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Format: simulation Please note: Portia and Pascal can't guarantee yet that we can attend Scan-Agile. We will decide before the organisers select the program. AbstractThe Theory of Constraints offers a simple but effective process improvement process: the "5 focusing steps". The 5 steps consist of continuously:
The session introduces the Theory of Constraints, Lean and Agile with a playful simulation. After the simulation, participants can apply these techniques in their own companies. Warning: after taking part in this simulation you will see bottlenecks everywhere and feel the urge to improve every process and the lives of the people who implement them. More detailed description to give the program committee and peers something to review. Please include a preliminary timetable!The simulation runs in three rounds. After each round, we introduce the relevant improvement techniques and let the participants apply them in the simulation to see if they can improve the metrics that measure our goals. The whole session is extensively described in http://www.agilecoach.net/html/Bottleneck%20-%20Session%20description.pdf BiosPascal Van Cauwenberghe is a consultant based in Brussels who tries to solve more problems than he creates. To do this, he uses Agile, Lean, Theory of Constraints and Systems Thinking techniques. He's one of the founders of the Belgian XP group and one of the organizers of XP Days Benelux. One day he and Vera Peeters invented the "XP Game", because they couldn't explain XP to their team and customers. They've learned that games are an ideal way to learn. Since then he tries to transform work into play... Portia Tung is an Agile Consultant-Coach based in London, specialising in software process improvement using principles and practices from Lean Software Development, XP and Scrum. Portia enjoys working in Europe, in particular, in francophone countries. She has had a number of roles over the years, ranging from Java developer and technical team lead to development manager and consultant. She typically works in a multi-disciplined and technical capacity, helping organisations become more agile through collaboration and coaching. Lasse Ziegler is a Lean / Agile consultant, coach and CTO of Houston Inc. His goal is to help organizations learn how to continuously improve in how they operate and perform. Only by having a culture of continuous improvement can an organization reach true greatness. Lasse believes that software development is not so much about processes, tools or just money. It's more about the people and individuals who work in the team and organizations developing software. Lasse provides training in Scrum, Kanban as well as other Lean / Agile practices. Additional material |
Comments (7)
Jul 29, 2009
Vasco Duarte says:
What are the specific requirements you have for the organizers? Any special faci...What are the specific requirements you have for the organizers? Any special facilities/material needed?
Aug 05, 2009
Pascal Van Cauwenberghe says:
A few tables, chairs for the participants, a flipchart or whiteboard and we're g...A few tables, chairs for the participants, a flipchart or whiteboard and we're good to go.
Jul 30, 2009
Vasco Duarte says:
Since people will start finding bottlenecks everywhere when they leave the sessi...Since people will start finding bottlenecks everywhere when they leave the session can you explain how what they get from this session will help them identify which bottlenecks matter and why they should not be solving all bottlenecks they see? (System throughput etc.)
Aug 05, 2009
Pascal Van Cauwenberghe says:
The first step in the 5 focusing steps is to identify the goal, the thing you wa...The first step in the 5 focusing steps is to identify the goal, the thing you want to improve. This is also the most difficult step
Having this clear goal focuses us on the right bottleneck, the one that determines the throughput/how near we get to our goal.
We don't "solve bottlenecks". We improve processes that create results we care about.
What do you care about? That's where you should find bottlenecks and improve processes.
Jul 31, 2009
Marko Taipale says:
Something I would like to see you guys touching is how to apply the practices to...Something I would like to see you guys touching is how to apply the practices to (software) product development as identifying and visualising bottlenecks in abstract envorionment is usually pretty hard.
Aug 05, 2009
Pascal Van Cauwenberghe says:
Marko, see for example http://blog.nayima.be/2009/04/16/the-theory-of-constrain...Marko,
see for example http://blog.nayima.be/2009/04/16/the-theory-of-constraints-five-focusing-steps-in-action/ or http://blog.nayima.be/2008/10/25/exploit-the-workers/
A kanban/story/task board is a great way of visualising bottlenecks: (nearly) empty columns indicate that downstream steps are starved, over-full columns indicate that a bottleneck step can't consume its input fast enough. Must write a blog entry about that.
When we run this workshop in a company, we use this game to explain the theory and then apply the techniques to real processes, including software product development. We've also done this at some conferences. The results are always very interesting. But then we would have a 3 hour session.
Aug 05, 2009
Pascal Van Cauwenberghe says:
Portia and I are free to come to the conference if you'll have us.Portia and I are free to come to the conference if you'll have us.