Sunday, 24 January 2010
Don't aim at the target
Posted by Simon Baker
Without numerical measures we wouldn't know what to do. The problem is, when numerical measures are used as targets they cause people to think their sole purpose is to achieve them, usually to the detriment of everything else. When managers own the targets and use them to force performance they bring out the wrong behaviors. People cut corners to meet the targets. And targets are everywhere. We blinker ourselves to everything except our targets and forget about the real needs of users. In pursuit of our targets we make local optimizations that are suboptimal for the throughput of the whole system, the wider organization.
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Comments: 1
Saturday, 23 January 2010
Saturday, 16 January 2010
Lean Software and Systems Conference in Atlanta
Posted by Simon Baker
David Anderson invited us to speak at the first Lean Software and Systems Conferencein Atlanta from April 21st to 23rd 2010. We'll be talking about our evolving 'system' for software product development, which David saw when he visited us at BSkyB, and more. That was nearly two years ago. Since then we've continued to develop the approach and techniques, applying it more recently on a project with a couple of consultants from the Womack and Jones crew at the Lean Enterprise Academy.
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Friday, 15 January 2010
Invite us around for a cup of tea
Posted by Simon Baker
Since we won the Gordon Pask Award we've been wanting to get out and about to meet people, visit organizations or user groups, see how people are working, understand the problems overcome and the problems still faced, and learn some new things.
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Comments: 3
Thursday, 14 January 2010
Reports are waste and a reason for poor decision-making
Posted by Simon Baker
Myron Tribus said:
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Comments: 9
Sunday, 10 January 2010
Be your users' best friend
Posted by Simon Baker
Frankly I'm tired of manifestos. It's not that any of them are bad. They are well intentioned and usually well formed but they're too open to interpretation. And I, like anyone else, have my own interpretations. That said I'm grateful to Alisatir Cockburn and those involved for writing down a manifesto for users.
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Getting past design to design thinking
Posted by Simon Baker
I previously mentioned that we've been applying iterative development to grow better user experiences so I found the following words and the video particularly interesting.
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Friday, 8 January 2010
Speaking at London QCon
Posted by Simon Baker
We've been invited to speak again at QCon London. Here's the abstract for our session:
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