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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....

Robert Lloyd, PhD from the IHI Open school , gives us a bright introduction to the PDSA (PDCA) cycle and finishes by a practical example in the hospital context. Source : Curiouscatblog : Video-overview of the pdsa cycle

Through Shmula , I went to the Eric Ries' You Tube channel and I watched two of his interviews done by Scobleizer : The Lean Startup, Part I/II". Eric Ries writes startuplessonslearned.com and has popularised the term "Lean Startups. At the beginning of his interview Eric establishes the software context: Compared to the traditional industries, this discipline has no physical constraints. Consequently the developers' imaginations are directly translated into a real product. Eric has ten years experience as an entrepreneur and he saw so many talented people building software that nobody wanted. So he digs the concept of Lean start-up from his research to help entrepreneurs test their ideas right from the beginning of their activity. At the beginning of a start up, Eric would: Have a vision to change the world, Test elements of his vision on customers, Have a Problem Team, a part of the company dedicated to understand what customers' problem they try to s...

When you adopt an agile methodology, you first try to apply its recommendations and often you will prefer to make your own dish with these good practices. After a few weeks of practice, you won't get the expected result that the agile guru has predicated you should. Most of the time, you will be told to apply the methodology you choose without changing a thing. The Shu Ha Ri way coming from Aikido is often the concept which is proposed for learning an agile method: Shu : first phase, concentrate on all the recommendations and practices, Ha : second step, now you practice the methodology correctly and start to understand the underlying principles, Ri : you have sufficient experience to make your own decision and adapt the methodology to your specific context. You will also learn, the agile world has not suddenly erupted from the clever minds which produced its manifesto . Instead, these efficient practices have evolved over a century. Toyoda , Taiichi Ōno , Edwards Deming will be...

If you never heard about Lean, have a look at the following video from the Gemba Academy.

Since I have spent half of my working life in the heavy industry, from the time I broke into the software, I have been sceptical, even doubtful about finding a practical and repeatable solution to develop the software products with a consistent level of quality. After years of learning, I should agree, this industry is on its way to handling its maturity. Often, we compare our industry to the car one and their histories are damn close. If you get the chance to visit a car museum you will notice the amazing number of craftsmen that were melting, welding, bending metal everywhere in the world in the early twentieth century. Count today car manufacturers , then astonish yourself by looking at the wikicars makers pages , and finally try to compare the concentration phenomenon to the software industry. Far from an accurate data analysis, that would lead to mumbo-jumbo, at least a lesson can be learned from the strongest car manufacturers and Toyota is the one we really need to em...

If you are a software agilist, you may struggle to move people's mentalities toward a different view. Agile Methods have proved their effectiveness around the software team, but It will never jump to the next level without a wave of reniewals for our companies. InfoQ is probably the most intesting slideshow/video ressource about our modern software world. If you have 30 minutes, take a break and watch the interview of Robin Dymond : Lean Organizations to Support Agile Teams. He gives a summary of the lean history( Toyota production system), proposes an example of an implementation at GM, then further explains what comes next: marketing, team base organisation, etc. Don't forget to push F11 to set your browser to full screen mode. Sources : InfoQ : Lean Organizations to Support Agile Teams