Article I wrote for Agile Journal
http://bit.ly/dbbBHJ
Apr 14, 2010
Apr 10, 2010
Conference presentation at ITESM
----- English version on top and Spanish version at the bottom -----
----- Versión en Inglés primero y version en Español abajo -----
--English--
I'm back at my hotel room after having given a presentation on Lean-Agile and Innovation. Unfortunately I got very sick last night; and was feeling quite weak and out of focus during my talk, thus it didn't go as great as I wanted. Students and university staff received quite well what I had to say on lean-agile and it seems they enjoyed both the pair face-drawing exercise and, even more so, the speed-boat exercise which I used for the audience to evaluate the conference (taking advantage of the fact that mine was the last, and main, presentation.
One of the talks I attended yesterday was by Luis Armando Bravo from Probionics, a mexican maker of prosthetics controlled by muscular electric signals. His work is amazing as he managed to develop a set of prosthetics, that are lighter, stronger, faster, cheaper, and more versatile than any other in the world.
The other talk I attended was by Ricardo Medina from Microsoft. As expected, it was part marketing - part presentation. The highlight was the offering from Microsoft to provide no -strings-attached material resources to young entrepreneurs as long as their idea includes the use of technology.
This congress was actually organized by the students at ITESM, with help from some university staff, and they did a fantastic job. There were around 300 attendants and sponsorship from several national and international businesses. Congrats!
--Spanish--
Estoy de regerso en mi habitación del hotel después de haber dado una presentación sobre Lean-Agile e Innovación. Lamentablemente tuve una noche difícil debido a que me enferme; y me sentí muy débil y fuera de foco durante mi presentación, por lo que resultó como yo lo deseaba. Los estudiantes y profesores universitarios recibieron muy bien lo que les comuniqué sobre lean-agile y parece que disfrutaron los dos ejercicios: el dibujar caras por parejas y, más aún, el ejercicio de la lancha, el cual utilizé para que la audiencia evaluara la conferencia ( aprovechando el hecho de que mi plática fue la última, y la presentación principal.
Una de las pláticas a las que asistí ayer fue por Luis Armando Bravo de Probionics, un fabricante mexicano de prótesis controlada por señales eléctricas musculares. Su obra es muy buena y se las arregló para desarrollar una serie de prótesis, que son más ligeros, más fuertes, más rápidos, más baratos y más versátiles que cualquier otra en el mundo.
La otra plática que asistí fue la de Ricardo Medina, de Microsoft. Como es de esperarse, fue parte mercadotécnia - parte presentación. El punto culminante fue el ofrecimiento de Microsoft de proporcionar recursos materiales sin compromiso a los jóvenes empresarios, siempre y cuando su idea incluya el uso de la tecnología.
Este congreso fue organizado en por los alumnos del ITESM, con la ayuda de staff universitario, e hicieron un trabajo fantástico. Hubo alrededor de 300 asistentes y obtuvieron patrocinio de varias empresas nacionales e internacionales. Felicidades!
----- Versión en Inglés primero y version en Español abajo -----
--English--
I'm back at my hotel room after having given a presentation on Lean-Agile and Innovation. Unfortunately I got very sick last night; and was feeling quite weak and out of focus during my talk, thus it didn't go as great as I wanted. Students and university staff received quite well what I had to say on lean-agile and it seems they enjoyed both the pair face-drawing exercise and, even more so, the speed-boat exercise which I used for the audience to evaluate the conference (taking advantage of the fact that mine was the last, and main, presentation.
One of the talks I attended yesterday was by Luis Armando Bravo from Probionics, a mexican maker of prosthetics controlled by muscular electric signals. His work is amazing as he managed to develop a set of prosthetics, that are lighter, stronger, faster, cheaper, and more versatile than any other in the world.
The other talk I attended was by Ricardo Medina from Microsoft. As expected, it was part marketing - part presentation. The highlight was the offering from Microsoft to provide no -strings-attached material resources to young entrepreneurs as long as their idea includes the use of technology.
This congress was actually organized by the students at ITESM, with help from some university staff, and they did a fantastic job. There were around 300 attendants and sponsorship from several national and international businesses. Congrats!
--Spanish--
Estoy de regerso en mi habitación del hotel después de haber dado una presentación sobre Lean-Agile e Innovación. Lamentablemente tuve una noche difícil debido a que me enferme; y me sentí muy débil y fuera de foco durante mi presentación, por lo que resultó como yo lo deseaba. Los estudiantes y profesores universitarios recibieron muy bien lo que les comuniqué sobre lean-agile y parece que disfrutaron los dos ejercicios: el dibujar caras por parejas y, más aún, el ejercicio de la lancha, el cual utilizé para que la audiencia evaluara la conferencia ( aprovechando el hecho de que mi plática fue la última, y la presentación principal.
Una de las pláticas a las que asistí ayer fue por Luis Armando Bravo de Probionics, un fabricante mexicano de prótesis controlada por señales eléctricas musculares. Su obra es muy buena y se las arregló para desarrollar una serie de prótesis, que son más ligeros, más fuertes, más rápidos, más baratos y más versátiles que cualquier otra en el mundo.
La otra plática que asistí fue la de Ricardo Medina, de Microsoft. Como es de esperarse, fue parte mercadotécnia - parte presentación. El punto culminante fue el ofrecimiento de Microsoft de proporcionar recursos materiales sin compromiso a los jóvenes empresarios, siempre y cuando su idea incluya el uso de la tecnología.
Este congreso fue organizado en por los alumnos del ITESM, con la ayuda de staff universitario, e hicieron un trabajo fantástico. Hubo alrededor de 300 asistentes y obtuvieron patrocinio de varias empresas nacionales e internacionales. Felicidades!
Mar 26, 2010
Snow Crash and the emerge of lean-agile
----- English version on top and Spanish version at the bottom -----
----- Versión en Inglés primero y version en Español abajo -----
--- English ---
Silly question: have you read Neal Stephenson's novel Snow Crash? I know... I know... who hasn't? duh! I myself read it for the first time back in 1996 (didn't read it when it was published in 1992 because I lived in Japan at that time and the novel wasn't available in the City I lived in. Moved to the USA in 1995).
So, why am I bringing Snow Crash up? At the beginning of the novel, Stephenson wrote the are things we Americans do better than anyone else and the list includes music, movies, and microcode (i.e., software). This is a nice thing to believe. Take movies, for example; we make really good movies (The Matrix pops out in my mind). Even the bad movies are good; why, because even when they suck they entertain and bring audiences and make money. Fortunately we are much better at doing good ones even better. Take for example "La Jetée" made into "12 Monkeys", or the short story "The Sentinel" into the movie "2001 A Space Odyssey". Our pizzas are also awesome (Chicago style being my favorite) and although I have never been to Italy friends have told me there's no way Italian pizzas are better than ours! The emerge of new music in the USA is unlike anywhere else. We can create new music just as much as we can take something from anywhere else in the world and morph it into something new and cool.
All that is, of course, arguable. But we all are entitled to an opinion and even if things are not to the larger extent my words may sound we can all agree that many good things have been done here.
Similarly, lean and agile are a combination to two things. We took things that work in practice, regardless of what theory or established processes indicated, and made them better. We didn't care if a standard came out of a DoD sponsored effort, or a model came out of a prestigious institution. We wanted something that worked really well in the real world and that acknowledged the variability that comes from working in an ever changing environment. From market trends to customer needs, the economy, team members personal life, health, etc. We wanted and needed a foundation and practices to make us succeed in such chaotic environment.
Lean and agile evolved independently of each other, although it is clear that agile follows some very similar foundation. None of them brought something entirely new but both took bits and pieces that have had good results and shaped them up into something congruent and quite useful and effective.
The history of humanity has gone through some important changes such as from he feudal days to the renaissance, the industrial revolution, the popularization of culture, and an information revolution. The pattern is pretty much bringing something big, monolithic, power-based, controlling, and inefficient to something smaller, distributed, knowledge-based, collaborative and efficiency-oriented.
Lean-agile is following that pattern by emphasizing on work in small teams, breaking work into small chunks, empowering people (and respecting them), increase collaboration at all levels of the enterprise and with customers, and replacing costly and fancy processes with efficient practices.
--- Español ---
Pregunta tonta: ¿Has leído la novela de Neal Stephenson titulada Snow Crash? Lo sé ... lo sé ... ¿Quién no? Yo la leí por primera vez en 1996 (no lo leí cuando se publicó en 1992, porque yo vivía en Japón en esa época y la novela no estaba disponible en la ciudad que vivió in mudó a los EE.UU. en 1995).
Así que, ¿por qué estoy atrayendo atención a Snow Crash? Al comienzo de la novela, Stephenson escribió que hay cosas que los Estadounidenses hacemos mejor que nadie, y la lista incluye música, películas, y microcódigo (es decir, software). Esta es una cosa agradable de creer. Tomemos películas, por ejemplo, hacemos películas realmente buenas (The Matrix surge en mi mente). Incluso las malas películas son buenas, ¿por qué, porque aún cuando son malas entretienen y atraen al público, y ganan dinero. Afortunadamente somos mucho mejor en hacer algo bueno aún mejor. Tomemos, por ejemplo, "La Jetée" en la cual se basó "12 Monkeys", o el cuento "The Sentinel" a partir del cual se hizo "2001 Una Odisea en el Espacio". Nuestras pizzas son también buenísimas (estilo Chicago son mis favoritas), y aunque nunca he estado en Italia, amigos que han ido me han dicho que no hay manera de que las pizzas italianas sean mejores que las nuestras! El surgimiento de nueva música en los E.U. no tiene comparación con cualquier otro lugar.Podemos crear nueva música tanto como podamos tomar algo de cualquier otra parte del mundo y se transforman en algo nuevo y fabuloso.
Todo esto es, por supuesto, discutible. Pero todos tenemos derecho a una opinión y aunque las cosas no lleguen a ser de la medida que mis palabras reflejan, creo que todos estaremos de acuerdo que muchas cosas buenas se han hecho aquí.
Del mismo modo, lean y agile son una combinación de dos cosas. Tomaron las cosas que funcionan en la práctica, independientemente de lo que la teoría o de los procesos establecidos indicam, y las hicieron mejor. No nos importaba si una norma salió de un esfuerzo patrocinado por el Departamento de Defensa, o un modelo salió de una institución de prestigio. Queríamos algo que funciona muy bien en el mundo real y que reconoce la variabilidad que viene de trabajar en un entorno en constante cambio. De las tendencias del mercado a las necesidades del cliente, la economía, la vida personal de los miembros del equipo, la salud, etc.. Queríamos y necesitabamos una base y prácticas que nos hicieran prosperar en un ambiente sumamente caótico.
Lean y agile evolucionaron de forma independiente el uno del otro, aunque es evidente que agile sigue algún fundamento muy similar a lean. Ninguno de ellos aportó algo totalmente nuevo, pero ambos tomaron pedazos que han tenido buenos resultados en la práctica y en forma congruente para llegar a algo muy útil y eficaz.
La historia de la humanidad ha pasado por algunos cambios importantes, como de los días feudales al Renacimiento, la revolución industrial, la divulgación de la cultura, y la revolución de la información. El patrón es cambiar de algo grande, monolítico, basado en el poder, controlador, e ineficiente en algo más pequeño, distribuido, basado en el conocimiento, en colaboración y orientado a eficiencia.
Lean-agile está siguiendo ese patrón, poniendo énfasis en el trabajo en pequeños equipos, rompiendo el trabajo en pequeños pedazos, capacitando a las personas (y respetandolas), aumentando la colaboración en todos los niveles de la empresa y con los clientes, y substituyendo los procesos costosos y pesados con prácticas eficientes.
----- Versión en Inglés primero y version en Español abajo -----
--- English ---
Silly question: have you read Neal Stephenson's novel Snow Crash? I know... I know... who hasn't? duh! I myself read it for the first time back in 1996 (didn't read it when it was published in 1992 because I lived in Japan at that time and the novel wasn't available in the City I lived in. Moved to the USA in 1995).
So, why am I bringing Snow Crash up? At the beginning of the novel, Stephenson wrote the are things we Americans do better than anyone else and the list includes music, movies, and microcode (i.e., software). This is a nice thing to believe. Take movies, for example; we make really good movies (The Matrix pops out in my mind). Even the bad movies are good; why, because even when they suck they entertain and bring audiences and make money. Fortunately we are much better at doing good ones even better. Take for example "La Jetée" made into "12 Monkeys", or the short story "The Sentinel" into the movie "2001 A Space Odyssey". Our pizzas are also awesome (Chicago style being my favorite) and although I have never been to Italy friends have told me there's no way Italian pizzas are better than ours! The emerge of new music in the USA is unlike anywhere else. We can create new music just as much as we can take something from anywhere else in the world and morph it into something new and cool.
All that is, of course, arguable. But we all are entitled to an opinion and even if things are not to the larger extent my words may sound we can all agree that many good things have been done here.
Similarly, lean and agile are a combination to two things. We took things that work in practice, regardless of what theory or established processes indicated, and made them better. We didn't care if a standard came out of a DoD sponsored effort, or a model came out of a prestigious institution. We wanted something that worked really well in the real world and that acknowledged the variability that comes from working in an ever changing environment. From market trends to customer needs, the economy, team members personal life, health, etc. We wanted and needed a foundation and practices to make us succeed in such chaotic environment.
Lean and agile evolved independently of each other, although it is clear that agile follows some very similar foundation. None of them brought something entirely new but both took bits and pieces that have had good results and shaped them up into something congruent and quite useful and effective.
The history of humanity has gone through some important changes such as from he feudal days to the renaissance, the industrial revolution, the popularization of culture, and an information revolution. The pattern is pretty much bringing something big, monolithic, power-based, controlling, and inefficient to something smaller, distributed, knowledge-based, collaborative and efficiency-oriented.
Lean-agile is following that pattern by emphasizing on work in small teams, breaking work into small chunks, empowering people (and respecting them), increase collaboration at all levels of the enterprise and with customers, and replacing costly and fancy processes with efficient practices.
--- Español ---
Pregunta tonta: ¿Has leído la novela de Neal Stephenson titulada Snow Crash? Lo sé ... lo sé ... ¿Quién no? Yo la leí por primera vez en 1996 (no lo leí cuando se publicó en 1992, porque yo vivía en Japón en esa época y la novela no estaba disponible en la ciudad que vivió in mudó a los EE.UU. en 1995).
Así que, ¿por qué estoy atrayendo atención a Snow Crash? Al comienzo de la novela, Stephenson escribió que hay cosas que los Estadounidenses hacemos mejor que nadie, y la lista incluye música, películas, y microcódigo (es decir, software). Esta es una cosa agradable de creer. Tomemos películas, por ejemplo, hacemos películas realmente buenas (The Matrix surge en mi mente). Incluso las malas películas son buenas, ¿por qué, porque aún cuando son malas entretienen y atraen al público, y ganan dinero. Afortunadamente somos mucho mejor en hacer algo bueno aún mejor. Tomemos, por ejemplo, "La Jetée" en la cual se basó "12 Monkeys", o el cuento "The Sentinel" a partir del cual se hizo "2001 Una Odisea en el Espacio". Nuestras pizzas son también buenísimas (estilo Chicago son mis favoritas), y aunque nunca he estado en Italia, amigos que han ido me han dicho que no hay manera de que las pizzas italianas sean mejores que las nuestras! El surgimiento de nueva música en los E.U. no tiene comparación con cualquier otro lugar.Podemos crear nueva música tanto como podamos tomar algo de cualquier otra parte del mundo y se transforman en algo nuevo y fabuloso.
Todo esto es, por supuesto, discutible. Pero todos tenemos derecho a una opinión y aunque las cosas no lleguen a ser de la medida que mis palabras reflejan, creo que todos estaremos de acuerdo que muchas cosas buenas se han hecho aquí.
Del mismo modo, lean y agile son una combinación de dos cosas. Tomaron las cosas que funcionan en la práctica, independientemente de lo que la teoría o de los procesos establecidos indicam, y las hicieron mejor. No nos importaba si una norma salió de un esfuerzo patrocinado por el Departamento de Defensa, o un modelo salió de una institución de prestigio. Queríamos algo que funciona muy bien en el mundo real y que reconoce la variabilidad que viene de trabajar en un entorno en constante cambio. De las tendencias del mercado a las necesidades del cliente, la economía, la vida personal de los miembros del equipo, la salud, etc.. Queríamos y necesitabamos una base y prácticas que nos hicieran prosperar en un ambiente sumamente caótico.
Lean y agile evolucionaron de forma independiente el uno del otro, aunque es evidente que agile sigue algún fundamento muy similar a lean. Ninguno de ellos aportó algo totalmente nuevo, pero ambos tomaron pedazos que han tenido buenos resultados en la práctica y en forma congruente para llegar a algo muy útil y eficaz.
La historia de la humanidad ha pasado por algunos cambios importantes, como de los días feudales al Renacimiento, la revolución industrial, la divulgación de la cultura, y la revolución de la información. El patrón es cambiar de algo grande, monolítico, basado en el poder, controlador, e ineficiente en algo más pequeño, distribuido, basado en el conocimiento, en colaboración y orientado a eficiencia.
Lean-agile está siguiendo ese patrón, poniendo énfasis en el trabajo en pequeños equipos, rompiendo el trabajo en pequeños pedazos, capacitando a las personas (y respetandolas), aumentando la colaboración en todos los niveles de la empresa y con los clientes, y substituyendo los procesos costosos y pesados con prácticas eficientes.
MexAPLN meeting: March 2010
----- English version on top and Spanish version at the bottom -----
----- Versión en Inglés primero y version en Español abajo -----
--- English ---
MexAPLN meeting on March 25 took place at Software Guru, again. Many thanks to SG for hosting us! I like their offices quite a bit, btw. Given the fact that a long vacation time starts next week and many people start early I expected few people but to my surprise there were 8 of us; which is great considering previous meetings have had between 8 and 12 people.
Agenda for the meeting was primarily to:
--- Español ---
La reunión del 25 de marzo tuvo lugar en Software Gurú otra vez. Muchas gracias a la SG por recibirnos! Por cierto que me gustan mucho sus oficinas un poco. Dado el hecho de que las vacaciones de semana santa comienzan la próxima semana y que muchas personas inician su vacación días antes, esperaba poca gente pero para mi sorpresa hubo 8 de nosotros, que es fabuloso teniendo en cuenta que las reuniones anteriores han tenido entre 8 y 12 personas.
La agenda fué primordialmente:
----- Versión en Inglés primero y version en Español abajo -----
--- English ---
MexAPLN meeting on March 25 took place at Software Guru, again. Many thanks to SG for hosting us! I like their offices quite a bit, btw. Given the fact that a long vacation time starts next week and many people start early I expected few people but to my surprise there were 8 of us; which is great considering previous meetings have had between 8 and 12 people.
Agenda for the meeting was primarily to:
- Work on the charter's objectives. We covered a little over the list we had and added new ones. We have enough to get started and will cover the remaining ones by the next meeting, hopefully.
- Next meeting will be the first double-meeting, meaning a CoCo meeting followed by a general meeting. Venue is TBD and topic will be either one to be proposed by Alberto Balderas or one on project management by Masa
- Learning. I talked about the project management triangles and showed a new polygon I call the lean-agile prism, which I am currently proposing and submitted and article about it to Agile Journal.
--- Español ---
La reunión del 25 de marzo tuvo lugar en Software Gurú otra vez. Muchas gracias a la SG por recibirnos! Por cierto que me gustan mucho sus oficinas un poco. Dado el hecho de que las vacaciones de semana santa comienzan la próxima semana y que muchas personas inician su vacación días antes, esperaba poca gente pero para mi sorpresa hubo 8 de nosotros, que es fabuloso teniendo en cuenta que las reuniones anteriores han tenido entre 8 y 12 personas.
La agenda fué primordialmente:
- Trabajar en los objetivos de los estatutos. Hemos cubierto un poco más de la lista que teníamos y añadimos otros nuevos. Tenemos suficiente para empezar a trabajar y cubriremos los restantes en la próxima reunión, de ser posible.
- La próxima reunión será la primer reunión doble: reunión del CoCo seguida de una reunión general. Lugar para el event está por determinarse y el tema será uno propuesto por Alberto Balderas o uno sobre la gestión de proyectos de parte de Masa.
- Aprendizaje. Hablé acerca de los triángulos de la gestión del proyecto y mostré un nuevo polígono que yo llamo el prisma lean-agile, que estoy proponiendo en la actualidad y he presentado un artículo sobre el tema al Agile Journal.
Mar 19, 2010
Book review: Innovation Games
Everybody wants to better their businesses and make serious efforts to do so, but maybe we could be more effective is the efforts were less serious and more fun. Business communication is always challenging within the organization, with customers, providers, contractors, etc.. This is in part because they are not face-to-face and because most times one or more people who could add significant value take a passive role, in part because most times there is someone who enjoys dominating the meeting. End result is incomplete and biased information and decisions.
One main reason why games work is because (a) they are fun, and (b) they make everybody to actively participate. Hohmann's book is a great starting point. The games cover diverse needs and conducted properly add significant value (and save costs) to teams, projects, and entire enterprises.
Don't get serious... instead, start using this book!
One main reason why games work is because (a) they are fun, and (b) they make everybody to actively participate. Hohmann's book is a great starting point. The games cover diverse needs and conducted properly add significant value (and save costs) to teams, projects, and entire enterprises.
Don't get serious... instead, start using this book!
Mar 18, 2010
Writing Spanish version of new Kanban book
Great news, I have been given the opportunity to translate David J Anderson's new book entitled "Kanban: Evolutionary change for you technology company". Needless to say I am thrilled by this.
:-)
:-)
Mar 17, 2010
Agile Training Game Board
Yesterday's talk at the BayAPLN meeting was on the Agile Training Game Board, proposed by David Chilcott from Outformations and Pat Reed from The Gap.
The basic concept is very simple. The same way that some of us actually use an agile dev board alike scrum at the training courses we offer, the ATGM shows the flow of stories from backlog to completion. What I think the contribution was is the emphasis on short timeboxes, 10 min in average and 20 min tops. This is particularly useful for training to executives because details are not necessarily important to them and they rather get the succinct version of things. They also encourage the thumbs-up-down-sideways feedback to consider stories Done. The board had extra columns at the end for value points and time, both important aspects to executives.
The talk included a stand-up game on self-organization to show how some concepts can be "explained" effectively and in shorter time through games.
The basic concept is very simple. The same way that some of us actually use an agile dev board alike scrum at the training courses we offer, the ATGM shows the flow of stories from backlog to completion. What I think the contribution was is the emphasis on short timeboxes, 10 min in average and 20 min tops. This is particularly useful for training to executives because details are not necessarily important to them and they rather get the succinct version of things. They also encourage the thumbs-up-down-sideways feedback to consider stories Done. The board had extra columns at the end for value points and time, both important aspects to executives.
The talk included a stand-up game on self-organization to show how some concepts can be "explained" effectively and in shorter time through games.
Mar 10, 2010
Lean-Agile editor for the Software Guru magazine
Software Guru magazine invited me to be the editor for its lean-agile section and I gladly accepted :-)
This is a great opportunity to help in contributing more effectively to the penetration of lean-agile in Mexico and hopefully Latin America as well; and at the same time increase de presence of Mexico within the global lean-agile community.
This is a great opportunity to help in contributing more effectively to the penetration of lean-agile in Mexico and hopefully Latin America as well; and at the same time increase de presence of Mexico within the global lean-agile community.
Mar 9, 2010
The best way to fix the Prius sudden-acceleration problem is by not fixing it.
Did I get your attention? Good!
Tonight's news included yet another case of a Prius sudden-acceleration problem, this time in San Diego where the driver ended up being assisted by a police officer who used his police car to stop the Prius by driving in front of it to slow it down to a stop. Toyota's engineers are really scratching their heads over this problem and that particular Prius is now being analyzed very thoroughly in hope to figure out the cause.
So, how to fix this problem? Probably Toyota's engineers already thought about what I am about to propose but here it goes anyway: do not fix the problem! Okay so, before those of you who are still reading on what I think should be done is two things:
Tonight's news included yet another case of a Prius sudden-acceleration problem, this time in San Diego where the driver ended up being assisted by a police officer who used his police car to stop the Prius by driving in front of it to slow it down to a stop. Toyota's engineers are really scratching their heads over this problem and that particular Prius is now being analyzed very thoroughly in hope to figure out the cause.
So, how to fix this problem? Probably Toyota's engineers already thought about what I am about to propose but here it goes anyway: do not fix the problem! Okay so, before those of you who are still reading on what I think should be done is two things:
- Verify the algorithm and its implementation. One very likely cause is the software that controls the car's acceleration and brake systems. If that is the case and engineers cannot find and fix the bug(s) then a better course of action would be to start from the beginning and (a) create a new algorithm, (b) analyze the algorthm quality as such, i.e. as an abstraction, (c) implement and test it simultaneously. Step (b) is extremely important because that is the best way to make sure the algorithm is robust. If we wait until implementation time to do testing then it will be harder to know if the problem is the algorithm itself or its implementation. I think this is the most viable, fast, and cost-effective course of action.
- Unit level testing is not enough. One well know problem with measurement, from the physics standpoint, is that any attempt to measure something will affect what is being measured and therefore the measurement will be inexact. This means that once the algorithm and its implementation are robust it will be more effective to test at subsystem and system levels instead of inisolation.
- Reproduce internal and external test conditions. The best way to reproduce a behavior is by recreating all conditions that triggered the undersired behavior. In addition to the car conditions this includes road, slope, weather, etc.
Mar 5, 2010
Presentaion on Lean-Agile and Innovation at the ITESM
This morning I gave a presentation on Lean-Agile and Innovation at the ITESM (Monterey Advanced Studies Institute of Technology), which was broadcasted to its 33 campuses nation-wide via satelite and was also webcasted.
I talked about the motivation to create better products and services considering Quality, Value, and Design, then moved on to talk about fundamentals of Lean and Agile. Last I talked about the advantage of using games to foster innovation and did examples on planning and estimating, group cohesion, and product analysis. More specifically I used planning poker, pair drawing, and prune-the-tree games.
The oopsy part was that I used all of the allocated time giving the presentation so Q&A had to be off-line. But it was possible to compensate at least with the local audience through 10 min. of Q&A.
BTW, the ITESM staff did an extraordinary job with logistics, production, etc., and the campus is impressive and functional.
I talked about the motivation to create better products and services considering Quality, Value, and Design, then moved on to talk about fundamentals of Lean and Agile. Last I talked about the advantage of using games to foster innovation and did examples on planning and estimating, group cohesion, and product analysis. More specifically I used planning poker, pair drawing, and prune-the-tree games.
The oopsy part was that I used all of the allocated time giving the presentation so Q&A had to be off-line. But it was possible to compensate at least with the local audience through 10 min. of Q&A.
BTW, the ITESM staff did an extraordinary job with logistics, production, etc., and the campus is impressive and functional.
Feb 26, 2010
MexAPLN Feb 2010 meeting
MexAPLN Feb 2010 meeting took place last night at the offices of Software Guru Magazine, a modern looking floor with cool artwork on the walls. Definitely a nice place to work. We had 10 people, three of them new with one of them from the city of Puebla. The central topic was to thumbs-up our charter's vision, mission, values, and principles and will be available before the end of this week. The discussion was rather short thanks to off-line work by 7 members in that most of the discussions took place before the meeting. We did a first-pass at the objectives and will be discussing them further as well as the other parts of the charter with the intention to finalize it at our March meeting.
There are numerous ideas and enthusiasm to start executing. I don't see a reason for MexAPLN to become of of the best!
Note: Software Guru has been making reference to a blog in Spanish written by Armando Peralta, check it out!
There are numerous ideas and enthusiasm to start executing. I don't see a reason for MexAPLN to become of of the best!
Note: Software Guru has been making reference to a blog in Spanish written by Armando Peralta, check it out!
Feb 24, 2010
Second presentation at Congress in Mexico
This morning I gave a second presentation on lean-agile at Mexico's Congress aiming at medium and small industry. It was probably not the best day to schedule it because today is Mexic's Flag day and logistics got a bit complicated. The presentation was successful in that all attendants got very enthusiastic about lean-agile and the Q&A session lasted over 1/2 hour. There were three nice outcomes:
1. The Deputy I started doing all this with concluded is time to bring my ideas to the Secretary of the Economy. I will be meeting two of its members either next week or at my next business trip.
2. An entrepreneur wants us to talk about how lean-agile can help his new life-science business.
3. I was asked to give a presentation at the School of Economy at the National University of Mexico.
One very cool thing that also happened was a person from an indigenous area in Mexico was there and asked me about how to use lean-agile principles to help the community of craftsmen better their business. This is obviously a very different context but after hearing details on how they are working to create and sell their crafts I gave her some ideas and advice I hope will help them. Of course I would love to get a chance to go there for a few days and create a direct positive impact.
1. The Deputy I started doing all this with concluded is time to bring my ideas to the Secretary of the Economy. I will be meeting two of its members either next week or at my next business trip.
2. An entrepreneur wants us to talk about how lean-agile can help his new life-science business.
3. I was asked to give a presentation at the School of Economy at the National University of Mexico.
One very cool thing that also happened was a person from an indigenous area in Mexico was there and asked me about how to use lean-agile principles to help the community of craftsmen better their business. This is obviously a very different context but after hearing details on how they are working to create and sell their crafts I gave her some ideas and advice I hope will help them. Of course I would love to get a chance to go there for a few days and create a direct positive impact.
Feb 20, 2010
Effective employee performance assessment via lean-thinking
An eBay executive once asked me how I would go about doing individual employee performance review if lean-agile are team oriented. Effectively, in agile-lean thinking, we value team effort more than individual effort and consider individual rewards to hinder teamwork improvement. That doesn't mean, however, individual performance cannot be measured. As with enterprises, what we need to do is know what to measure.
We must use measurements that encourage the employee to improve teamwork through individual efforts for the benefit of the business and the customer. For example:
Measure sales executives in terms of the number of successful deliveries instead of the number of sales deals closed. That way the sales executive can't forget about the customer once the sales deal is closed. It is necessary to make sure the client gets what was paid for, and to do that it becomes necessary to work as a team with other groups in the company.
Measure developers in terms of how many stories got completed with good customer satisfaction instead of how many lines of code were implemented but rather . This developer has to interact with QA, the scrum master, the product owner, and customers to fully understand the stories and customer needs to ensure the code meets customer needs and has the quality required.
Measure QA engineers in terms of reduction of bugs in the code and increase of product quality instead of number of bugs found. That way the focus becomes building quality, as compared with showing how bad the product is. Activities are proactive, including higher interaction with customers and other teams instead of only the reactive activity of bug hunting.
Under such lean thinking the employees increase teamwork, quality, and customer satisfaction; and executives have an effective way to measure individual performance without fomenting individualistic work.
We must use measurements that encourage the employee to improve teamwork through individual efforts for the benefit of the business and the customer. For example:
Measure sales executives in terms of the number of successful deliveries instead of the number of sales deals closed. That way the sales executive can't forget about the customer once the sales deal is closed. It is necessary to make sure the client gets what was paid for, and to do that it becomes necessary to work as a team with other groups in the company.
Measure developers in terms of how many stories got completed with good customer satisfaction instead of how many lines of code were implemented but rather . This developer has to interact with QA, the scrum master, the product owner, and customers to fully understand the stories and customer needs to ensure the code meets customer needs and has the quality required.
Measure QA engineers in terms of reduction of bugs in the code and increase of product quality instead of number of bugs found. That way the focus becomes building quality, as compared with showing how bad the product is. Activities are proactive, including higher interaction with customers and other teams instead of only the reactive activity of bug hunting.
Under such lean thinking the employees increase teamwork, quality, and customer satisfaction; and executives have an effective way to measure individual performance without fomenting individualistic work.
Feb 19, 2010
Some coming presentations
I will be in Mexico City the next two weeks (Feb 22 ~ Mart 5) and during that trip I will be giving the following presentations:
- Feb 24, Congress building. I will be giving my second presentation on lean-agile, this time to a larger audience that includes industry leaders and some congressmen. It is very likely that it will be broadcasted through the Congress TV channel.
- March 5, ITESM (Instituto Tecnológico de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey). I will give a lecture on lean-agile and innovation which will be broadcasted to its 33 campuses accross the country via satellite and internet.
Feb 16, 2010
Jim Highsmith's talk: Beyond scope, schedule, and cost
I'm back home from the monthly BayAPLN meeting. This time we had Jim Highsmith give a talk entitled "Beyond Scope, Schedule, and Cost: rethinking performance measures for agile development". I read Jim's most recent book on agile project management and actually wrote a review on it (posted on by blog and on Amazon.com) and thought this talk was going to have as central point the new Agile Triangle as proposed on the book. I was very pleased that the presentation went beyond that. Jim exposed different ways in which we can measure performance by considering value and quality; and gave a good number of examples. 
He mentioned the importance on having a better standing point to evaluate and measure performance. A common factor on all of them is adaptability. The metrics must allow changes and be effective measuring under real-world variations. Quality could very well be the most important metric of all; but doesn't mean it should be the only metric to have.
He mentioned the importance on having a better standing point to evaluate and measure performance. A common factor on all of them is adaptability. The metrics must allow changes and be effective measuring under real-world variations. Quality could very well be the most important metric of all; but doesn't mean it should be the only metric to have.
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