Tag: Lean

Knowledge Waste | Glossary

Prashant MJ Leave a comment

Definition: 

Knowledge waste is referred to either lost opportunities to learn or learning less than we could have from a situation. Allen Ward a lean development expert divides knowledge waste into 3 categories scatter, hand-off and wishful thinking.

Scatter happens when anything breaks the flow of work. At project level, scatter occurs when the team is interrupted, when it is asked to stop what it’s doing and work on a different feature, when a person is added to or removed from the team, or when the team is harassed for updates on its progress toward an urgent task. Barriers to communication and poor tools are two main causes to scatter. Hand-offs  is defined as a separation of knowledge, responsibility, action and feedback. In traditional way of development, hand-offs occurs at every phase. Wishful thinking refers here to making decisions without adequate information to support those decisions. Late projects are the most obvious results of wishful thinking. Continuous improvement is part of Scrum, failing to learn, and wasting the knowledge gained are serious deficiencies.

Further Reading:
Book: SUCCEEDING WITH AGILE Software Development Using Scrum by Mike Cohn

Management by Flying Around | Glossary

Prashant MJ Leave a comment

Definition: 

When a company has multiple locations and dispersed customers, management by flying around (MBFA) is another facet of mobility which is a new fact of business life. Distributing leadership responsibilities to many people and dispersing activities to many centres of excellence makes travel a continuing necessity for managers and professionals.

MBFA states, managing a distributed organisation, there is no substitute for actually seeing your customers, both internal and external. Technology has come a long way in bridging the distance between people using conference calling, email, screen sharing, and video conferencing, but there is still a missing nuance of being in the same room with someone. Visiting customers, talking to them through where you see the company going and how you in IT help get it there. Then, listen to them. Listen to what works. Listen to what doesn’t work. Listen to what they want from IT. Making the conversation personal, you listen more than you talk, you’ll learn what you can do to do your job better.

Further Reading:
Book: SUCCEEDING WITH AGILE Software Development Using Scrum by Mike Cohn