Kallokain

I recently made a response to a post about time-boxing in the Agile Coaching group at LinkedIn. As it turns out, the author of the post was well aware of the Parkinson's Law angle, and so are probably most agile team leaders. However, even if you do know about Parkinson's Law, you might be interested in the other reason. It is (in my opinion) more important, but less well understood. Here is my response to the LinkedIn post: Two reasons. One is Parkinson's Law: Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. You can read about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_Law Parkinson's Law isn't scientifically proven. It is just an observation about the results of human behavior. The other reason is also a law, but a scientifically proven one. Little's Law says that for a stable system: t = I / T t = Lead time I = Number of items T = Throughput (Items processed per time unit) Note that if you want to reduce t, as in reduce project lea...

This videocast is the first in a new series on modern business leadership, organization, and management. The first episode focuses on what you can do to quickly turn your company around if it took a nosedive during the financial crisis. Among other things, I present a two-day turnaround schedule. Is two days to save a company in trouble realistic? Yes! Saving a company can, and often is, a long, hard struggle, but the turnaround can be very quick. A quick turnaround gives people a bit of fighting spirit. It aligns everyone in the company, and creates opportunities. My experience is that there are almost always opportunities.

Following a discussion about management in a LinkedIn forum, I got an email with a thank you note, and a very good question: You have sent me on a quest and given me a useful map, but this journey is going to take some time and have to be scheduled. Are you willing to pass on any pearls of wisdom from your journey? I do not have a very good answer, I am afraid, but I did my very best. Here is what I wrote: The following works for me. The important thing is not to do the same things, but to do what works for you: Here is what I am doing right now: I study Hoshin Kanri, Lean policy deployment. Toyota is one of very few companies able to execute a strategy well. It is my opinion that Hoshin Kanri and Lean Accounting (or similar practices) are critical success factors when implementing Lean. Also very useful insights if one is interested in Strategic Navigation, or anything else which involves deploying policy. When you read a good book, check the references at the back for interesting re...

I just noticed that Bruce Neubauer, Associate Professor at Albany State University, has embedded two of my videocasts on his web page . (You need to scroll down a bit.) Neubauer has a videocast explaining how to use the Transformation Logic Tree, TLT. TLT is a program for creating all the trees in The Logical Thinking Process (TLTP). TLT is included on a DVD that comes with Bill Dettmer's book The Logical Thinking Process. Here is Neubauer's videocast: