Beyond | IT : adaptive

Enterprise Agility | NetObjectives: SIPOC helps you figure out where to start

john.mullinax — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 22:33:02 GMT

Some very good basic advice here from Jim Trott at NetObjectives about applying lean principles and systems thinking to improve software development. An excerpt:

"When it comes to analyzing where to start in helping a development organization, it often makes sense to talk to the Business, which is the customer of the dev group, as well as upstream to the Operations, which supplies the dev group. A standard lean technique is to do a simple SIPOC (Supplier-Input-Process-Output-Customer) to be explicit about who and how the organization interacts with the system. All too often, this simple step is forgotten as we are focused on building product.
"For example, a local team might already be reasonably productive, even without Scrum. But they are thrashing because their Business customer is not ready to work with them when they need answers. Or the change management system takes weeks to schedule a user acceptance test. These are structural issues dealing with upstream inputs and downstream outputs over which the local team has no control. Attack these root causes of thrashing and you improve the flow. Only then will it make a difference to improve the team."

A quick read and worth a look!

Technorati tags: Lean, Systems thinking, Agility

When information is not scarce, what does it mean to know?

john.mullinax — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 08:10:00 GMT

Another very interesting video here from the folks at Kansas State University that did the Academia 2.0 post and initial response . (BTW, the first video on the linked page IS the Academia 2.0 video, so be sure scroll down to the second video.) Similar...(read more)

Academia 2.0? The reponse to A Vision of Students Today

john.mullinax — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 10:55:00 GMT

Technorati Tags: Adaptive , User Experience , Computing is a liberal art , knowledge , academia 2.0 Walter Stier posted a link to an interesting video made by a Kansas State cultural anthropology class on what it's like to be a college student today....(read more)

Computing Is A Liberal Art, Part 3: Strategies for Reinforcing Loops and the Hive Mind

john.mullinax — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 17:59:05 GMT

Technorati Tags: innovation , systems thinking , complexity science , adaptive , change , learning , Popfly , computing is a liberal art , knowledge , cyborg Here's a conundrum: if knowledge is personal, how do I benefit from what you "know"? ...(read more)

Computing Is A Liberal Art, Part 2: Knowledge is personal

john.mullinax — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 07:34:00 GMT

Technorati Tags: innovation , systems thinking , complexity science , adaptive , change , learning , Popfly , computing is a liberal art , knowledge , cyborg In the natural world, few (if any) things grow without limits. In the case of information...(read more)

Computing Is A Liberal Art, Part 1: Education Inflation

john.mullinax — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 03:59:00 GMT

Technorati Tags: innovation , systems thinking , complexity science , adaptive , change , learning , Popfly , computing is a liberal art , knowledge , cyborg Education Inflation Most of us are familiar with the rising cost of education/tuition...(read more)

Build to last is dead, speed rules, competency is currency. Resistance is futile.

john.mullinax — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 19:09:00 GMT

Technorati Tags: innovation , systems thinking , adaptive , change , decision making , learning , context aware , cyborg An email exchange with a few colleauges last night, including Chris Bernard and Josh Holmes , got me thinking about the network as...(read more)

Learning to thrive in times of accelerating change

john.mullinax — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 16:24:00 GMT

Technorati Tags: continuous learning , systems thinking , adaptive , change , learning Over the last couple of years I've often heard about the need for a "sense and respond" capability -- to sense what's happening in our businesses and to respond...(read more)

Want Innovation? Don't Build to Last -- Build for Adaptation!

john.mullinax — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 02:07:00 GMT

The pace of change in the world continues to accelerate. Business is global. Technology enables markets in New York to react almost instantly to changes in Shanghai. Technology gives us the power to be always on and always connected. Technology lets us...(read more)

Vicarious reputation growing from a virtual economy for reputation system points?

john.mullinax — Sat, 17 Feb 2007 04:03:00 GMT

It's an interesting idea that Josh Ledgard learned is being used in China, and blogged about here . I like that it tries to make the reputation system points more useful/valuable, and encourages people to ask questions they really want answered -- that...(read more)

The Best Payback in Technology History... Think you know what it is???

john.mullinax — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 07:38:44 GMT

Hmmm.... How about a giant ERP system? :-) Nope. Internet Explorer? Windows Mobile? Getting closer, but those are only "honorable mention" in my book. If you're a company with a large investments in ERP and Line of Business (LOB) applications, my vote...(read more)

Lean Everywhere

john.mullinax — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 02:29:00 GMT

Lean manufacturing has been around for a long time. Many of the principles of lean were identified in Henry Ford's work before the US Great Depression of the 1930s, and significantly extrended by Kiichiro Toyoda and Taiichi Ohno during the middle of the last century. Today, Toyota is regarded as the pre-eminent practioner of Lean Manufacturing, and "Lean Thinking", and the company is unique in many ways. A few diverse (but non-random) examples:

Toyota is the only automotive company to grow from a looming/weaving company.
Toyota is the only automotive company that has invested in research to create a "car operating system" (yes, I'm talking software OS; not an operating methodology)
Toyota is poised to overtake GM as the world's largest automotive company, perhaps as early as 2008. Despite a dramatic increase in competition in the key US automotive market, Toyota has consistently increased it's sales in the neighborhood of 10% per year over the last 10 years.
Toyota has been extraordinarily open about its manufacturing processes -- guiding thousands of visitors, many competitors, on tours of its operating facilities -- and yet no other company seems able to duplicate its successes.

Each of these unique Toyota attributes raises questions, but I'd like to dwell today on the last point. How come no one has been able to duplicate Toyota's success, despite much concerted effort and an extraordinary openess by Toyota itself to competitors?

In a nutshell, the "secret sauce" is not the operating method or visible artifacts -- it's the thinking process. The relentless focus on experimentation, continuous learning, and the application of that learning to make improvements as a way of life. This thinking process does not make Toyota a lean paragon by itself -- it is applied together with the idea that we should seek to provide the right goods and services, at the right price, at the right time, and at the right place with as little waste as possible.

The idea is striking in its simplicity. Basically, Toyota applies a scientific approach to meet consumer needs with minimum waste. Of course, being simple does not equal being easy. Also, the scientific approach does not replace the need for sound strategy, good people, and strong execution in all of their functional organizations -- in fact, this is one of the key insights: these traditional fundamentals of management are not separate things from the experimentation, learning, and the application of learning for improvement. The scientific thought processes infuse *how* these functions work.

Equally striking, because this is not actually a manufacturing method, but is instead a thought process applied to meeting consumer needs without waste, we can all benefit from lean thinking -- even if we don't work in a plant or in a manufacturing group. Just as marketing, finance, product development, and customer service organizations within manufacturering companies can benefit form lean thinking, so too can financial, consumer, communications, and service industries benefit from lean.

This is not just my idea (if only I were smart enough to figure this one out by mysef!). James Womack, lean guru and founder of the Lean Enterprise Institute advocates applying lean principles widely -- far beyond traditional manufacturing industries. In particular, healthcare stands out as a beautiful target. It's an industry that is actually a composite of the service, financial, manufacturing, and retail industries. If ever there was an industry that consumers wanted to improve it's ability to provide the right goods and services, at the right price, at the right time, at the right place, with minimum waste, it is the US healthcare industry. I don't say this lightly, or smugly, but clearly there is a lot of discontent with healthcare in the United States.

Naturally, there's a lot more to applying Lean thinking than what I've described in a few paragraphs. People spend their lives working to improve their ability to think lean, and apply lean principles. Understanding the various types of waste all around us, developing the ability to see the waste for what it is, and learing to effectively use tools to reduce the waste in our environment is a continuous journey. And I should note that while I'm a fan of lean thinking, I'm certainly not a "Lean Expert". Work, and growth, is required -- for me as much as anyone else.

Why bother with lean? Really, why would we want to imitate an old and slow industry like manufacturing? Especially given it's long and steady decline in the United States. With the acceleating pace of change in the world, we need new ideas that can help us be agile and adaptive, don't we?

Well, That's for my next post!

Update: That "next post" is here.