Most of what happens to a firm is a consequence of what it does, not of what is done to it. - Russel Ackoff

It is really common to hear people in organizations blaming and complaining about external factors that contribute to make their knowledge work environment somehow problematic. In his book, Recreating the Corporation, Russel Ackoff describes how the forces of systems provokes common organization behaviors: “Our lots is due more to what we do then what is done to us”. [More]

Introducing "retrospectives" for a new team that I'm working with: I ask: What problems did you have since last time I had been here? Result of discussion: 7 different problems listed on the board. What actions would we take to make them disappear from now on? They suggested 5 actions. I agree with all and suggest another 4. All of them were just small adjustments on process or behavior. So far: 9 actions listed on the board. I ask: - Good?- Good!  - Can you do it? - Sure. Easy! - Do you think we can check the effectiveness of these changes next month and discuss about new problems that will arrive until there? - Sure. - Do you think you can repeat this process every month even ... [More]

Last September I presented this topic in the 2012 Agile Brazil conference in Sao Paulo. The reception was great and finally I had the opportunity to translate it to english so it can be viewed by a larger audience. [More]

  Every work environment has a well defined “work model”. It is common to hear people saying things like “- there is no process at all here! We just do it.”. Even in these cases, where there isn't an explicit “process”, a work model can be extracted and used as starting point for improvement. Your work model is just the way you do the work at certain point. It is dynamic, because it evolves positively or negatively along time regardless your will. However, it evolves slowly most of the time allowing you to extract a physycal representation that can help you to see how it looks like at certain point, what are possible improvement points to pers... [More]

While I was flying back to Brazil after attending another great Kanban Retreat event in Mayrhofen, I had the opportunity to read the last book published by David Anderson: Lessons in Agile Management - On the Road to Kanban, which is really great by the way and deserves a specific post about it. One of the topics particularly got my attention. I'm refering to the one that talks about the use of the "Inventory Lean Manufacturing" metaphor in the software development context (pages 291-294). In four pages, David Anderson really got me thinking when he tries to clarify the topic by explaining how tricky is to map concepts in such different contexts like manufacturing and knowledge work. He talk... [More]

  Last month the American Journal of Preventive Medicine published the results of an interesting study. After posting a sign stating "Burn Calories, not Electricity" near elevators in buildings at New York, the use of the stairs increased in 25%, and this percentage was kept in that level during the 9 months of following observations. What does this mean? It means that putting people in front of the right information, at the right place and at the right time can help them when they are taking decisions at the last responsible moment.  My feeling says that when this happens, we are remembered of the long term effects of our current decision point, helping us to consider tho... [More]

For few months, I have been using a Personal Kanban board like the one below:  Figure 1: My current personal kanban board  This is not an usual style for a Personal Kanban implementation. A more common way is to distribute tasks in limited columns representing items to do, ready, doing and done, which it is an interesting model once it creates visibility in terms of tasks in focus and also encourages flow. My design, however, puts in place a different model. I call it "the initiative box" and I have been using it not only for my Personal Kanban, but also for helping clients to visualize their portfolio of initiatives.  Semantics The semantics of the "Initiative Box" is c... [More]

Last May at the Lean SSC 2011 conference I introduced my thoughts to some colleagues about the interpretation of what I think would be one of the fundamental elements in knowledge work systems: cycles of evaluations of assumptions. Alan Shalloway has recently taken this conversation forward, connecting these thoughts to other ideas related to risk and flow on this blog post. So, I have decided to write about the topic in more detail so we can explore this in terms of understanding what I think is part of what the Lean-Kanban and Agile communities do and why it matters so much.   Why we should care about assumptions   Assumptions are at the heart of all knowledge work act... [More]

Nas próximas semanas estarei em Brasília visitando algumas empresas e me reunindo com pessoas interessadas em saber mais sobre como utilizar Kanban para otimizar seus processos de trabalho. Estarei apresentando também duas palestras sobre o tema nos dias: 18 de maio (terça-feira) de 19:00 às 20:30 da noite. 19 de maio (quarta-feira) de 10:00 às 11: 30 da manhã.  Entrada Franca!  As apresentações serão realizadas no excelente Auditório do 2o. Andar da Biblioteca Nacional de Brasília, que possui um programa muito interessante de disseminação de conhecimento para a comunid... [More]

The snow ball effect: that is the metaphor that I was thinking about when I have prepared the talk "Making the Work Visible" for the Lean Software and System Conference occurred last week in Atlanta. The first idea turns around visualization as a catalyst for obtaining system understanding. To visualize an specific characteristic of your process, you need to think about it in a structured way, connecting this visualization to underline properties of your system. The exercise of doing that continuously generates understanding, which is what we are looking for at the end. On the other hand, something interesting happens when you raise your level of system understanding. New ideas emerge. The ... [More]