To work you say – we don’t want to hear about your travels!
Day one of the Agile 2009 conference was great. I attended two sessions:
- Workflow is Orthoginal to Schedule by Mary Poppendieck
- Creating Agile Simulations and Games for Coaches and Consultants by Elisabeth Hendrickson and Chris Sims
Both were excellent.
Mary related the fundamental principles of the Lean/KABAN approach as it applies to projects in general, linking the approach to the way the Empire State Building was built in 1929/30. She introduced the concept of Flow the theory of constraints, then linked it to the way work (should) flow through a software development project, focusing on keeping a steady pace of delivery and removing bottlenecks. This requires making sure that there is enough preparatory work done to ensure the team is able to start work as soon as the previous task is completed.
Elisabeth and Chris introduced the concepts behind simulation games, and over the afternoon each team we produced two usable games that can be used in the classroom to convey learning messages.
The attached photos show their key guidelines. (Used with permission)
In addition to the conference sessions, the evening was a networking goldfield. It’s great to see how well regarded Software Education is in the Agile community.
Posted by Shane Hastie