Today’s Alertbox on useit.com discusses how Agile software development is improving the focus on user experiences, and provides summary data showing the internal organizational satisfaction with the methodology. Here’s the data: Project Methodology Integration of User Experience Satisfaction with the Method Waterfall 2.5 2.9 Agile 3.1 3.7 Iterative 3.2 3.8 What is this saying? Responses [...]
About to go on a rant…a rant about marketing speak. I guess this isn’t the first time I’ve done this. I guess what is probably frustrating for me is that seemingly a lot of people swoon and end up in a trance at the horse and pony show a lot of companies produce. "Yes, oh [...]
Hopefully making for some more useful conversation, I’m starting to find some more lean people on Twitter. I’m starting to connect with people around the world that I otherwise would never meet. Here they are in no particular order: Mark Graban: http://twitter.com/leanblog. His focus is on healthcare and you can also read his blog here: [...]
Rob Tracy at Intek Plastics (one of my customers) has written this excellent synopsis on Driving Lean through Your Supply Chain. Aside from discussing how the breakdown of your supply chain can negatively impact you and your customers and including a supplier checklist for your use, he also talks about the incorrect assumption that going [...]
…and software can’t manage people. This is the tag-line for our Thrive product. Why? Because this is true. Software by itself typically adds no value to the process it is analyzing (this is a very scary thing for a software vendor to say!). It is the interaction with software…the entering of data, the analysis of [...]
A couple weeks ago I posted about the relevance of a football coach knowing how to tie his shoes. I argued he doesn’t need to know how to do this as long as he has a great strategy and someone else to oversee the proper selection and use of said shoes. Well, today I read [...]
Let’s imagine that Tony Dungy of the Indianapolis Colts didn’t know how to tie his shoes. We actually don’t know if he knows how to tie his shoes. We assume he does. But let’s say he didn’t. Let’s say he has Mr. Equipment Manager on his staff ensure that he always goes onto the field [...]
Maybe you’ve heard of it, maybe you haven’t. Guy Kawasaki (author of one of my favorite books, The Art of the Start) recently launched Alltop.com, which he has branded as "the online magazine rack" for information from the "top publications and blogs". I’m sure in a lot of circles (okay, maybe most circles), there has [...]
Yesterday, did all of the following to work and stay connected with the world: Remotely administered three computers in three different cities (and printed documents on a printer during one of those interactions) Talked on my cell phone Used Skype to call people (when my cell phone battery was dying and had no outlet nearby) [...]
Had a great conversation with Scott Whitlock of Flexware Innovation last Friday. Sometimes I feel like I’m on a little island working on technology solutions for manufacturing companies (and I guess a tech company in rural Iowa kind of is a little island), but it was good to talk with Scott because we could share [...]
RT @Skowty: Going 2 spend some time talking @StartupIowa #Pella #StartupFair on @kniakrls w/ @veelhoeden and @leantech this morning. Stoked!Monday Jan 30 - 2:56pm