Weekly Notes #5
Well, we made it, dear reader, to Friday, Fri-yay, or as the French call it, Le Weekend. Expect some flow, profundity (not mine), meet-ups magic and my hopes for future work. Stay strong, dear reader, it only takes a minute, girl (or boy), to read this blog.
Let it flow, people
I finally understand how to draw flowcharts thanks to my pal @PixelBeardWill . These are so invaluable for writing acceptance criteria and for building in quality into our delivery of requirements. We’re adopting these are part of our minimum standard for all our work as part of our Delivery Essentials* work.
Do you write flowcharts as part of your user stories? How’s that going for you?
*Coming to a shop near you soon.
Draw the system
We’re about to map out our system together at PixelBeard so we understand at a high level how work flows through our system (see image below). We’ll then work together to identify any barriers so we can improve our cooperation and increase the flow. I am very excited about what happens here — I am, really. I have a feeling that we’re going to learn a lot about what we each do within the system and each other. Some surprises in store for sure.
Have you drawn your organisation as a system? What effect did that have on your understanding of workflow and barriers?
What I am reading?
Four Days With Dr. Deming — A Strategy for Modern Methods of Management AKA the System of Profound Knowledge. Essentially, everything you think about work is wrong and this easy to follow masterpiece is your guide to achieving true cooperation, process improvement, and long-term productivity. Here are a few epiphany-inducing statements that Deming has gently cuffed me with along the way:
Sure we want best efforts, but best efforts must be guided by theory and knowledge.
Quality is made in the boardroom and must be built into production.
Cease relying on inspection.
If the system is stable any real improvement must come from action in the system, which is the responsibility of management.
We need a new theory of cooperation, with the focal point of our joint work set through voluntary standards. With cooperation, we all win. NB he did not use the C word…Collaboration. *Rubs chin* interesting…
Leadership is…
Do you have profound knowledge of your system? How do you use this for good?
What do I want to be working on?
This is something new I’m trying. Kudos to @neil_vass for the suggestion :)
Using the theory of variation so I can make control charts so I can see how our subsystems are performing. I am fascinated to see if I can take data from a system, analyse and plot this and see if any special causes are indicated or whether everything is within common causes of variation. Time — that precious Agency commodity — seems like a good place to start.
What would you like to be working on? And why?
Deliver Sessions — North West repping 123…
It was lovely to meet up with the NW Deliver Sessions folks on Tuesday. Heavy discussions around topics for future events with ‘Feedback’ seeming to suggest itself as something we all need to do better. I may even step up for that one. You can find out more about these events here -> https://www.meetup.com/Deliver-Sessions/
Do you go to a meet-up? If so, why?
I’m off to see Tears for Fears in a forest. We’ve planned our getaway so we avoid traffic. Ultimate delivery geeks or just plain wrong? You decide :)
