lean

In conversation with Jim Benson

by David Lowe
August 17, 2020August 17, 2020
1 min read

As we were settling into the Covid-lockdown in early April 2020, I had a Zoom call with Jim Benson, creator of Personal Kanban and Lean Coffee. We discussed a variety of topics, including how Lean Coffee came about, how it has taken off around the world, the problems with Lean… Read More »In conversation with Jim Benson

New 1-day Kanban bootcamp

by David Lowe
January 15, 2018January 4, 2018
2 min read

We have noticed that interest in the Kanban Method has been growing steadily over the years. We have always resisted creating a Kanban-focused bootcamp because we feel that it is difficult to give a one-approach-fits-all summary of Kanban; we much prefer a tailor-made approach through coaching. However, some of our… Read More »New 1-day Kanban bootcamp

Interview with Mike Burrows

by David Lowe
November 7, 2016June 2, 2017
2 min read

This is the third in our series of interviews interesting people (sometimes loosely) related to our agile and lean world. This week is with Mike Burrows who is the founder of agendashift (tools for Lean-Agile transformation), author of Kanban from the Inside, consultant, trainer and coach. S&K: Explain what you do in… Read More »Interview with Mike Burrows

Increasing Capacity: A Question of Capability

by James Wyllie
1 Comment
March 31, 2015July 15, 2022
2 min read

“When is it going to be ready?”, “How long will it take?”. As someone involved in software delivery, you are probably asked these questions or something like them, every day. However you choose to answer the question, you’ve probably taken into consideration the capacity of your team. For most people,… Read More »Increasing Capacity: A Question of Capability

Scrum & Kanban playlist

by David Lowe
December 22, 2014December 16, 2014
1 min read

It’s time to throw out that Christmas CD. Seriously, I don’t want to listen to Lennon’s So This Is Christmas ever again. The alternative? Our tongue-in-cheek agile and lean-related playlist. It was born during lunch at this year’s Kanban retreat in Lisbon. Even Flow by Pearl Jam was an early… Read More »Scrum & Kanban playlist

Acronym Quiz

by David Lowe
May 20, 2014April 7, 2022
1 min read

The Agile and Lean communities love an acronym, but will settle for an initialism if they have to. For clarification, an acronym is when a word is formed from the initial letters of words in a phrase, and is then pronounced as a separate word (for example, BAFTA or WYSIWYG).… Read More »Acronym Quiz

Lean Coffee

by David Lowe
2 Comments
February 27, 2014May 28, 2014
4 min read

Lean Coffee is a gathering of a small number of people who want to discuss lean in an informal setting. The first Lean Coffee was in Seattle in 2009 (organised by Jim Benson and Jeremy Lightsmith), but the idea has spread around the world. The format is similar to an… Read More »Lean Coffee

What is Lean?

by David Lowe
June 14, 2013May 28, 2014
4 min read

“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?

Scrum is a framework, not a directive

by David Lowe
February 20, 2013July 15, 2022
2 min read

I seem to be encountering more and more people who say stuff like “We were using Scrum but X didn’t work for us, so we stopped using it”. Let’s be clear about this: there is no single implementation of Scrum. Or Kanban. Or any other agile/lean framework. As Dan Brown… Read More »Scrum is a framework, not a directive