New: Are your retrospectives not as effective as you'd like them to be? I've just released a new video course, Retrospective Magic, to fix that exact problem. Whether you're about to facilitate your first retrospective, or you're a seasoned facilitator looking for those tips to take you to the next level, this course has something for you. More details here...
There's a lot here and if you're not sure where to start, here are some popular starting points. From these, you'll find crosslinks to even more topics. Enjoy!
- Metrics: Links to all my content on metrics and probabilistic forecasting have been collected under Mike's Hard Metrics.
- Ensuring we're building the right thing: Slicing stories and epics. Understanding the context of what we're building. Knowing how to prioritize that work.
- Improvement: Continuous improvement in general. Understanding the metaphor of "lowering the water level".
- Flow: Understanding the cost of interruptions, and the kinds of waste that gets in the way of flow.
- Meetings: The common problems with meetings. Improving the standup / daily coordination meeting and your retrospectives.
- Work in progress (WIP): Setting initial WIP limits. What to do when we're overwhelmed with WIP
Lowering the Water Level - the metaphor explained.
Toyota has this metaphor of “lowering the water level” that they use when looking for opportunities for improvement. This video explains the metaphor and how it applies to your Kanban system.
Introducing the Kanban Guide
The Kanban Guide is a document from ProKanban.org, explaining the bare essence of Kanban for knowledge work. What are those things that are universally true in any Kanban system? What must be present if we’re to legitimately say that we’re using Kanban?