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Vancouver July 2016 I wish you a happy new year 2017, with hope in this new world. I will love to meet you this year to discuss, share experience and knowledge. See you soon. Franck

I tell you, I’m not an expert in agile, just someone who found solution to my professional problems using agile methodologies. If you are convinced too and want to move further, please join us at the end of august, for a lot of open discussions and fun. Things are moving forward in the ALE 2016 organisation. Already, a great diversity of people answer to our call as shown below, but we need more. Yes the ALE 2016 will be great as it has always been since 2011 in Berlin. For those who do not know about the yearly ALE event, please find below a few tips. What is it?  If you do not know yet about the Agile Lean Europe event, here a few tips. ALE is a event for practitioners, meaning people who already practice agile methodologies like developers, modern CEO, teachers, leaders, etc.  Sharing ideas and solving problems are the ALE mains goals: people can propose topics where they share their experience, other can ask to solve a problem the can’t alone  The event ...

This is the end of a beautiful summer, and also one of the warmer recorded in France. I’m continuing my journey in the product management world and today I’m living in the product marketing one too. I will blog about this later. During this first half of this year, I read several articles on big data and started to understand how important the data science discipline is. Being able to define a direction/goal to search, collecting the proper data, then using a collection of techniques to extract something others can’t see - it sounds like magic. Also, when I listened to the Udacity Linear Disgression podcast episode “Hunting the Higgs”, I understood people with these skills can be better at solving a problem than the domain experts themselves. Katie Malone explained that in a competition to solve a particle physics problem, the best results came from machine learning people. Then I read the article about Zenefit on the vision mobile website : “Zenefits is an insurance compan...

Happy new year 2015. After 10 years inside the walls, I’m moving outside!! Time is running and I have been working in the software world for 13 years and promoting the “software agile thing” in my area, for 6 years. Today, I need to step back. As my professional life has moved from R&D management to Product Marketing Management, my professional focus has shifted and I need  to improve my skills in this area. I’m writing this article because I would like to thank my growing network and  make sure you won’t be surprised by my new area of interest, that could be outside of your own. I imagine a few of you, shaking your heads, uttering a pfff of disappointment and saying: Franck and his books, his constant learning curve. For what? This is really simple: Without a sense of progress, I get bored in my professional activity. In 2009, for the first time since beginning in this sofware development world, I had a sense of accomplishment. As Agile was the main change we ...

I used to believe the age of creativity in business, was the wave of new products based on the Internet and the future wave following the expiry of 3D printer patents (2014) . When I read Niels’s paper , I understood the collapse of craftsman-age creativity at the beginning of the industrial era, but I didn’t connect it to the different objects I saw, touched and used in my life. Last week, I visited a West African Museum in Lyon and I would not have expected this tour to open my mind to the different building ages. While we were walking in the museum, the guide explained the objects exhibited and we understood most of the collection was composed of pieces bought from the end of 19th century to the mid 20th. The objects created by one tribe were totally different from objects sculpted by another. Also, the signification could be totally different from one tribe to another and also us. Those objects were considered as art by Western people at this time, but in fact were day-to-day o...

English version below. Dans le document " Organiser pour la complexité ", Niels propose des principes d'organisation pour adapter son organization à la complexité. La maturité de ce document est le résultat d’années de travail qui se matérialisent dans ses  autres présentations disponibles en ligne . Ces idées font parti d'un mouvement plus large nommé "Beyond Budgeting" qui se défini comme "un mouvement après le commande et contrôle, pour un modèle de management avec plus d' empowerment et adaptabilité" Vous trouverez parmi les cas d'utilisation réalisés par " l'International Center for Outperformance ", celui de la société FAVI (Voir diapositives en fin de ce billet) . Niels a aussi publié quelques  notes intéressantes sur ce sujet. François Zobrist qui est au centre de la mise en place du management à la FAVI donne dans la vidéo ci-dessous, un témoignage au CJD Biarritz. Vous trouverez des similitudes avec le docu...

English version below.  Nos organisations peuvent avoir des difficultés à définir une structure interne qui réponde aux contraintes sociales et économiques externes. Celles actives dans des domaines soumis à des contraintes de changements douces, peuvent se contenter d’améliorations continues. Par contre, dans la plupart des domaines technologiques, les structures managériales ne permettent pas d’affronter l’accélération créative/économique en cours. Nos organisations IT ont trouvé des principes d’amélioration par la gestion en flux, le fast design et la validation anticipée (Agile, Devops, LeanStartup, etc.). Néanmois, d’un point de vue managériale haut niveau, il n’y a pas vraiment de principes adoptés et mis en place dans la globalité de l’entreprise.  L’année dernière, grâce au mouvement #stoos , j’ai redécouvert le mouvement “Beyond Budgeting” (première rencontre ALE2011 ) et ai vraiment apprécié le document de Beta Codex “Organiser pour la complexité”. J’ai décidé...

I wish you a wonderful new year 2013, filled with a lots of great products developed in a healthy and agile environment. Please find below, a video from Bassett & Partners.   "The 18 minute "Connecting" documentary is an exploration of the future of Interaction Design and User Experience from some of the industry's thought leaders. As the role of software is catapulting forward, Interaction Design is seen to be not only increasing in importance dramatically, but also expected to play a leading role in shaping the coming "Internet of things." Ultimately, when the digital and physical worlds become one, humans along with technology are potentially on the path to becoming a "super organism" capable of influencing and enabling a broad spectrum of new behaviors in the world." Source: nickfinck : Connecting - interaction design and the user experience

The second ALE (Agile Lean Europe) main event occurred in Barcelona the 29th-31st August 2012. At the beginning of the second day, an energising passion could be felt and those who were in Berlin last year, understood that the ALEnetwork magic is repeatable. I would like to thank all the organisers for this gift and hope others will follow their example. A thousand tips, smiles, books, domains of knowledge to discover, etc. are now somewhere in my brain. Some of them will reemerge later, some are already digested. So here below are those currently on my mind.   People in action ALE participant engagement is probably the most astonishing differentiator with other events. During the full three days, at every moment, the attendees proposed, shared and enlightened workshops and sessions. All of them are passionate, with different levels of knowledge. Most of them have an activity related to the ALEnetwork, like organising an event for their local community, running online pr...

Ecologist Eric Berlow illustrates how you can simplify an overwhelming infographic to a few elementary points.

Brené Brown is a research professor at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work. Using her story telling abilities, she shares a deep insight from her research. Think about this: 14:13: Vulnerability pushed, I pushed back. I lost the fight, but probably won my life back.”

May this new year, bring many sharing ideas and peaceful times. I wish you a awesome new year.

Update:  please find the xALEc Dashboard here .   xALEc is an ALE online open space using Google Hangouts every Monday 9:30 pm CET. Adrian, (@adibolb), Jaumes (@JaumeJornet ) and I had the first xALEc session on December 12th, 2011. The session was like a physical open space session: a great conversation, not focusing precisely on the proposed subject. We collected a few tips and answers to questions we hadn’t asked ourselves before the beginning of the session. So it works, and please find below some remarks and a few improvements to consider for the next ones. Twitter is the best place for sharing links before the sessions using the #xALEc tag. Sessions can be proposed anytime during the day. The session starts at 9:30 pm. Leaders may prefer to open the Google Hangout with extras, 5 minutes before the session, The language barrier will broken after 5 minutes of conversation (enjoy each accent). We are not there to speak English but to improve our Agile/Lean...

Update:  please find the xALEc Dashboard here . Last week, I talked with Olaf and Marcin about the possibility of meeting ALE guys online and sharing ideas and problems. But how could it be done? Using Internet communication tools for group conversations became a common practice a few years ago. Skype has been mainstream for this purpose for years. Due to its paid video offer for groups, only the voice system is really used. Google has proposed its Hangout system for a few months with a free video offer for groups. The availability of this function allows everybody to think about free group meetings online. Also, the facilities to use Google Documents in the hangout, provides a full online collaboration framework. Still to come, Google promised, a streaming facility for the people who want to listen to a conversation ( on air ). The open space format is finding more and more advocates in a wide range of communities and contexts. Future conferences will be more a mixture o...

A few days ago, a friend of mine complained about the lack of speed of his products’ user interfaces. Like many of us, he chose to build his user interface using an abstraction software framework. One year later, his products’ web pages are too heavy and his customers complain. It would have been nice not to live in a world where the top Internet giants focus continuously on speed. Without these companies, one second to return the result of a web page would be the norm and browsing would be a peaceful activity. While today, web pages are displayed in less than the blink of an eye (0,2-0,3 second), many desktop applications still seem incredibly sluggish. When you look at the data presented by Stoyan Stefanov at Velocity, you would understand 2-3 seconds to load a view is still acceptable, if the user is working only with your application. But, today most users are browsing and searching while using applications at work. If you listen to Marissa Mayer at Velocity, you will...

The "Read bead experiment" was created by Dr. Edward Deming and aim to demonstrate the ineffectiveness (sometimes effectiveness) of the various management methods. At the end of the experiment, a statistical graphical tool is used to analyse the experiment's results. By following this exercise, you will understand that actions taken by the people playing the managers are detrimental to the employees, but after the analyses are shown to have no impact on the efficiency of the process . The conclusion proposes ways to properly use performance data in a quality environment in order to achieve continual improvement. The several videos by Fluor Hanford (Steve Prevette) posted below, will help you to understand what is really important in a process. Meet the  company  with its "willing workers", quality control personnel, a data recorder, and a foreman. All wish to produce white beads using a 50 holed paddle, but unfortunately there are bad quality red beads....

At the beginning of ALE 2011 , the program sofa (Oana, Olaf, Marcin and myself) proposed an explanation of the organisation. Please find hereafter the session video and the Prezi used during this session. ALE by Example: The Story of Organizing ALE2011 on Prezi ALE2011 is already the past, but every day I learn something new from someone I met there. Sources: OlafLewitz : ALE2011—The Story of Organising with a Purpose

"Babies and young children are like the R&D division of the human species," says psychologist Alison Gopnik. Take a break, watch this video and then step back. Why adulds are so bad about innovation? Could you build a culture based on these considerations?

 During the ALE2011 unconference, a few of us spoke about local communities and ways to improve them through the ALE network. Hereafter, I tell you about what we are doing in Lyon this year and then ask you how we can share tips and get speakers to come here. What we used to do When we started having monthly meetings two seasons ago, we tried to produce slide-shows by ourselves or we took them from the Internet. Then, we presented them to the small group of attendees. We really understood we were missing interaction with people and also that the core volunteers were getting tired. The second year, we mixed games and conferences in different ways. But even though the sessions were improving, we were struggling to satisfy all attendees. Beginners felt the sessions were too high-level, and others were expecting more expertise or a different format. While writing these lines, I feel like we still miss something. Although we want to spread the best AGILE/LEAN practices to...

There are several ways to advertise your products and publishing a video tutorial on YouTube is a pragmatic one. Have a look at the one below from Hamid Shojaee from axosoft to understand the Scrum roles and artifacts.