share this opinion as well.
• A Kanban System for Sustaining Engineering on Software Systems . Very interesting presentation of Lean implementation at Corbis. As I know, it is one of the first successful attempts to run Kanban in a software shop. Must read.

Lean/Kanban Blogs

• Agile Management Blog. Lots of interesting posts from David J. Anderson (well known engine of Lean software development :)
• Richard Durnall Blog. Pull and Push systems, interviews, lean roots and principles. Nice reading with hand-drawn diagrams.
• Lean Software Engineering. Corey Ladas and Bernie Thompson are blogging about Lean, Scrumban and Kanban, Theory of Constraints, software development and other topics you did not even hear about.
• AvailAgility. Karl Scotland’s posts are very interesting (and helpful) to read. Isn’t Kanban just a Task-board? Check the blog to get an answer.
• The Agile Executive. Many insights into Kanban and summaries from the first lean conference.
• Software Just in Time. Lean concepts and real lean applications posts by Alisson Vale.

Lean/Kanban People in Twitter

• David J. Anderson. Lean/Kanban software development pioneer.
• Corey Ladas. Product development methodologist. Author of Scrum-ban book.
• Henrik Kniberg. Optimize, debug & refactor IT companies. Author of Scrum vs. Kanban presentation (which is very good!)
• Karl Scotland. Agile Coach. He runs AvailAgility blog with great insights into Lean and Kanban.
• Rob Lally. Renaissance Technologist.
• Alisson Vale. Alisson implemented outstanding Kanban process in his company.

Tools

There are just several Kanban tools on the market. To be honest, I don’t like TRICHORD UI. LeanKit: Kanban looks much better, but it can work for small teams only on my opinion. Anyway, it seems Kanban tools vendors’ race just began.

If you know other tools that support Kanban, drop a comment and I’ll happily include them into the list.

• TargetProcess. Customizable Kanban Board and other vanilla.
• Zen. Good tool for small teams.
• LeanKit: Kanban. In beta so far, but looks quite neat. Maybe useful for small teams.
• TRICHORD. Desktop project management application with Kanban boards.
• Radtrack. Registration does not work, but I found the screenshot via Google. Looks like LeanKit so far.

Did I miss something interesting? Drop a comment!