I don’t normally read textbooks just for fun. Ok, that’s not true. I wouldn’t normally read this textbook just for fun. It is, however, excellent reference material and worth a… Read more The Five Focusing Steps for Human Systems →
Thinking Globally When Constructing the Value Chain The Theory of Constraints teaches us the difference between local and global thinking with respect to systems and their performance. To think locally is… Read more Who Is the User, Really? →
The following is a rather unpolished glimpse into how we think about batch sizes and iterations. First, we expect our system to have a goal. For a software-building system made of people like ourselves, the goal is to deliver value in the form of working software. We think of “batches” as the units of work into which “software-building” is broken down during an iteration. The work may be features, break/fix, or less-defined pursuits like design or experimentation, all of which may be composed of several batches/units of work. We strive… Read more Batches and Iterations →
This post describes an attempt to apply theory practically (praxis) to solve a silly little problem. My wife and I are getting serious about cutting our restaurant spending, so we… Read more Buffer Management for Meal Prepping →
Originally published February 21, 2016 I have been searching for a temporary work visualization method to adequately convey both how a given process works and the WIP (Work In Progress)… Read more Visual WIP →
Dr. Eliyahu M. Goldratt, in his lecture titled Beyond the Goal: Theory of Constraints, describes the necessity of answering the following questions when adopting a technology: What is the power of the technology? What limitation does it diminish? What rules helped us accommodate the limitation? What rules should we use now? As a cofounder of a small software development business, I thought it would be interesting to describe how we applied this approach to a technology-oriented decision. Several months ago, we developed a business process application for one of our… Read more The Four Questions →