This page contains a collection of publications, online articles, and blog entries on Lean, Agile, process improvement, and software quality. I hope you find something helpful.
- If you’re looking for just publications, see my Publications page.
- If you want to see only blog entries, visit my Blog.
Agile, Queueing Theory, Lean, and How They Are Related
- How Lean Sees Agile. Lean explains why agile works – and how agile can be adapted to large multi-team projects.
- Lean vs Agile: Friend or Foe?. Lightning Talk at PNSQC Meetup April 2014.
- Lean in The Test Lab. Proceedings of the Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference 2013.
- Fix Your Agile Project by Taking A Systems View. Agile Connection. July 23, 2013.
- Cadence: Increase Efficiency with a Rhythm. Online article How cadence can speed up your projects and simplify your life. 2013.
- Cadence in Agile Projects: Sprint Length, Integration Frequency, and Other Matters of Rhythm. What Lean can tell us about ideal sprint length. Rose City SPIN March 2013.
- Cadence for Rapid Learning Cycles. Published in the Lean Product Development Resource Center in 2013. The concepts of cadence applied to Lean Product Development.
- Cadence: The Trade-off Between Holding Cost and Transaction Cost.
This white paper shows you how to calculate the best cadence for a recurring activity. If you want to see the actual math behind the rules-of-thumb for cadence, this is the paper to read. - Velocity – A Squishy Measure. Online article. June 2017.
- Introducing Fast Flexible Flow at HP. Lean Product and Process Development Exchange 2012.
- Kanban: What is It and Why Should I Care?. With Landon Reese. Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference 2011.
- Lean System Integration at HP. Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference 2010.
- Evolution of Software Lifecycles. Panel on Evolutionary Delivery. Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference 2005.
Quality and Throughput Improvement Techniques
- Causal Map Fishbone Diagrams – A Better Way to Find Root Causes. Online article November 2020.
- The Improvement Kata: Lean Meets Annual Planning. Invited Speaker Talk at Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference. October 2015. Slides
- Success Cards – Making Improvements Visible: Online article 2014.
- The One-Hour Retrospective. Process improvement for sprints and other short cycles. 2013.
- Five Whys Cause and Effect Analysis: Finding a Solution Quickly. 2013.
Visual Planning Boards and Kanban Boards
- Simplify Your Management with Visual Planning Boards. A Visual Planning Board can help your small business, nonprofit, or just you manage your work more easily.
- Visual Planning Boards for Small Groups. Techniques for using Visual Planning Boards with a work team or small group.
- More Techniques for Visual Planning Boards. Use your Planning Board to balance workload across your staff.
- Visualizing Workflow in Your Organization. A Planning Board can help you get work done faster.
- Planning Boards for Rapidly Changing Work. Using a Visual Planning Board to cope with rapidly changing work during an eldercare crisis.
Improvement Kata
- The Improvement Kata: Lean Meets Annual Planning. Invited Speaker Talk at Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference. October 2015. Slides
- “Success Cards – Making Improvements Visible”: An Improvement Kata topic.
Software Quality and Testing
- Talking About Quality. Ensure quality with your skills involving non-functional requirements. Proceedings of the Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference 2018.
- Build Quality In – Don’t Test It In. How to customize your quality strategy for peak effectiveness and efficiency.
- Proceedings of the Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference 2018..
- Lean in The Test Lab. Proceedings of the Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference 2013.
- Building in Quality. Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference 2007.
- Ten Tips for Home-Baked Tools. Rose City Software Process Improvement Network. June 14, 2007
- New Tricks with Old Tools: Using Data Flow Diagrams in Test Design. Proceedings of the Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference 2005.
- But Will It Work For Me?. Proceedings of the Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference 2002.
- Tester to Developer Ratios. With Sue Bartlett. Proceedings of the Pacific Northwest Software Quality Conference 2001.
- Step by Step Test Design. Software Testing and Quality Engineering. September/October. 2000
- Divide and Conquer – Making Sense Out of Test Planning. Proceedings of STAR West. 1999.
- Rework Statistics for Several Projects. Proceedings of the Annual Oregon Workshop on Software Metrics. 1992.
Other Useful Sites
- Rapid Learning Cycles Institute
- Definition of SAFe
- Mike Rother’s Improvement Kata.