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David Lowe

Agile at General Assembly

On 20 July 2013, I delivered my first workshop for General Assembly. The “global education network that transforms thinkers into creators through education and opportunities in technology, business, and design” launched its new campus in London in June 2012 (only their second after NY) and already has a wealth of… Read More »Agile at General Assembly

Avatars

Avatars, graphical representations of real people, adorn agile boards across the globe. Using everything from South Park characters to super-heroes, they rarely look like their owners, and move across white boards like figures from a Dungeons & Dragons game. How pathetic! Grow up. I bet you dress up like your… Read More »Avatars

The Lowe family goes agile

“Could I use Scrum to run my family?” I pondered as I slumped onto my sofa at 7pm on Friday night. I’d just spent the week looking after my little darlings. For the most part, it had gone well, but there had been various trying occasions: my 5 year old… Read More »The Lowe family goes agile

What is Lean?

“Lean” was first referred to in “The Machine That Changed the World” – a book written in the 1980s by a group of MIT researchers who had spent years studying the global automobile industry. It was used to describe management practices then being used at Toyota. Rather than focus on… Read More »What is Lean?

Why limiting WIP makes sense

(updated with revised video on 7 October 2013) When I first got into Kanban, I really struggled to get my head around why limiting work in progress (WIP) made sense. The ‘experts’ were telling me that, by reducing the amount of work we were doing, we’d also reduce the time… Read More »Why limiting WIP makes sense

The 3-minute agile expert

“The problem is”, said the exec, “I keep getting told, by the team, that they can’t do what I’m asking because it’s not agile.” Lots of questions started filling my head: what was she asking? What are their processes? Is the team hiding behind agile to fob her off? Then… Read More »The 3-minute agile expert

Personal Kanban

How do you keep track of your personal task list? Do you use MS Outlook’s standard task manager? Or maybe you use a tablet? A spreadsheet? Or just a good old-fashioned pen and pad? Even at home I’ve been known to roll out the post-it notes for a project (my… Read More »Personal Kanban

Scrum or Kanban?

I’m convinced that Kanban works very well for service desks and other response-based teams. For these teams, planning two weeks’ work up front just doesn’t make sense. Similarly, I can see why people might think that Scrum works best for projects: iterations give great visibility and regular milestones at which… Read More »Scrum or Kanban?