In June InfoQ published a very interesting talk by Rachel Davies “Back to the Future: What Ever Happened to Being eXtreme?” I think Rachel is spot on about a lot of things such as: Some craftsmen care too much about code and too little about what problem it solves There’s a sad lack of developers …
Category Archives: Food for Thought
Rules are made up
Do you sometimes observe something awesome at work which makes you realize how much everybody’s mindset has already shifted towards lean and agile thinking? Lately I have a lot of these moments. I always savour them, because in every day routine it’s easy to see only problems and forget all the things that are already …
A team has a common goal
At the moment I’m part of a really great team. We don’t even have a proper backlog, but it still works, because we have common long-term and short-term goals and a very clear shared vision. However, in 2010, we already had teams, too. Well, “teams”. Teams in the name only. See, back in 2010 we …
Lean – Holding Precious What it is to be Human
At the moment I’m working on a new talk “The Long Way to Lean” for the International PHP Conference in October. As I can’t expect everyone in the audience to have a concept of “Lean” I want to add a short introduction. And I don’t want it to be about “waste”! So much more than …
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Bias for Action
… or the Anti-“Somebody else’s problem field” At one point I worked at a company where I would waste 5 minutes every time I wrote an email, thinking about the recipients of that mail. Not about who needed the information, but about who would be pissed – for vanity or political reasons -, if I …
Changing Lanes – Servant Leader to Developer
In a way I have come full circle: I started as a web developer in 1999 and I returned to being a web developer in January 2014. Intermediate steps: Studying Computer Science, creating e-learning content, usability & UX, scrum master, mashup of project manager & agile coach & product owner, and at good long last …
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The Lean Household
One of the joys (?) of adulthood is seeing the world through the lens of your job. Like my friend who used to be a dentist’s assistant and still scans the teeth of everyone she meets. Or me who turned her bedroom door into a huge personal kanban board and does quasi retros with her …
How metrics shape cityscapes
If you ever come to Aix la chapelle (Aachen) and walk through the charming old town centre you’ll see very slim houses. When you enter them you’ll find that they are deep, tube-like. For a long time I thought that that’s just how they build in medieval times and maybe that’s a factor, but a …
What does it take to succeed with agile?
sipgate, my employer, has come a long way since introducing Scrum in 2010. Overall I’d consider our journey a successful transformation. Today, we can ship much faster with better code quality and information is readily available to every employee – to name a few advantages. Of course there are many factors that contribute to a …
Resistance Against Change as a Way to Save Face
Every once in a while I have an epiphany/experience of the “Oh. So THAT’s what it feels like…” variety, such as the one about giving unsolicited advice. This January I had the (mis)fortune to have another empathy epiphany handed to me on a silver plate: It was a Wednesday evening and my company was having …
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