I'm trying to understand how lean organizations (like Toyota) decide to develop a new product (like a luxury car or a eco-friendly car). It seems the...
From what I've read, corporate and product strategy are outside the development process at Toyota. The select the product based on corporate strategy,...
Hi Hank, I was just reading up on the chief engineer role in Morgan and Liker's "The Toyota Product Development System" when I came across this (p. 120): "When...
roman, this is identical to aerospace, where the Program Manager leads the proposal and then the execution after award. Glen B. Alleman Sent from Treo 650 ... ...
Hi Glen, I have not worked in the aerospace industry myself. However, the chief engineer differs from traditional program and project managers as well as from...
I don't think this is unique to to lean organizations. Most companies have a single person in charge of a product line, with full P&L responsibility ( e.g....
My impression from being in the Aerospace industry and reading about how Toyota Chief engineers are selected is that at Toyota, there's a much stronger sense...
This is also my impression of Toyota. I think it comes from Toyota's background. They've got a very strong sense that the people who actually do the work are...
Take a few minutes to read http://www.infoq.com/news/2007/06/ Incremental_SD_wo_Iterations , then come back. No really, please go read it. (I didn't write it,...
... Seems interesting. Not requiring items to fit within a single iteration seems more like a bug than a feature, both for takt time reasons and because of...
I've always been mildly suspicious of time-boxed iterations. They've always seemed like a process fix for a lack of discipline on multiple levels, including...
John, That's a good question. I suspect that, under the hood, they're using some form of branch-per-feature rather than branch-on-release. So, they probably...
I had heard Ron say this a little while back....and I thought the idea was crazy...and since then I've tried it and I no longer thing it's crazy. :-) I have a...
... This doesn't surprise me. I always found the "points" system useless, anyway. If you're assigning arbitrary points to stories, what's the value in learning...
... but ... on ... After reading about the lean principles I have also thought about going towards that direction; trying to increase the level of one piece...
Hi, Jeff Sutherland will lead a Certified ScrumMaster course in Charlotte on July 11-12. Jeff Sutherland is the co-creator of Scrum. This will be an excellent...
I think a bigger danger of a continuous pull is that it is not sustainable. There will be times of gluts - too much work overloading capacity and if you pull...
... Yeah, exactly. And much more to the point, I'm not building compilers. ... But Wake's point is good: the story "build a compiler" is an immense user story...
... user story that DOES ... assigning points to stories? ... story in any ... three-point stories is small ... regular story size isn't ... large-scale...
In a pull system, you can not overload capacity. The team pulls work as they have available capacity. If work arrives faster than it can be pulled, it queues...
... Paul: This is very well said. This is one of the great relationships between the principles of Lean (pull) and the practices of Scrum (iteration planning)....
... Paul, I think this would be of huge psychological benefit to the team, too. I've been on agile teams (Scrum / XP blend) where the size of the backlog is...
Nice description Paul. With the 10+ teams I have worked with in the last 2 years, we have only been able to achieve something close to this once. It occurred...
... Yes, in fact in a "pure" pull system for software, there would be no backlogs at all. The pull would look something like: End User: Hey Product Manager,...
In the interest of blatant self-promotion, I should point out that I have tutorial scheduled for the Agile 2007 Conference in August that will look into...
Theory vs. Practice?? OK, I'm getting a little concerned here. I have a strong need as an engineer to see data - to see proof that this is really working. I am...
I think Brad's point of "But so can [CM's] absence [be the cause of lot's of waste, swirl and extra effort]" is an important one and an instance of the more...
