Lean But Agile

As organizations strive to meet stringent budgets, the mandate to produce greater results with fewer resources is no longer sufficient. Rather than accepting less, managers and executives must strive for better--evaluating every process and every role and doing away with assumptions about how work gets done and who does it in order to streamline processes and maximize efficiency. William Rothwell, who was honored with the ASTD Distinguished Contribution Award in Workplace Learning and Peformance, presents a system for analyzing work and selecting the ideal combination of cost-effective resources--employees, consultants, contractors, temporary workers, and vendors--to accomplish it. Lean but Agile does this by teaching readers to focus on outcomes and work backwards--exploring the introduction, implementation, and management of lean work and agile staffing methods that will produce those outcomes. You’ll also learn about advantageous changes in hiring, goal-setting, learning and development, and performance management, and the fundamental role technology can play in transforming your processes. Packed with practical advice, examples, guides, worksheets, diagrams, and metrics, Lean but Agile will help leaders, managers, and human resource professionals optimize their workforces while still achieving superior results.

As companies evolve to adopt, integrate, and leverage software as the defining element of their success in the 21st century, a rash of processes and methodologies are vying for their product teams' attention. In the worst of cases, each discipline on these teams -- product management, design, and software engineering -- learns a different model. This short, tactical book reconciles the perceived differences in Lean Startup, Design Thinking, and Agile software development by focusing not on rituals and practices but on the values that underpin all three methods. Written by Jeff Gothelf, the co-author of the award-winning Lean UX and Sense & Respond, the tactics in this book draw on Jeff's years of practice as a team leader and coach in companies ranging from small high-growth startups to large enterprises. Whether you're a product manager, software engineer, designer, or team leader, you'll find practical tools in this book immediately applicable to your team's daily methods.

The parameters of competition in business today are changing -- big does not necessarily beat small anymore; fast is beating slow. Agility, speed, and flexibility are the key elements of a successful strategy and execution in the corporate world as wells as in government agencies, health care, and education.. How well will your firm execute its strategy? What barriers exist that inhibit your execution? Are you keeping one eye on tomorrow’s customers, while you manage those of today? These are all key questions as we strive to deliver value on an ongoing basis. Simple: Killing Complexity for a Lean and Agile Organization is about agility and simplicity, in which achieving simplicity comes from a focus on the customer. Agility begins with planning, and leadership teams must develop decent vision. Generally, leaders know what they want to do, but many organizations break down, however, I when trying to implement the action plan. With over 25 years of industry, teaching, and consulting experience, the author illustrates how organizations can: Recognize who their true customers are, and appreciate what those customers want Begin to eliminate the products, services, processes and ‘work’ that gets in the way of delivering value to those customers Focus people and processes towards value creation, even in what are perceived as non-customer centric operations Avoid brand confusion and the ‘all things to all people’ mentality The complexities of managing in today’s world both obscures decision making and layers on challenges that bog an organization down, preventing leadership from understanding what their customers want. By understanding who those customers are, and what they want, leaders can focus innovation strategy and projects in ways that deliver sustainable value. Even in not-for-profit and government agencies, executing in an aligned organization can become the profitable standard business process.

Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit Adapting agile practices to your development organization Uncovering and eradicating waste throughout the software development lifecycle Practical techniques for every development manager, project manager, and technical leader Lean software development: applying agile principles to your organization In Lean Software Development, Mary and Tom Poppendieck identify seven fundamental "lean" principles, adapt them for the world of software development, and show how they can serve as the foundation for agile development approaches that work. Along the way, they introduce 22 "thinking tools" that can help you customize the right agile practices for any environment. Better, cheaper, faster software development. You can have all three–if you adopt the same lean principles that have already revolutionized manufacturing, logistics and product development. Iterating towards excellence: software development as an exercise in discovery Managing uncertainty: "decide as late as possible" by building change into the system. Compressing the value stream: rapid development, feedback, and improvement Empowering teams and individuals without compromising coordination Software with integrity: promoting coherence, usability, fitness, maintainability, and adaptability How to "see the whole"–even when your developers are scattered across multiple locations and contractors Simply put, Lean Software Development helps you refocus development on value, flow, and people–so you can achieve breakthrough quality, savings, speed, and business alignment.

Agile techniques have demonstrated immense potential for developing more effective, higher-quality software. However,scaling these techniques to the enterprise presents many challenges. The solution is to integrate the principles and practices of Lean Software Development with Agile’s ideology and methods. By doing so, software organizations leverage Lean’s powerful capabilities for “optimizing the whole” and managing complex enterprise projects. A combined “Lean-Agile” approach can dramatically improve both developer productivity and the software’s business value.In this book, three expert Lean software consultants draw from their unparalleled experience to gather all the insights, knowledge, and new skills you need to succeed with Lean-Agile development. Lean-Agile Software Development shows how to extend Scrum processes with an Enterprise view based on Lean principles. The authors present crucial technical insight into emergent design, and demonstrate how to apply it to make iterative development more effective. They also identify several common development “anti-patterns” that can work against your goals, and they offer actionable, proven alternatives. Lean-Agile Software Development shows how to Transition to Lean Software Development quickly and successfully Manage the initiation of product enhancements Help project managers work together to manage product portfolios more effectively Manage dependencies across the software development organization and with its partners and colleagues Integrate development and QA roles to improve quality and eliminate waste Determine best practices for different software development teams The book’s companion Web site, www.netobjectives.com/lasd, provides updates, links to related materials, and support for discussions of the book’s content.

When project managers are faced with budget cuts and fewer resources, waste elimination becomes a priority in maintaining effectiveness. This does not mean shortening or abandoning traditional project cycles. In fact, fast results on critical assignments can only be completed with strong plans and a detailed work breakdown structure. The connections, or lack thereof, are what strongly impact performance and quality. Lean and Agile, as covered in this book, are meant to enhance traditional project management, not replace the science. A strong foundation in traditional project management is necessary to appreciate the benefits of adopting Lean and Agile. Lean and Agile Project Management: How to Make Any Project Better, Faster, and More Cost Effective defines the wastes and issues found in project management and demonstrates how they can be addressed by engaging Lean thinking and Agile techniques. This book also: • Shows how to apply Lean principles to project management (PM) • Teaches the application of simple Six Sigma metrics in PM • Discusses the adoption of Agile techniques in PM in order to stay on task and remain flexible • Helps readers discover the theoretical synergies between popular PM programs • Promotes an understanding of how Lean people skills can help a person become a better leader and manager Since the publication of the first edition of this book, the bodies of knowledge have all been systematically updated. In addition, through conducting peer groups and detailed workshops, the Author has simplified many of the basics, and they are now much easier to understand. Essentially, the Author believes traditional project management can benefit from adding Lean and Agile, but she has simplified the model for greater efficiency.

This book explores the application of agile and lean techniques, originally from the field of software development and manufacturing, to various aspects of education. It covers a broad range of topics, including applying agile teaching and learning techniques in the classroom, incorporating lean thinking in educational workflows, and using team-based approaches to student-centred activities based on agile principles and processes. Demonstrating how agile and lean ideas can concretely be applied to education, the book offers practical guidance on how to apply these ideas in the classroom or lecture hall, as well as new concepts that could spark further research and development.

Agile development methodologies may have started life in IT, but their widespread and continuing adoption means there are many practitioners outside of IT--including designers--who need to change their thinking and adapt their practices. This is the missing book about agile that shows how designers, product managers, and development teams can integrate experience design into lean and agile product development. It equips you with tools, techniques and a framework for designing great experiences using agile methods so you can deliver timely products that are technically feasible, profitable for the business, and desirable from an end-customer perspective. This book will help you successfully integrate your design process on an agile project and feel like part of the agile team. do good design faster by doing just enough, just in time. use design methods from disciplines such as design thinking, customer-centered design, product design, and service design. create successful digital products by considering the needs of the end-customer, the business, and technology. understand the next wave of thinking about continuous design and continuous delivery.