On Monday Dec 3rd I attended the Lean Startup Conference. And get this – the first two speakers at the conference – were from the Government! Todd Park on Lean/Agile Government Todd is the CTO of the Federal Government. A lot of what he covered in his talk can be found at http://www.whitehouse.gov/innovationfellows Key points:Read… Read more »
I recently answered a question that goes like this: In an IT organization that is structured to align with business modes and functions by silos; each silo with its own set of IT roles (PM’s, BA’s, Dev’s, and QA’s) how would Agile work on projects that span these siloed teams? When it comes to sprintsRead… Read more »
“I don’t know how much more emphasized step 1 of refactoring could be: don’t touch anything that doesn’t have coverage. Otherwise, you’re not refactoring; you’re just changing shit.” – Hamlet D’Arcy It’s no secret that Agile and Lean methodologies have a lot in common. At Code for America we try to apply them both: inRead… Read more »
As a certified yellow belt in Six Sigma, I believe that Six Sigma methods can have a positive impact on improving government. However, Six Sigma with its heavy emphasis on statistical analysis is not the best fit for measuring and improving government performance. A better fit for government is to utilize the concept of Lean.Read… Read more »
Our Government entities are doing a great job adopting and implementing 5S lean into the workplace saving great amounts of money for departments and taxpayers. But every now and then a refresher and/or something to revitalize the initiative is needed. So I offer up the video below to that end… Eliminate Waste !
Just after I posted “Business Process Management As If People Mattered: Adaptive Case Management” the latest issue of the Harvard Business Review downloaded to my Color Nook. This was a special issue devoted to talent management and so I flipped through it pretty quickly until I came across “Lean Knowledge Work” (Staats and Upton, OctoberRead… Read more »
Workplaces in the private sector and the public sector have many similarities. After all, objectives need to be met and daily work needs to get accomplished. Through our experience with business process management we have identified five major differences between sectors: The Election Cycle Term Limits Legislative Controls Human Resources Structures Revenue is usually notRead… Read more »
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) has provided government agencies with great opportunities to spend money on their local projects. The President’s new initiatives also require accountability. With these new expectations in place, it would not be prudent to spend the funds wildly. However, as is often the case, the funds will only existRead… Read more »
Been a while since I’ve blogged but it was quite fruitful absence. I spent the time catching up on the latest developments in management including a fascinating book on Process Intelligence. What I like about process intelligence is that it is blending of business process management and business analytics that aids in designing an optimumRead… Read more »
I am interested in receiving feedback on how to implement the use of process maps throughout an organization. My office has done a great job and we have process maps for every action – these have helped greatly with new hires and we constantly review for changes resulting in higher efficiencies. Other offices within ourRead… Read more »