Without standards there can be no kaizen, Taiichi Ohno. Kaizen is a Japanese word that we can translate as “change for the better”. It’s widely interpreted as meaning “continuous improvement” when referring to process or flow. As Taiichi Ohno (father of the Toyota Production System or TPS) highlights, to improve, you first need to have a baseline standard. From the TPS perspective, standards and the improvement of said standards, relate to two aspects: Process – the work carried out at a particular step on the production line. Flow – the overall flow through the production line from end-to-end. So, if we’re to translate this to cross-functional product teams, our team can determine…
From July 2016
The ScrumMum – an agile adoption anti-pattern
Whichever way you look at it, if you’ve ever heard yourself talking to your team and uttering the words “I’m not your mother”, it’s probably not a good thing. Even if you’re actually a Mum and have the healthy intention of creating independent and highly-functioning people – ready and equiped to face the world on their own two feet – having to tell someone who isn’t your progeny that you’re not their Mother means: 1. There is a clear case of mistaken identity and 2. The aforementioned person(s) clearly aren’t in a place of independence or higher functioning yet. If you’re their ScrumMaster and you’re saying these words, then you may…