Roads Untravelled: Value Stream Mapping
In an increasingly saturated market, you must be able to deliver value to your customers faster and more consistently than your competitors do. Value stream mapping shows you exactly how your process delivers value to your customers, which steps suffer…
A Short Guide to Effective Daily Standups
The 15-minute standing meeting is everywhere in the Agile world. For some it’s a tool for collaborative productivity, for others, it’s yet another meeting that takes time away from what they really should be working on. What makes the difference…
Lean Manufacturing Wastes: Muri
Reducing waste allows you to achieve more with your team, streamlining your processes, and maximizing your profits. In our previous articles, we looked at two forms of Lean Manufacturing Wastes: Muda (waste) and Mura (unevenness), when they are likely to…
Lean Manufacturing Wastes: Mura
In our previous article, Lean Manufacturing Wastes: Muda, we began to explore the concept of waste and how to reduce it. Wastes in your process add extra costs, either to your customers or to your business. Reducing waste is the…
Lean Manufacturing Wastes: Muda
Larger profit margins can be boiled down to two actions – increasing output and improving efficiency. Frequently, businesses choose to increase their capacity to drive output, hiring staff and investing in new tools. They can also look for ways to…
The Big Picture: Kanban Roadmap
Project managers are constantly balancing short-term responsiveness and long-term strategic planning. Striving for maximum agility by neglecting any plans and processes can result in miscommunication and uneasy customers. At the other extreme, trying to plan every detail too early in…
Borrowed Time: Kanban Flow Debt
Excessive debt slows progress and can become a huge burden. However, debt is not always bad and can be necessary to meet project goals. Nevertheless, debt must eventually be repaid. Flow debt in Kanban project management works according to the…
Types of Frequency Distribution
Project forecasting is not a straightforward process – it’s a scientific and statistical exercise that deals with numerous interconnected variables. The value of these variables can have significant impact on your final prediction. Knowing the frequency distribution of these values…
Quantifying the Uncertainty: Monte Carlo Simulation
When making forecasts or performing risk analysis, it is impossible to escape from variability and uncertainty. Even with large amounts of past performance data at our fingertips, the future is unpredictable and unforeseen events can change the course of a…
Reading the Signs: Kanban Cycle Time Scatterplot Patterns
To make your processes more efficient, first you need to identify where you are falling behind. The Kanban method uses visual methods to analyse your performance and find areas to improve. Cycle time is a key metric for quantifying how…
