Tobias Fors

About

Tue, 17 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Hi there! I am Tobias Fors. I work with helping leaders in software-intensive organizations figure out how to lead and deliver better, in their specific context. I educate and consult through my company Holifant. I work with both public sector organizations and product companies.

My focus is on the practical side of leading in complexity. I want to help people close the gap between what they know they should do and what actually happens in practice. That means workshops, training, facilitation, and coaching — tailored to each client’s specific situation.

Zoom Out

Wed, 14 Aug 2019 12:38:23 +0000

Have you heard the expression “context is king”? It’s very true if you work with teams because many of the things that can affect a team negatively can be found outside of the team itself. How good is your understanding of your team’s context?

When the world around our teams is messy, it’s natural to latch onto the smaller and local, team specific, questions and shield ourselves from the complexity that surrounds us. In the worst case, we end up with a powerful “illusion of progress”: we work hard and efficiently in our own bubble, but ultimately we fail anyway.

The Value of Recreational Programming

Tue, 18 Apr 2017 21:21:54 +0000

I wasn’t a professional programmer for very long, just a few short years at the beginning of my career. I did a little bit of UI development for a sample preparation robot. I created a bunch of XSLT sheets for a content management system. I fixed up a training and diagnostics software for a DNA analysis machine. Not trivial things, but not too complicated either.

I constantly struggled with how hard and lonely it felt. Mob programming was not yet a thing and neither was pair programming - in the companies I worked for (even though others where doing it, since this was the early 2000:s). The other developers I worked with, or maybe “worked near” would be a better choice of words, all seemed content with doing their own thing, on their own. I felt constantly incompetent, most likely because I was. Still, I remember those years fondly, because programming can actually be fun. It was just that I hadn’t yet discovered what it takes to make it so.

Some Pitfalls In Experiential Training

Thu, 08 Dec 2016 10:26:01 +0000

Training classes using an experiential approach has more and more become the norm in agile leadership trainings. Check if some of these pitfalls are something you need to design around as you prepare your next class.

Many trainers in the agile world are really good at using interactive exercises to engage participants. I’ve been a teacher in many different kinds of classes over the years. In the mid nineties I worked extra during my studies teaching evening sessions on how to office software. And photo editing. For a brief period I did some training in a content management suite for a client at various sites.

Learning About S3

Tue, 29 Nov 2016 23:11:51 +0000

Sociocracy 3.0, or S3 for short, is a collection of principle-backed patterns for more effective collaboration. It can be seen as an attempt to reduce hierarchy while at the same time providing an alternative type of structure.

This week I’m attending a three day workshop about sociocracy 3.0, or just S3 for short. The idea of sociocracy has apparently been around for a very long time. The class I’m attending is focused on “S3”, created by James Priest and others as a continuation of the idea of sociocracy.

Rolling Out Scrum - How Hard Can It Be?

Tue, 23 Aug 2016 19:51:33 +0000

The belief that an idea like Scrum can be easily and predictably rolled out in an organization is still wide spread. It’s a tempting fantasy and a potent recipe for problems. Scrum is not about installing best practices - it is about activating curiosity, using all of the brains we do have, and giving experience and reflection some room to work their magic.

”This shouldn’t be too hard”, said more than one of my prospective clients. You’ve probably heard it too. After all, how hard can it be to ”roll out Scrum”? Isn’t it just about having regular planning sessions, a backlog, and maybe a retrospective every now and then?

Well, to begin with, Scrum is much more than meets the eye. Beyond the seemingly simple practices hide lots of challenges. Take the idea of having a single prioritized backlog. Sounds like common sense, right? Now imagine succeeding with this when you have five different managers who all want to have their stuff done first.

Efficiency Is Not the Only Value

Mon, 23 May 2016 20:03:22 +0000

Not too long ago I was teaching a class at a client company. During the morning of the second day of the class, I had reserved a block of time for diving into some of their specific challenges. I usually do this, because while I have an agenda I’m supposed to cover, I know that one of the most important parts of learning new things is discussing how to apply the new knowledge and skills in your own unique context.

Introducing: a Software Development Canvas

Fri, 29 Jan 2016 16:10:21 +0000

Those who know me know me or have taken one of my classes know of my keen interest in helping people go beyond method - towards a deeper understanding of why we are getting the results we are getting. Lately, I’ve been working on a thinking tool that might help in that regard.

First, a little background. While most of the world is still struggling with doing basic-effective-thermostat-Scrum, we more and more often find organizations that have come to a state where the choice of framework is not that interesting any longer. Much of the agile mindset is there, but as always many challenges remain. In that situation, trying to “do better Scrum or Kanban” isn’t really that fun. It feels like going backwards (even wouldn’t be for many). Anyways, I like options, and this is one attempt to create one more option for how to approach the discussion around how we work.

Why Task Assignment Sucks

Tue, 08 Sep 2015 18:07:00 +0000

You may be like me. Some things at work suck the life out of me. I can’t always explain why. Most of the time I can learn to live with it, and therein lies the crux. I accommodate things that I really should refuse outright. Here’s one such thing: task assignment. See if you agree.

Assigning tasks. Also known as the age old habit of telling others what to do. Try to go a day without doing it. It’s pretty hard, especially if you have kids. Probably also hard if your title includes the word manager.

Bringing In an Agile Coach

Sun, 23 Aug 2015 12:28:35 +0000

Agile coaches are everywhere these days. The nice thing about that is that agile has become so popular. The sad thing is that there is now a greater risk that you end up a with an agile coach that doesn’t really make things better for your company. Here’s what you need to think about before you bring in an agile coach.

There are so many different ways of defining what an agile coach does that to hire one, you need to be really clear about what kind of help you’re looking for.

Speaking

Tue, 09 Jun 2015 21:22:01 +0000

Copy-Paste Management

Thu, 18 Sep 2014 17:30:04 +0000

Developers sometimes engage in copy-paste development. If you’ve never written code, this is when a developer copies, pastes and possibly slightly modifies some existing code - instead of following the cleaner practice of reusing the code by (for example) turning it into a single function that can be called from multiple places.

Copying and pasting is very seductive. Developers know that it’s not a good long term solution, but in the short term it’s just so quick. It worked there, so it should work here.

Shallow Success, or The Story of The Kidnapped Trophy

Mon, 11 Aug 2014 20:12:41 +0000

Did you know that there was once a project manager that successfully delivered a project on time, on budget, and according to specification? Don’t be surprised if you haven’t heard the story - it turned out quite embarrasing in the end, so it might have been covered up a little bit. Here’s what happened.

After hearing about the project manager’s uncommon feat, the project management community was so astounded that it was decided that an official recognition was in order. The yearly gathering of project managers seemed like a suitable venue, and so plans were made and a suitable trophy was commissioned.

Prioritizing Effectively as a Team

Mon, 16 Jun 2014 20:47:47 +0000

My new article “Prioritizing Effectively as a Team” is up on AgileConnection.com. The article starts out like this:

“A common reaction to the product owner role is to see it as too big for a single person. If the idea were that one person should do everything from guiding the vision to writing user stories, I would agree. But that’s not how I see the role; I see it as one component in getting to effective teamwork.”

The Birth, Death, and Rebirth of Ideas

Thu, 22 May 2014 20:09:41 +0000

Watching the waxing and waning of software development methodologies made me think about the lifecycle of ideas. Throughout the ages, humans have come up with ideas. Some ideas never become more than a thought. Others spread globally, affecting people for a long time. The life of ideas seems to be an eternal cycle of birth, life, death, and rebirth.

The Spark

Who can tell where ideas come from? Suddenly they appear. Sometimes we can trace their origin, backtracking through threads of thoughts and experiences. Sometimes, they seem to materialize out of thin air. At times, we can clearly see how an idea grew on top of another. At other times, the idea seems to be radically, even inexplicably, groundbreaking. We can be sure of two things: as long as humans exist, ideas will keep coming, and as long as humans exist, we will often look with suspicion at new ideas - or be strangely attracted to them.

Managing as Helping

Tue, 13 May 2014 22:07:29 +0000

Are you a manager, or maybe an informal leader with implicit influence and responsibility? Have you considered how you think about your role? Have you considered thinking about yourself as a helper?

If you’re reading this, chances are you’re working in a knowledge-based organization: an enterprise that builds its success on being able to convert human motivation into creative ideas, and then use the best of those ideas to develop useful products and services.

The Worst Daily Scrum Ever

Wed, 23 Oct 2013 09:19:04 +0000

I once observed what was probably the worst daily scrum ever. Just when I thought it was over, something interesting happened.

Visiting a team in an organization I worked with, I got to see one particular scrum master run a daily scrum – into the ground. This is the story of how he did that - but it’s also the story of how the team miraculously survived this train crash of a meeting.

What Is an Advanced Scrum Master?

Fri, 10 May 2013 12:48:02 +0000

Being a scrum master is more than just reminding a team to perform certain ceremonies, it’s about growing the best possible workplace.

To begin with, let’s clarify this whole thing about the “scrum master”. It’s the name of a role. It’s a relatively new and pretty ridiculous name by intent, because a change was needed in how we lead development work.

Every now and then we shake things up by inventing new names. Just remember that behind the term “scrum master” is the timeless idea of the servant leader. Someone who is there not to exert power over others, but to give power to others. To empower them.

Broken Software

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 10:00:11 +0000

I sometimes hear the agile manifesto being criticized for focusing on “just working software”. It’s said that working software is not enough, that we need to reach further. I agree that we need change, but not in the wording.

If your definition of working software is “if it compiles, ship it”, then the manifesto’s words won’t seem like they change much. For you, the manifesto sounds like business as usual.

Twelve years after first reading it, the agile manifesto still doesn’t sound like business as usual to my ears.

Check-in in a Circle

Wed, 22 Aug 2012 17:51:49 +0000

When I kick off a class or workshop, I want participants to engage as soon as possible after entering the room. I do work through some practical bits first, but after that I quickly hand things over to participants.

For a long time, I’ve been using an opening exercise I learned from Ken Schwaber. In it, I ask participants to sort themselves along a line in the room, according to different criteria.

The Freedom to Solve Problems

Tue, 07 Aug 2012 08:37:17 +0000

Isn’t it really sad that employees in some companies aren’t allowed to solve the customers’ problems? In Sweden, the major telecom operators are notorious in this regard, in my personal experience.

What is it like in your company? Is everyone allowed to and capable of really helping your customers?

“In addition to encouraging creativity, bossless environments also increase efficiency, according to Stephen Courtright, a management professor at Texas A&M’s Mays Business School. He cites the example of Southwest Airlines, which allows baggage clerks the freedom to decide how to solve a customer’s complaint on the spot, without having to say, “‘Wait while I consult my boss.’”

There's Always One [Drop|Comment|Question] Left

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 14:30:34 +0000

My childhood friend’s mother was a “dagmamma”, literally, a “daytime mother”. In other words, she took care of a bunch of other people’s kids in her own home.

She was a very kind and intelligent person. One of the things she said has stuck with me to this very day.

“There’s always one drop left.”

She would say this when we had had finished our “fika” (for kids in Sweden, this would be strawberry juice and cinnamon buns) and we would start playing with our empty glasses. Or rather: we thought the glasses were empty, but she knew better. That’s why she reminded us.

Fast Company on Why We Fail to Innovate

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 22:14:56 +0000

FastCompany puts the finger on an important reason why many companies have a hard time coming up with more innovative behaviors:

“here’s the truth: most companies can’t innovate because everyone is paid to maintain the status quo. This is the single biggest reason companies fail to do anything new or exciting”

via Stop Blabbing About Innovation And Start Actually Doing It | Fast Company.

Interview with Ricardo Semler

Fri, 20 Apr 2012 11:22:35 +0000

Here’s an inspiring video interview with Ricardo Semler from Semco, about creating a democratic corporation.

And a lecture with Semler:

Also, a conversation between Henry Mintzberg and Semler:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=q7lQyCy7Y3g

Late Again, Thinking About the Cost of Delays

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 08:27:16 +0000

It’s Wednesday morning, and I’m on the train heading to Stockholm. The train is late, and it’s not the first time.

One reason delays annoy me so much is that they break my expectations. I’ve made my plans to fit with the train company’s timetable, and now they are not upholding their part of the commitment.

Then again, when it comes to riding the train from my hometown Uppsala to Sweden’s capital - Stockholm - delays are such an integral part of the experience that I’m no longer surprised when they happen. Curiously, they still annoy me. Maybe it’s because the company running the trains couldn’t seem to care less about the problems the delays are causing me. Somehow, they still manage to act like every single delay is a big surprise to them. I take comfort in the fact that I get some extra time to read and write, as long as I’ve found a place to sit on the train - but that’s another story.

Johanna Rothman to Stockholm, May 30, 2012

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 10:58:42 +0000

Author, consultant and teacher Johanna Rothman is coming to Stockholm on May 30, this year. She will be leading a one-day workshop about the agile project portfolio. The course will be in English, and I highly recommend you check it out if you need some inspiration on how to manage in a situation where you have multiple projects going on.

Here is the course page (in Swedish, but remember, the course itself is in English): http://www.citerus.se/curriculum/724094-agile-project-portfolio-management

Vision and Execution: Apple’s Plan to Kill The Mouse

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 17:16:09 +0000

I’ll admit it, I’m a bit of a fanboy. Maybe not so much an Apple fanboy as a software fanboy. My fascination with software goes back to the very first time I had a computer demonstrated to me as a kid, and today, Apple is probably the only company whose products give me that feeling of joy. It’s also an interesting company to follow if you’re interested in product development in general. So let’s have some fun and speculate a little bit about what might be waiting around the next corner.

Systems Thinking Applied to Management with Russell Ackoff

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 20:07:48 +0000

If you’re a student of Russell Ackoff’s teachings, you should rapidly click yourself over to the Ackoff Center blog, where you will find a link to a rich set of video lectures with Ackoff himself:

“When the course was announced the registration requests were so high that a lottery with random drawing had to be established to admit the 25 graduate students who could attend. The course ran for 3 hours per week for 12 weeks. Russ was 84 years old.”

Release More Often Without Risking Anything

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 19:27:44 +0000

Joakim Holm has written an awesome post about breaking through the wall of conventional thinking, smashing a dilemma into pieces, and finding a third option along the way.

One day soon they realize that “Hey, we’re pretty good. We can take advantage of that and release more often without risking anything.”

via Breaking through the Wall of Release Mediocrity « The Blogging Terrier | Den bloggande terriern.

Talk: Problems and systems thinking

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 15:46:46 +0000

Here’s me talking (in Swedish) about how we look at problems from a systems thinking viewpoint, at Lean Tribe 2.

Lean Tribe Gathering #2: Tobias Fors from Lean Tribe on Vimeo.

Experiential Learning (No More "Silentium")

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 21:00:16 +0000

Over the last five years, I’ve taught lots of classes to lots of people. If I knew it before, I’m convinced of it now: lecturing is not the most effective way to help others truly learn.

The problem with lecturing is that it doesn’t really do much to change someone’s behavior, at least not in a lasting way. So what? Well, I believe learning is more than just collecting new pieces of information. Learning also means enabling new behaviors.

Pit of Specialization

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 11:10:06 +0000

In an effort to prove I’m not a perfectionist, I’m publishing this work of art I just created, while sketching out some ideas for an upcoming talk. Being a specialist can be a double-edged sword.

Have you experienced this pit? Did you like it there, or did you find a way to get out of it?

Common Pitfall: Planning Alone

Sat, 17 Sep 2011 18:32:48 +0000

Many organizations forget that planning is all about the planning. You’ve probably heard the saying: “The plan is nothing, the planning is everything”. For me, that means that the process of planning itself is, to a large degree, what creates belief in and understanding of the plans. The plans will break anyhow (we’ll still do our best to create them), but the more we participate in creating them, the more we believe in them, the more we take ownership for them, and the greater is the chance that we will reach our goals.

Is Thinking Allowed?

Sat, 13 Aug 2011 09:36:57 +0000

When I was still working as a contract programmer, I was on an assignment where the boss was from the United States. I didn’t meet him very often, but he seemed like a nice enough guy. One day, he surprised me though.

I was sitting in my chair, leaning back for a while with my hands behind my back. I was thinking about how to handle some little challenge with an XML schema I was struggling with. While sitting like that I heard (faintly at first) the sound of my American manager approaching. I could tell it was him, because his shoes made a specific and quite powerful clicking sounds on the hardwood floor. Suddenly, he passed behind me. He never stopped, but he did shout at me:

This Week Online - Saturday, May 14, 2011

Sat, 14 May 2011 10:47:59 +0000

This week I managed to squeeze in three days of consulting and two days of public teaching. Side effect: less time over for reading. Still, here’s some of the stuff that piqued my interest online this week.

Bright and Terrible

Jay Yarow of Business Insider published a short post about what’s it like to fail at Apple. Not sure how fact based it is, but it makes you think about the challenges of managing risk and failure.

This Week Online - Saturday, May 7, 2011

Sat, 07 May 2011 09:51:09 +0000

Here’s a mixed list of some of the things I appreciated online this week. They might turn out to be useful to you as well.

Fake and Shapes

Randy Rice published a blog post that listed different testing tools that came up during a tutorial session he hosted at StarEast 2011. I don’t work as a tester, but I’m fascinated by the field, and like to follow it from the sidelines. Plus, I love a smart tool.

Some Help Examining Your Engineering Practices

Mon, 21 Feb 2011 23:05:26 +0000

At Citerus, I worked with my colleagues to create a basic form we can use to take a quick inventory of the current engineering practices in the teams we work with. It was originally in Swedish, but I just translated it into English for use at a client.

We’re not dogmatic, so neither is the form. Nor do we think that anything goes, so there are lots of opinions built into the form. Use it at your own risk. The least it could do for you is to act as a conversation starter.

Sketchnoting the Concept of Flow

Sun, 13 Feb 2011 14:52:05 +0000

I like to take stuff and try to express it in as simple language as possible. That’s my way of checking my own understanding of a concept. One concept that comes up often when we talk about lean software development, kanban and agile is that of “flow”. A couple of days ago, I decided to process that a bit.

One technique I use to process stuff is to sketchnote in Brushes on the iPad. Here’s the video output from my sketchnoting a basic explanation of the concept of flow in development.

Thinking Tools for Conference Reviewers

Sat, 05 Feb 2011 23:42:17 +0000

Recently, I’ve been reviewing session proposals for Agile 2011. It’s a rewarding job, even though I’m not getting paid for it. I was asked to help out, and said yes because I knew I would learn a lot from it. Since this is the first time I’m reviewing sessions like this, I started out by doing some research into what to look for.

As a reviewer, my job is not to accept or reject proposals. So what is it? Well, my assumptions while reviewing sessions have been that the purpose of my review is to:

Programmer Productivity?

Mon, 17 Jan 2011 00:01:33 +0000

I’ll admit I’m a bit confused. Do we still believe that it’s meaningful to talk about the productivity of individual programmers?

Assuming we had some agreement in our business as to how exactly one should measure the productivity of a programmer (we don’t), what good would it do us?

Let’s say we discovered that he most productive programmer is 6.7 times more productive than, wait, than who? Than the average programmer? Than the worst programmer? I don’t know, but let’s pretend we did know, and had learned that 6.7 was the magic number. What would we do with that number?

Contact

Tue, 04 Jan 2011 15:54:58 +0000

https://www.holifant.se/kontakt

Writing: It's Not Just About Writing

Mon, 03 Jan 2011 23:18:42 +0000

I try to write regularly. I write a lot more than I publish, and that’s OK for now. I’d like to publish more in the future however, so I keep trying to improve my productivity. One thing I’ve found that helps, is to do something that moves a writing project forward, even if it’s not really writing per se.

What I do is I work on structuring things I’ve previously written. I’ll typically look through my project in my writing tool of choice, and look for areas that need some cleaning up. Then I’ll go ahead and move stuff around, clean out stuff that no longer feels relevant, or even do a little bit of editing.

Too Much Talk About Methods

Thu, 30 Dec 2010 08:25:58 +0000

I believe there’s too much talk about methods, and too little about how they are introduced. Methods can be very helpful, especially when used mindfully. What does that mean? To me, using a method mindfully implies, among other things, introducing it in the right way. The right way for me is with minimal hype and maximum participation of all involved. We believe in what we co-create and co-discover.

Have you been force-fed a way of working? What was that like for you?

Ken Robinson on Changing Education Paradigms

Thu, 09 Dec 2010 12:10:54 +0000

My friend from the AYE conference, John, just reminded me about the clip below. It has an important message, but there’s another reason to watch it too: the presentation is stunning.

In the clip, Ken Robinson argues that our schools are using methods designed for a different age. Those methods are no longer helpful. We live in different times.

If you want to learn more about the history of our schooling system, and how it could evolve, I recommend Russell Ackoff’s “Turning Learning Right Side Up”.

Sketchnoting a Russell Ackoff talk

Mon, 15 Nov 2010 22:15:19 +0000

Listening to Russell Ackoff speaking, I “sketchnoted” this in Brushes on my iPad. I’m a very visual thinker, so this is a way for me to make things stick a little better in my brain, plus it’s very fun and relaxing to do.

I don’t worry to much about my handwriting and general drawing skills. I just draw. It will be interesting for me to see how my drawings change over time, because my guess is I’ll be doing a lot of this, just for the fun of it.

New Russell Ackoff Videos

Sun, 14 Nov 2010 14:25:30 +0000

Here’s a set of Rusell Ackoff videos I just discovered. I might go ahead and collect all my Ackoff resources on one page some day, but for now I’ll just serve these new ones up like this. Enjoy.

Tankar om rollerna i Scrum

Mon, 18 Oct 2010 22:55:55 +0000

Jag skriver på en bok med arbetsnamnet “Nyckeln till Scrum”. Min erfarenhet säger mig att de som lyckas bäst med Scrum är de som inte bara kan metodens praktiska steg, utan som också förstår varför den är utformad som den är. Beväpnad med den förståelsen öppnar sig också vägen framåt, möjligheten att gå bortom Scrum. Det här är ett avsnitt som handlar om roller, som kanske kommer med i boken.

The Power of Completion: Great vs Excellent Teachers

Fri, 10 Sep 2010 13:17:20 +0000

When I practiced aikido, I was struck by the difference between good and excellent teachers. The good teacher would be more than willing to correct me when I did something wrong. Too willing, in fact. So eager were they to instruct me that they would interrupt me mid-motion to show me how to improve. The excellent teachers never did this. They would always let me complete a full technique, only stopping me when it was all done to explain, very briefly, one small thing I could do differently.

An Exercise for Defining Done for Scrum Teams

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 20:40:30 +0000

In this post, I’m going to share an exercise you could try for helping a team start their journey towards a clear and shared definition of what it means to done with a feature in a software product. I’m looking at this from the perspective of agile development with Scrum, but my guess is you can use this even if you’re not using Scrum. I’ve taken a core exercise I’ve used many times to help teams form a first definition of done, and combined it with some debriefing practices I’ve learned over the years. If you want to use this exercise, go ahead. If you run it a couple of times, you’ll be able to improve on it: then I’d love to learn about how you improved it.

Who's That From?

Sun, 04 Jul 2010 22:09:18 +0000

One of my fears when writing is that I will replicate, nay steal, what someone else has already said. - “Come on, everything has been said before”, was what I was told when I revealed my fear to a couple of speaking partners at the AYE conference a couple of years ago.

Speaking of the AYE conference. AYE, or Amplifying Your Effectiveness (which is not about some personal productivity technique, but rather about discovering more about how you can use yourself to get the results you’re after in your work), was instigated by Jerry Weinberg, whom I know as the world’s greatest consultant. I’ve learned so much from Jerry: a lot from his books, and a lot from attending his workshops and speaking to him. Every so often, I just grab one of his books from my shelf and read a random passage. It always inspires me, and sometimes surprises me.

A Stack Exchange on Scrum

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 14:51:04 +0000

Intrigued by the possibilites of the Stack Exchange platform, I’ve proposed a site for questions & answers on the topic of Scrum. On the Stack Exchange platform users:

Post questions and answers
Vote answers up or down, depending on how helpful they think the answers are
Grow their ability to moderate the site as they engage more with it

I like how the creators of the platform aims to put the community in the driver’s seat, and I’m hoping this will take off. We’ll see about that: first, we need a number of early adopters to help define the site. Then we need a whole bunch of people to commit to working with it. If we get that, we’ll have a nice place to go for questions and answers from the Scrum perspective. Is this something? If you think it is, you should go and check it out now.

How To Succeed With Any Method, Eventually

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 16:28:50 +0000

Pick a method, any method
Apply it mindfully, considering your unique context
Review the results you get carefully
Accept the results as your own, and learn from them
Make conscious adjustments
Repeat 2-6 long enough to understand the method

Have you made a method work for you? How did you make it fit in your unique context?

How To Fail With Any Method, Guaranteed

Sat, 30 Jan 2010 20:55:23 +0000

Start out with a lack of experience
Because of this lack, put your faith in a method that should be able to help you
Apply the method half-heartedly, get bad results
Blame the method, don’t accept responsibility for your own results
Because you’re not responsible, don’t bother learning anything, get no valuable experience
Search for a new method that should be able to help you

Have you failed with a method? What did you learn? Don’t know what you learned, but you hate the method now? What can you learn from that?

Use Improvement Stories to Make Your Retrospectives More Effective

Tue, 19 Jan 2010 15:40:06 +0000

I teach a one-day class on retrospectives. It’s in Swedish only for now, but if that’s not an obstacle, you should read about it on the Citerus web site.

I love to use the user story format when I help teams plan their work. It can sometimes be hard to break user stories down into useable chunks, but their format is very easy to use: As a , I want to , so that . There are different ways to format stories, but the essence remains the same. Use a simple format to quickly shake out some key information about a given requirement.

Att lära sig tillsammans - Agila Sverige 2009

Wed, 30 Dec 2009 08:25:02 +0000

På konferensen Agila Sverige 2009 gjorde jag ett blixttal på temat lättrörlighet och lärande, med titeln “Att lära sig tillsammans”. Konferensarrangörerna filmade alla tal, och mitt har nyligen blivit publicerat. Bäddar in det här nedan.

Lära sig tillsammans - Tobias Fors from agilasverige on Vimeo.

Agile Testing

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 17:36:14 +0000

I spent the better part of last week at the Eurostar 2009 testing conference in Älvsjö, Sweden. I’ve never worked as a professional tester myself, but the topic of testing is gradually becoming more interesting now that more effective and humane approaches to testing are spreading widely.

My reason to go to the conference was to meet friends from AYE, to network and to scout the world of test. For almost seven years now, I’ve been using, teaching and introducing agile development with Scrum at all kinds of companies in Sweden, and while I’m no testing expert, I often meet testers who struggle with how to be of best value in their new cross-functional teams. I need to understand the realities of testing to be able to help my clients.

Learning-first Product Development, an Interview With Michael Kennedy

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 12:20:05 +0000

I just published an interview with product development expert/author/consultant Michael Kennedy. You should check it out!

http://www.citerus.se/pnehm/kennedy

Svensk bok om Scrum på gång

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 00:39:08 +0000

På AYE-konferensen häromveckan nämnde jag i förbifarten för Jerry Weinberg att jag håller på att skriva en bok, och att jag kommit ganska långt med den, även om den är långt ifrån klar. Jag följer Jerrys råd att helt enkelt först skriva den bok jag själv vill skriva, för att sedan se om den är publicerbar. Skulle den aldrig komma ut har jag ändå lärt mig enormt i processen, och i dessa dagar är det ju heller inga problem att publicera den som en PDF på nätet som alternativ lösning.

Ackoff's 95% (Cannot manage them the same way)

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 21:13:42 +0000

I’m currently cleaning up my trusty old Mac Mini G4. I’ve been cleaning out old stuff I don’t need to save, and a few days ago I installed a cheap 1 gig of memory. That upgrade did not make the machine notably faster. Today, however, I ran a bunch of maintenance tools, which seemed to do the trick. There’s a noticeable improvement in the speed of the little things, like how long it takes to fold out a menu. There was a delay before, and now it seems to be gone. Hope it lasts.

David Schmaltz: McMethod

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:13:02 +0000

In his newsletter, David Schmaltz writes: “I’ve taken an article I previously published and reconfigured it into a format that seems to play into the shrinking attention spans and expanding information need. A Bed Time Story.”

David is here to remind us to trust ourselves, not just pre-packaged methods. Here is one of his efforts towards that goal. Enjoy, I myself really like it.

McMethodBedTimeStory

Feeling Welcome at the AYE Conference

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:20:52 +0000

Out of all the conferences out there, the Amplifying Your Effectiveness conference is surely one of the most curious. Started in 2000 as a challenge (so he told me) from Jerry Weinberg (“so do you think you can do better”) to his protégés who were complaining about talking-heads conferences (“of course we can”), the AYE conference has been going strong for almost 10 years, and has garnered a loyal circle of attendees.

Thank you, Jerry Weinberg

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 08:16:18 +0000

Jerry, we’ve only known each other for a couple of years, but look at all the things you’ve managed to help me with already. You’ve helped me:

See that consulting fits for me, because trying to understand the world and improve it is what makes me tick
Become a better consultant, by using more of myself every day
Start to understand coaching technique, by watching (very closely) when you do it

Centralized Services in Software Development

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 10:33:00 +0000

Reading a blog post by Tripp Babbitt reminded me of Ackoffs discussion on internal market economies in Re-Creating the Corporation.

Babbitt’s blog post talks about how focusing on cost reductions often increases costs. One reason is that cost reductions are often approached by centralizing services in organizations. When this happens, a feedback loop is broken. Those who produce the services are no longer those who consume them. This means that they loose their understanding of how well the services work. When the consumer of the service sees the service degrade, they cannot easily improve the service, because they don’t control the production of it. Instead, the consumers work with what they can control, which sometimes means reproducing the service locally, thus increasing total costs.

Roll Around in a Cyber Cart

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 10:03:42 +0000

I just came across a completely wonderful comment by Lisa Crispin, on Johanna Rothman’s blog. I’ve just read it, and already I love it. I can’t put my finger on why, but for some reason it makes me happy. It probably has to do with my fascination for the concept we used to call cyberspace (ever since I read MIT architecture professor Michael Benedikt’s “Cyberspace - First Steps” in 1994). The discussion on Johanna’s is regarding telecommuting, and Lisa shares a story of how she achieves virtual presence:

Född: A l f r e d

Sat, 13 Jun 2009 19:28:05 +0000

Den 11:e juni 2009 föddes mitt andra barn! Kärleken var enorm från första stund. Obskrivbart. Han älskar att äta och kan även tänka sig att sova, fast bara lite grann, ibland. Det första jag tänkte när han kom ut var: “Han är så lik sin storasyster”. Han luktar underbart och skriker jättehögt och jag älskar honom bortom ord.

Att lära sig tillsammans - Agila Sverige 2009

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 23:57:02 +0000

Det här är mina presentationsbilder från mitt blixttal på Agila Sverige 2009, som handlade om lärande, och hur vi kan använda förståelse för läroprocessen för att lära oss bättre tillsammans. Att Lära Sig Tillsammans - Tobias Fors - Agila Sverige 2009 View more Microsoft Word documents from tobias.fors.

Agila Sverige 2009, (första halvan av) Dag 1

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 23:39:45 +0000

Idag tog jag tåget till Stockholm för att delta på Agila Sverige 2009 Agila Sverige är en två dagar lång konferens som är billig att delta på, eftersom den sponsras av några företag, däribland Citerus. Arrangemanget sköts av några flitiga eldsjälar inom agilerörelsen i Sverige, som ska ha flera stora tack för detta. Besökarantalet tror jag låg på runt 180 personer.

Förmiddagen var idag, precis som förra året, vigd åt blixttal. Med det menas 10 minuter korta tal som oftast är lika innehållsrika som ett mycket längre tal, men betydligt mer uthärdliga.

Visuell styrning med kanban (2): Enkla, kraftfulla verktyg

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 23:56:00 +0000

I det förra inlägget skrev jag om bakgrunden till att jag börjat arbeta med visuell styrning med kanban. Det här inlägget ger en första titt på verktygen vi kan använda.

Utöver ett uppdrag att slutföra och kunskap om hur kanban fungerar behövs följande för att komma igång med en egen kanbantavla:

En rymlig whiteboard med tillhörande pennor
Post-its i olika färger
Pennor som det går att skriva tydligt på post-its med (vanliga bläck eller blyertspennor ger så tunn skrift att det blir svårt att läsa vad det står när man står en bit från whiteboarden)

8 Steps to Getting Feedback

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 20:29:56 +0000

Forget everything you know about agile, about any methods, about any kind of tool you’ve mastered. If there’s only one thing you should do, it has to be this: ask for feedback.

It doesn’t matter what you do or how you do it. If you don’t stop and ask the people you work with for feedback, you’ll never know exactly how bad you did until its too late.

It’s not complicated to get feedback, but it can be hard on you. Here is one way to do it.

Kom på kurs: Certifierad Scrum Master, augusti 2009

Wed, 27 May 2009 13:15:14 +0000

Gör som flera hundra andra redan gjort: kom på CSM-kurs med mig i Stockholm. Det här är kursen för dig som verkligen vill förstå Scrum. Själva Scrumsnurran är ju inte så svår att rita upp, men varför ser modellen ut som den gör, och var sitter hävstängerna som verkligen får Scrum att funka? Kursen för dig som gillar att fatta med andra ord.

Jag använder inga PowerPoint-slides på min kurs. Pedagogiken bygger på en varvning av kortare föreläsningsmoment och interaktiva (och roliga!) övningar kring olika aspekter av att jobba lättrörligt med Scrum. Hängiga ögonlock är extremt sällsynt. Om du blir trött är det för att vi jobbar hårt tillsammans, inte för att du sövs av en surrande projektor och min svada. Nej tack säger vi till sånt tråk.

A Visible Pile of Favorite Fieldstones

Sun, 24 May 2009 17:20:58 +0000

I’m a programmer at heart, even though I no longer program professionally. Why? Because I love to program. It gives me satisfaction. So, from time to time, I have to think up little hobby projects that are simple enough for me to handle, but engaging enough to still my lust for coding for a few hours. Here’s my latest one.

As a writer, my intuitive style of writing has always been to just sit down and start writing. From time to time, I suddenly boot up my Mac, fire up a plain text editor and start writing. Shortly thereafter, I have an article ready.

My Most Loved Mac Software

Thu, 21 May 2009 18:58:34 +0000

The Mac universe is filled with cheap (or free) little pieces of wonderful software. Here are some that I would not want to work without:

Quicksilver. Whenever someone asks me why I don’t just use Spotlight, I know that they still haven’t discovered Quicksilver’s ability to shuffle around files. Quicksilver is so seamless and useful that I feel handicapped whenever I push Ctrl+Space on a Mac without Quicksilver installed.
TextMate. A lovely text editor, which I use both for writing (I collect fieldstones using Jerry Weinberg’s “fieldstone method” and organize them in a TextMate project) and for manipulating text. For example, I sometimes export a list of people from our sales system. It usually comes out as a comma separated list of values. In TextMate, it’s easy to create a simple macro to wash away everything I don’t need, and keep only - for example - email addresses.

Visuell styrning med kanban (1)

Wed, 20 May 2009 21:59:24 +0000

De senaste åren har jag jobbat med att hjälpa team och organisationer att förstå och använda Scrum. Jag har jobbat en hel del med produktutvecklande företag, och det är i utvecklingsarbete Scrum verkligen kommer till sin fulla rätt. Samtidigt består arbetet med att lansera mjukvaruprodukter av så mycket mer än bara själva utvecklingen. Drift, support och marknadsföring är några exempel på aktiviteter som är avgörande för framgång.

Förra hösten åt jag lunch med en branschkollega på en restaurang i Uppsala och vi pratade om hur det gick för deras utvecklingsteam, som nyligen börjat använda Scrum. Det gick utmärkt. Arbetet var fokuserat och tydligt, och man hade lyckats genomföra ett komplext projekt framgångsrikt.

Learning From Mistakes

Tue, 19 May 2009 10:39:07 +0000

Whenever something unexpected happens - such as when we make a mistake - there’s a possibility for learning to happen. For example, I just tried to add an extra branch in my mind mapping tool, but I pressed the wrong key combination. Instead of a new branch, a nice little yellow callout appeared. I immediately liked it, because it seemed like a useful thing.

What mistakes have you done recently, and what did you learn from them?

Slides from Learning Together @ Öresund Agile

Thu, 14 May 2009 19:38:25 +0000

My talk at Öresund Agile yesterday went ok. I was slightly nervous before, as always. Once I started speaking, my 30 minutes flew by, though. Not clear on how relevant people thought my material was - we’ll see if some feedback drops in. My intention was to introduce a few useful concepts about learning to people in the agile community who hadn’t heard about them before. Embedded below are my slides, which may not be that useful if you weren’t at the conference, but that’s OK. If you were there, maybe they can serve as a small reminder of what I spoke about.

Learning Together @ Öresund Agile 2009

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 10:43:54 +0000

I’ll be speaking at this year’s Öresund Agile conference. As at last year’s conference, I’m intimidated by being on the same program as veterans like Jeff Sutherland and Jim Coplien, but hey, I think I have something interesting to say. Plus, in a very un-Swedish way, I choose to focus on the two guys who came up to me at last year’s conference and said (guy number one), “your talk was the curse word best today”, and (guy number two) “your presentation skills are absolutely amazing”. Haha, of course, since I am a Swede, I cannot really believe either of them, but I’m working on that.

The Two-Pizza Rule for Team Size

Sun, 19 Apr 2009 01:15:25 +0000

According to a student presentation from a Sloan School of Management course, an Amazon rule of thumb is the “Two Pizza Rule”. If you can’t feed a team on two pizzas or less, the team’s to big. Beautiful!

Agila Sverige 2009: 8-9 juni

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 17:48:52 +0000

This year’s edition of the Agila Sverige (Agile Sweden) conference will take place on June 8-9. I’d like to be there, because last year it was absolutely fabulous, with lightning talks before lunch and open space after. It was rapid, engaging, fun and with the smartest people around. This year though, I might not be there, since that date correlates pretty well with the expected birth date of my second child! No question about my priorities there I’m afraid.

DDDSample 1.1.0 released

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 14:46:32 +0000

My brilliant colleagues at Citerus, Patrik and Peter among them, have worked with Eric Evans to create a sample application that showcases DDD in action. They have just released version 1.1.0.

Ny workshop: Effektiva återblickar

Wed, 04 Mar 2009 17:54:29 +0000

Jag arbetar på en ny workshop för att hjälpa den växande skaran scrumanvändare att växla upp sina återblickar till en ny nivå. Läs mer om endagsworkshopen Effektiva återblickar på Citerus webbplats.

Pulsmöte

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 22:48:17 +0000

Dilbert går på pulsmöte.

Fiona Charles on Testing

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 09:49:43 +0000

I met Fiona Charles at the AYE conference a couple of years ago. Here is an article by her that I just came across. It struck a chord with me, because last week - in my ongoing quest to broaden my understanding - I attended a three-day course on testing. Fiona’s article talks about one concept that seems to to be key to success: the relationships between developers and testers. I’ll be writing more about what I learned from attending the class later on, especially when it comes to the different views of testing that exist, but for now, Fiona’s article can speak for itself. Plus the longer comment below, which shows an example of the difference of opinion that is out there.

Klart och oklart

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 00:04:07 +0000

För att pröva scribd.com har jag laddat upp min senaste PNEHM!-artikel: Klart och oklart - om Scrum och kvalitet.

PNEHM! från Citerus. Klart och oklart - Tobias Fors Publish at Scribd or explore others: Magazines Periodicals & Report agile Scrum

Slides from Öresund Agile 2008

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 23:39:48 +0000

To try out slideshare.net, I decided to upload my presentation slides from last year’s Öresund Agile conference, a smaller conference organized by Softhouse in Malmö.

One Key Person Tobias Fors At Öresund Agile 2008 View more presentations from tobias.fors. (tags: agile scrum)

Next Scrum class: May 6-7, 2009

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 11:00:44 +0000

My next public Certified Scrum Master class is planned for May 6-7. The CSM workshops are focused on understanding why Scrum works the way it does, and to let you learn through exercises and discussions - a great source of learning indeed! If your organization wants to get the benefits of agile software development with Scrum - this is the workshop for you.

Kent Beck on Accountability and Trust

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 09:58:51 +0000

The first time I heard Kent Beck’s voice for real was in a podcast interview. I remember that he spoke with passion about concepts that were, as I listened, obviously connected with the practices of XP: trust and accountability. Still, I hadn’t made the connection that clearly up until then, so that interview stood out for me. In this video on InfoQ, Kent Beck talks more about accountability, trust, why they are so important for effectiveness - and how this relates to agile software development.

Use, Adapt, Transcend

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 18:40:44 +0000

This article by Dave West on InfoQ might be an interesting read if you’re interested in theories of software development.

“Both Lean and Agile must stop applying, in a literal and rote manner, the tools and practices. Tools and practices are nothing more than expressions of values, principles and philosophy. They are not the only possible expressions and may not even be the best expressions. Neither side will be able to realize their respective founders’ admonition to “use, adapt, and transcend” until and unless they come to understand why the practices and tools are what they are.”

Solid Motivation

Sat, 14 Feb 2009 14:53:33 +0000

Here’s a fun way to explain a few important software design concepts. I look forward to a surge of this new kind of motivational posters in team rooms everywhere …

Free Pomodoro Book!

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 22:41:31 +0000

Don’t miss Staffan Nöteberg’s fresh book on the Pomodoro Technique. Beautifully illustrated by the author himself.

Happy Birthday!

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 13:34:45 +0000

Today is the birthday of systems thinker Russell Ackoff. Happy birthday! The Ackoff Center Weblog has a picture of the official cak e.

What! You say you like agile software development and still don’t know who Russell Ackoff is? Get right over to his wikipedia entry. Or listen to him - he is a great speaker.

Theory of Software Development

Fri, 06 Feb 2009 15:32:38 +0000

In today’s Computer Sweden, Ivar Jacobsson plugs his company’s latest offerings and requests a theory of software development. I haven’t tried his latest products, so I won’t comment on them. They might be great. However, one thing that puzzles me about the article is the absence of anything concerning useful theories applicable for software development.

Ivar Jacobsson rails at the prevalance of practices but, at least in this article, doesn’t even come close to touching on any relevant theories. Instead, it seems to me that he promotes even more practices. I’m sure things will clear up for me once I get my hands on his latest toolbox. Unless, of course, I have to pay a lot of cash to get it, in which case I probably won’t get my hands on it.

Thriving Through the Credit Crunch

Sun, 01 Feb 2009 16:52:33 +0000

Clarke Ching has written a nice little piece that’s available as an online read on Slideshare, and embedded below. It’s short and plain enough that it has the potential of becoming widely read. I’m predicting it will spread quite fast. Executive summary: releasing wanted software soon and frequently ties up capital for shorter durations, which is A Good Thing in cash-tight times.

Rocks Into Gold - Helping Programmers THRIVE through the Credit Crunch - by Clarke Ching View more presentations from cching. (tags: critical goldratt)

Learn about congruence and blaming

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 00:07:50 +0000

Tomorrow is the last day of the Problem-Solving Leadership that is being held this week outside of Uppsala. Participants in the workshop will learn many things through their interactions with each other, themselves and the hosts - Jerry Weinberg, Esther Derby, and Johanna Rothman. It’s a fabulous five and a half day workshop which I myself participated in last March, in Albuquerque.

One of the key concepts in Jerry Weinberg’s teachings is that of congruence, a concept from the family therapy theories of Virigina Satir. Here is an article by Jerry and Jean McLendon on the topic of congruence and the blaming style of communication. I highly recommend it.

Jeff Sutherland at Öredev 2008

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 10:24:12 +0000

Here’s a video of a talk by Jeff Sutherland at Öredev 2008. Although I still find all his numbers suspect, because I don’t understand what he does to actually measure productivity of the teams he works with - I still like to listen to him speak. His ambition to push the envelope and find new ways to look at the things we work with is what manages to inspire me, not all his numbers.

Kom på Scrumkurs med mig

Wed, 21 Jan 2009 15:29:15 +0000

Den 10-11 februari ska jag köra min nästa öppna Certified Scrum Master-kurs i Uppsala. Det finns fortfarande några platser kvar - så jag tycker att du ska komma om du vill lära dig mer om Scrum.

Systems thinker Russell Ackoff now on YouTube

Sun, 11 Jan 2009 10:16:42 +0000

Three short clips featuring systems thinker Russell Ackoff have been made available on YouTube, and embedded below. Ackoff speaks plainly about profound things, so listen closely, and don’t mistake his plain words for a lack of depth. I’m not an expert, just an interested student, but it seems to be that Ackoff’s great contribution is a clear and understandable explanation of how systems concepts can be applied in organizational thinking. Here are a few key points about the nature of systems, presented by Ackoff in these clips:

Svensk mjukvaruutveckling i SvD

Fri, 02 Jan 2009 13:30:05 +0000

Härligt! Lite uppmärksamhet på mjukvaruutveckling i Svenska Dagbladet. Tomas Augustsson har skrivit en artikel som bland annat tar upp den utmaning det innebär att vara chef i en mjukvaruutvecklande organisation.

Flera av de som arbetar med mjukvara pratar om att de högsta cheferna på företagen kom fram när det var hårdvaran, själva apparaten, som var det avgörande. Nu har en del av cheferna svårt att förstå de annorlunda villkoren för mjukvaruutveckling.

Johanna Rothman: "Lessons Learned in Project Management"

Fri, 02 Jan 2009 12:00:50 +0000

Here’s a video of a speech with Johanna Rothman, one of the hosts of our upcoming PSL workshop, and also the subject in this mp3 interview.

Changes, Then Rules, Then Changes, Then ...

Mon, 01 Dec 2008 21:46:22 +0000

David Schmaltz writes:

“Within SEI, there were (probably still are) two factions. I heard (just hearsay) that two principals at SEI approached two of t**he Agile Manifesto signatories to wish them luck shortly after the manifesto was made public. Apparently they had carried the same intentions in founding the SEI, but were compromised when the suits showed up.”

I have no idea whether this specific story is true or not, but I wouldn’t be the least surprised, because this is something that seems to be happening all the time. It’s probably a part of How Things Are. Something new starts growing, and as attempts are made to describe and spread that new thing, it gradually changes from being new to being something stale and overly simplified. In fact, the very things needed to spread that new thing are the same things that prevent it from staying fresh. So the new things dies - or rather transmutes into a new form. Gradually, the pressure builds for some other new thing to emerge, and eventually it does. When the changes are great, the transitions are painful.

The Challenge of Making Knowledge Explicit

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 14:05:40 +0000

What happens when we try to break down processes that are really too complex to explain in the details, and then teach the process as if it was a stepwise instruction? We run the risk of dumbing down the process to exactly that which we can transfer explicitly, as this classic Internet meme perfectly illustrates:

Computer Sweden missförstår om återblickar

Sat, 25 Oct 2008 22:43:46 +0000

Peter Larsson på Computer Sweden ringde upp mig efter att ha läst om återblickar och Scrum på min Scrumtips-blogg. Han frågade om brister i Scrum, och jag svarade som jag brukar, att det är svårt att peka ut brister i Scrum som modell, för den är ganska liten och tajt. Däremot finns det vissa problem som många springer på när man börjar med Scrum. En sådan är att man glömmer att göra återblickar, som är väldigt viktiga för att få arbetssättet att fungera. Återblicken är ju vårt sätt att gradvis bygga upp vår kapacitet som organisation, genom att hela tiden reflektera och lära oss.

MVKJG 6: Lär dig om refactoring

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 23:48:58 +0000

Efter ett alldeles för långt uppehåll tar jag åter upp skrivandet av serien Men vad kan jag göra? - tips om saker som du kan göra idag, helt utan att be om tillstånd, för att förbättra tillståndet i ditt aktuella projekt.

Varje gång jag hör någon berätta om ett stycke särskilt hemsk kod de sprungit på kommer jag att tänka på när jag hittade en klass som var 17000 rader lång. Någonstans mitt i denna kompakta massa text fanns två metoder. Den ena hette “up”, den andra “down”. Båda var ganska långa och, visade det sig, helt identiska. Eller inte helt - ett tecken skilde faktiskt. Där det stod ett plus i den ena stod det ett minus i den andra. Det tog en stunds betraktande och ett diff-program för att ställa diagnosen. Sådan är klipp-och-klistra-programmeringens logik. Den enes snabba fix blir den andres huvudbry. Denna monsterklass var representativ för hela kodbasen.

Podcast Interview with Johanna Rothman

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 21:41:23 +0000

A couple of weeks ago, Magnus Ljadas and I interviewed consultant, author, and PSL host Johanna Rothman over Skype. I just received an email from Johanna telling me that she’s just published the first part of the interview on her website. You should go ahead and download it at http://johannarothman.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=388435.

Queueing Theory in Practice

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 21:38:42 +0000

I’m back from a course in Stockholm on the topic of lean software development. While it was definitely not a waste of my time, it’s lack of depth and long lectures disappointed and puzzled me. Longing to learn some new stuff, I spent some time tonight googling for articles about, or written by, systems thinker Russell Ackoff. Coincidentally, I found a good article that managed to touch both a lean concept (although the moniker “lean” had yet to be adopted when the article was written) and mention Ackoff. What I found was a funny piece on some of the practical applications of queueing theory from the September 25, 1988, edition of the New York Times.

Fart och fläkt från öppen källkod

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 18:07:36 +0000

IDG-bloggaren Niklas Andersson har fått en fråga som handlar om hur man kan få lite av den fart och fläkt som finns i open source-världen i sitt egna projekt, och eftersöker fler tankar på ämnet. Jag har ingen egen erfarenhet från open source-utveckling, men jag tror ändå att jag kan identifiera åtminstone en egenskap som går att låna över till kommersiella projekt.

Först och främst, en egenskap som är lika ovanlig som kontroversiell i näringslivet: frivillighet. Deltagare i open source-projekt väljer själva att delta. Deltagare i företags projekt blir ofta ditkommenderade av någon annan. Är det egentligen inte ganska uppenbart?

Ytterligare en anledning ...

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 16:24:58 +0000

… till att fortsätta arbetet med att försöka ändra vår bransch tragiska track record: Försäkringskassan blöder miljoner, Computer Sweden.

Spekulation helt utan insikt i Försäkringskassans verksamhet följer.

Deras nästa projekt kommer att gå ännu värre. Varför? Därför att de omskrivna budgetmissarna kommer att öka trycket på att ännu mer tid läggs på att i förhand berätta vad slutresultatet kommer att kosta. Det kommer att leda till att man försöker skriva ännu mer detaljerade planer, och ha ännu lägre tolerans för osäkerhet. Effekten av detta blir mer spekulation och mer gissningar under en utdragen “förstudieperiod”, som till slut kommer att glida över i en “genomförandefas” antingen lite av sig själv, eller som ett resultatet av att någon högt upp tröttnar och pressar projektet vidare. Slutresultatet: ytterligare ett projekt som förvånar alla inblandade genom att dra över budget.

Retrospektiv och kanban

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 16:56:15 +0000

Visuell styrning med kanbantavlor är intressant. På Citerus har jag hjälpt till att få upp en kanban-liknande lösning för vårt säljarbete. Precis som många Scrumteam använder en planeringsvägg för sprintbackloggen och Excel eller ett webbverktyg för produktbackloggen använder vi väggen för den löpande säljuppföljningen, och Salesforce för långsiktig loggning och datalagring.

För oss funkar ett kontinuerligt flöde som styrs med en kanban bra, eftersom vi har svårt att få till regelbundna möten på kontoret. Vi är ju oftast ut hos kunder och jobbar. Men, med kanbantavlan kan vi ändå få en bra överblick över säljarbetet.

Ny blogg: Scrumtips

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 22:19:05 +0000

Jag har startat en ny blogg: Scrumtips. På Scrumtips-bloggen kommer jag att samla tips för dig som använder Scrum. Från fallgropar till praktiska how-tos, från nyttiga metaforer till boktips, allt på en blog, sökbart och indexerat. Om du har vägarna förbi, lämna gärna en kommentar och berätta vad du skulle vilja läsa om, och du får en fin stjärna i mjukvaruhimlen om du tipsar fler om bloggen!

Self-Preserving Geese and Humans

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 21:01:45 +0000

Clarke Ching on the TOC Thinkers blog has republished an article by Tony Rizzo. Rizzo takes us through a beautiful explanation of how we adapt to the contexts we exist in, and how those adaptations can be seen in how we behave. Just like we can learn about the rules of flying by observing how geese fly in v-formations, Rizzo explains, we can learn about the rules of an organization by watching how people in it behave. It’s a nice analogy. We behave like we do for a reason, and that reason is not to be found only within ourselves, but in the systems we live in.

New Stuff from 3M

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 16:59:49 +0000

Oh. My. God! If these 3M cards are half as neat as they seem, I want a stack for my next workshop, right now!

http://www.3m.com/us/office/postit/cards/index.html

Level of Control

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 19:16:00 +0000

In an article on pragmaticmarketing.com, Stacey Weber discusses at what level of control the product owner in Scrum is supposed to operate. She points out that the product owner needs to interact with the team at a problem statement level, not on the level of detailed specifications. I agree. If the product owner feels the need to control the team’s work at a very granular level, this is a bad smell. An efficient Scrum team can take fairly high-level requirements from the product owner and act on them. Such a team does not need to be spoon fed detailed specs and screen shots, because it already has all the skills it needs to take a requirement and run with it. If great user experience is a key target, a user experience person is right there in the team, committing to the sprint goal. The product owner gets to do what he or she is good at - identify and work towards delivering to market needs. The team gets leeway and is able to find the best possible solution to a stated problem.

Agila Sverige 2008: Dag 1

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 16:52:07 +0000

Idag har jag deltagit på konferensen Agila Sveriges första dag. Förmiddagen bestod av blixttal begränsade till tio minuters längd. Efter lunch övergick formatet till öppet forum, och deltagarna delade upp sig i mindre grupper för att behandla de ämnen de själva föreslagit. Konferensen har anordnats av personer som är aktiva på mailinglistan Agile Sweden: Joakim Holm, Marcus Ahnve, Måns Sandström, Ola Ellnestam och Matti Hjelm. En mängd bolag som är verksamma inom området har skjutit in stöd som sponsorer, bland dem Citerus såklart.

PSL in Sweden

Sun, 01 Jun 2008 19:30:35 +0000

My colleague and friend Magnus Ljadas and I are currently working to get Jerry Weinberg’s legendary (yeah!) workshop Problem Solving Leadership to Sweden, starring Gerald M. Weinberg himself, Esther Derby, and Johanna Rothman. We’re aiming for January 2009. To gauge the interest on the market, we’ve put up a form where anyone who’s interested in participating in this 6-day intensive workshop can sign up with us. We put the page up a couple of days ago, and a bunch of registrations have already rolled in.

Nästa vecka: Öresund Agile

Sun, 01 Jun 2008 19:09:00 +0000

Nästa vecka åker jag ned till Malmö för att hålla ett kort tal på Öresund Agile. Jag dyker in mellan de populära talarna Jeff Sutherland och Henrik Kniberg, så det blir helt säkert en lärorik upplevelse. Mitt tal kommer att sammanfatta några viktiga personliga erfarenheter jag gjort under de fem år jag jobbat med att använda, lära ut och införa Scrum. Jag hoppas att innehållet kommer att vara till nytta för alla som på något sätt vill förändra saker och ting till det bättre, och särskilt för dem som gillar lättrörliga arbetsmetoder som Scrum.

Äkta skoj

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 21:36:24 +0000

Det här är min dotter. Hon vet vad äkta skoj är för henne. Äkta skoj är att kuta som en galning med sin gröna sopbil fram och tillbaks i lägenheten där man bor. Äkta skoj är också att gå balans på kanten till granngårdens sandlåda.

Vet du vad äkta skoj är för dig?

Python is the New Basic

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 17:58:56 +0000

Dave Winer: “Python is the New Basic”.

Worst Song Ever Is Actually Best Song Ever

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 21:04:12 +0000

Two Russian artists that set out to consciously compose a song that almost everybody would hate may have succeeded in creating a masterpiece. Do not miss this chance to hear it. All of it. It is pure genius. Opera rapping, children’s choires, bagpipes, it’s all there.

Just goes to prove that if you set your sights too closely on one goal, you may just end up exactly opposite to where you wanted to be. (Via Boing Boing)

The Psychology of Golf and Testing

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 09:02:33 +0000

Without question, my colleague Patrik Fredriksson gets the “Best Seque” award for his post yesterday on the “Psychology of Golf”, which ends up not being about golf at all. Or at least not only about golf.

On a related note, check out my article on the awesome power of closure.

Agile Retrospectives Video

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 19:14:38 +0000

Here’s a video with Esther Derby and Diana Larsen on the topic of agile retrospectives.

Planeringsverktyg för lättrörliga projekt

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 13:15:10 +0000

En av de vanligaste frågorna jag får på mina Scrumkurser har att göra med planeringsverktyg. Många undrar vilka mjukvaruverktyg som finns att tillgå för den som vill ha hjälp med att hantera sina produkt- och sprintbackloggar.

Mitt grundsvar delar jag med många andra: det är smart att först fråga sig varför det inte räcker med whiteboard och post-its, plus kanske Excel för produktbackloggen. Fler och fler inser att den uppsättningen inte bara räcker långt, utan på många vis är överlägsen alla mjukvaruverktyg. Att sätta upp planen på väggen stöttar synlighet, delaktighet och uppdateringsfrekvens.

Citerad i Chef

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 23:00:23 +0000

Jag blev nyligen omnämnd i en artikel i tidningen Chef om nya former av ledarskap. Missa inte den fina paragrafen (för säkerhets skull avbildad och extra highlightad här bredvid) där jag omnämns i celebert sällskap. Den har vi garvat en del åt på Citerus.

Audio Interview with Eric Evans

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 21:24:47 +0000

My colleague Patrik recently spoke to Eric Evans, of Domain-Driven fame, over Skype. We recorded the whole thing for PNEHM!, and I just put the edited interview up on Citerus.se.

Books That Have Influenced Me

Thu, 24 Jan 2008 19:23:24 +0000

Henrik Mårtensson has published a list of business books that have influenced him. He also encouraged us readers to create our own lists. So here’s my list, in no particular order, not complete (I’ll add to it as I come to think of more books), and as of now without any motivation of why a particular book was included.

The Blind Men and the Elephant, David Schmaltz
Becoming a Technical Leader, Gerald Weinberg
The Fifth Discipline, Peter Senge
Secrets of Consulting (and More Secrets of Consulting), Gerald Weinberg
The Art of Problem Solving, Russell Ackoff
Agile Software Development with Scrum, Ken Schwaber
Are Your Lights on?, Gerald Weinberg and Don Gause
A Guide to Rational Living, Albert Ellis and Robert Harper
An Introduction to General Systems Thinking, Gerald Weinberg

And a great article:

MVKJG 5: Håll vad du lovar

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 22:43:19 +0000

Att lova något är otäckt. Det kan visa sig att man inte kan stå vid sitt löfte. Det händer ju även den bäste, och kan leda till en obekväm situation. För mig kan rädslan för detta obekväma ibland leda till att jag anammar följande strategi: den som aldrig lovar något behöver heller aldrig bryta ett löfte.

Dessvärre spelar löften en avgörande roll i alla typer av samarbeten. Om du ska kunna basera dina planer på det arbete jag gör, måste du veta vad du kan förvänta dig från mig, och när. Löften spelar dessutom en annan viktig roll - den som skapare eller förstörare av tillit. När någon lovar mig något, och håller löftet, ökar min tillit till den personens förmåga. När någon inte levererar enligt sitt löfte, eller aldrig kan lova något till att börja med, sjunker min tillit till den personens förmåga.

Jeff Sutherland Interview

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 09:57:11 +0000

Here’s a link to an InfoQ interview with Jeff Sutherland, on the topic of Scrum.

Popular Interview with Jerry Weinberg

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 11:35:22 +0000

As founder and editor of PNEHM!, Citerus’ newsletter on successful software development, I get to publish loads of great articles written by my smart colleagues at Citerus. The most recent is my friend Magnus Ljadas’ interview with consulting icon Jerry Weinberg. On his blog, this is what Jerry himself says about Magnus as an interviewer:

“I’ve been interviewed many times over the years, but Magnus is the best interviewer I can remember.”

Amplifying Your Effectiveness

Sun, 11 Nov 2007 20:46:53 +0000

Last friday, I found myself sitting alone on the patio of the Embassy Suites hotel in northern Phoenix, looking out over an expansive pool area filling up with families most likely in town for the upcoming Nascar races.

I, on the other hand, was just about to fly back home to Sweden, had no interest in race cars, and was feeling lonely for the first time in several days. No wonder, after having attended a five day conference that was actually mostly about me.

Om det är så här man vinner ...

Mon, 29 Oct 2007 08:54:20 +0000

Computer Sweden, 29 oktober 2007. Stockholms läns landsting bränner högar med skattepengar, men har ännu inget system att visa upp. Men, men - den enes död …

“Vinnarna på fiaskoprojektet är leverantörerna: WM-data, HP, Tietorenator (sic), Teleca och Telia, som alla tecknat avtal för att leverera tekniska tjänster till projektet.”

Om det är så här vi definierar “vinna” kanske det vore bra om fler konsultföretag “förlorade”?

Citerus i Metro

Wed, 24 Oct 2007 09:19:20 +0000

Citerus omnämns i en artikel om Scrum i dagens Metro.

Gerald Weinberg on agile

Tue, 11 Sep 2007 12:22:21 +0000

In a little interview on PM Boulevard, Gerald Weinberg answers a few questions on the topic of agile development.

Code as Design

Wed, 08 Aug 2007 20:23:22 +0000

When I first read it a number of years ago, I immediately found Jack Reeves’ article “What Is Software Design?” useful, intelligent and correct.

In the article, Reeves presents his arguments for why the source code is the artefact that constitutes the ultimate design of software. Apparently, this article resurfaced with the publishing of Robert C Martin’s book on Agile Software Development, after having led a quiet life in hibernation since its first publication in 1992. It is now often referenced in the agile community.

A Little Site on Systems Thinking

Tue, 31 Jul 2007 08:32:22 +0000

Here’s a neat little site on the topic of systems thinking, presented by the BBC and Open University.

CIO Sweden manglar beskrivningen av Scrum, men vinner en gratis kursplats

Fri, 27 Jul 2007 12:49:51 +0000

Intresset för lättrörlig utveckling i allmänhet och Scrum i synnerhet är enormt just nu. Många av de företag vi jobbar med börjar uppnå avsevärd förståelse för och framgång med arbetssättet. I denna situation är det lätt att få för sig att även resten av världen förstått vad det handlar om. Men, vi är inte riktigt där än.

I artikeln “Projektledarskolan: ABC för ledning av IT-projekt” presenterar IDG-publikationen CIO Sweden en illa tilltygad beskrivning av Scrum.

The Improvement Challenge, Illustrated

Wed, 18 Jul 2007 20:50:01 +0000

Update: link to PBF comic got mangled by WordPress. Sorry, try again. It’s worth it!

It is, for me, near impossible to imagine that anyone can better illustrate the challenges of handling improvement suggestions in what David Schmaltz would call a master-slave relationship, than Nicholas Gurewitch has done in this wonderful Perry Bible Fellowship strip.

gotAPI.com

Thu, 05 Jul 2007 17:33:00 +0000

UPDATE: Bad link snuck through. Sorry.

I found a link to gotapi.com on Jon Tirséns blog. Check it out if you dabble in Rails as I do from time to time. Sweet!

Kopplingen lean och Scrum

Sun, 17 Jun 2007 18:42:20 +0000

Scrum är en praktiskt orienterad grundstomme för hur man kan bedriva lättrörlig mjukvaruutveckling. Lean är en etikett satt på det system av principer som man uppfattat legat till grund för bland annat Toyotas sätt att organisera sig.

Hur förhåller sig egentligen Scrum och lean till varandra? Att förstå detta är användbart både för den som vill ha en teoretisk grund för att förstå eller argumenta för Scrum, och för den som idag använder Scrum, men som vill förstå hur man kan justera och vidareutveckla arbetssättet utan att göra supoptimala justeringar.

Russell Ackoff on Systems Thinking

Sun, 17 Jun 2007 18:05:00 +0000

UPDATE, JAN 11, 2009 Three short clips with Russell Ackoff have been posted to YouTube.

**UPDATE, OCT 26, 2008: **Kevin, who first pointed out to me that the video links in this post were broken, have managed to get in touch with Chicago-Kent. He received the direct links to the missing Ackoff lectures, and passed them on to me. Here they are:

**UPDATE: **Russell Ackoff’s talks on Girls Link seem to have been taken down. Readers Kevin and Lennart have asked me if there is a way to get hold of them again. I have not yet found such a way. I have, though, tried to get some more info on this via email, but without luck so far. If I find out more about this, I’ll post about it here. Check back here or/and post a comment if you want to know if I find a way to see them again.

Mike Cohn on Agile Estimation

Tue, 01 May 2007 15:52:35 +0000

Author, consultant and speaker Mike Cohn has a two-part video out on YouTube. In it, he talks about his area of expertise - the planning and estimation of agile projects.

Mike will be visiting Sweden this fall, and do a couple of his popular courses, hosted by Citerus. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to learn about Mike’s accessible methods of planning agile projects - they will be an excellent addition to your toolbox.

Bring Yourself To Work Day

Tue, 01 May 2007 13:59:56 +0000

David Schmaltz, author of The Blind Men and the Elephant, and his wife Amy Schwab are introducing a “Bring Yourself To Work Day”. It seems it will occur on the fourth Thursday of May, which is the 24th this year. From http://www.bringyourselftoworkday.com/:

“Study after study finds the greatest barrier to increased productivity is not primitive process maturity but the inability of people to bring their full selves to work”

Don’t miss the preparation exercises (the links on the right hand side of the page)!

MVKJG 4: Gör en prioriterad lista

Fri, 30 Mar 2007 20:32:51 +0000

Att ha “för mycket att göra” är något som belönas i många sammanhang. Det ser helt enkelt rätt snyggt ut att ha mycket att göra, och en kort stund kan det kännas ganska bra också.

Tyvärr är “för mycket att göra” även ett utmärkt sätt att skjuta produktiviten i sank både för sig själv och för de man samarbetar med. Tråkigt nog (eller turligt nog, beroende på hur man ser på saken) brukar eventuella negativa sideffekter inte vara lika tydliga som svetten som stänker från den mer än fullt sysselsattes panna. De små, frekventa, och kanske lite imponerande stånken om att “det är så otroligt mycket just nu” gör också sitt till för att dölja det faktum att mycket är på gång men bara lite blir gjort.

Getting Started With Radiant

Fri, 30 Mar 2007 20:10:07 +0000

In the past, I have worked some with web content management systems. Both as a developer, and as a user. The state of the art can be summed up like this: web content management systems are typically crap. They seem to be written by developers for developers, not for fast and efficient publishing.

At Citerus, we still use a seemingly powerful but painfully unusable and inefficient CMS, for historical reasons. I have been looking around for an alternative for some time, but most of what I’ve tried so far suffers from the same issues: complicated user interface design.

MVKJG 3: Intressera dig för dem du jobbar med

Thu, 22 Mar 2007 15:11:50 +0000

Det sägs att vi svenskar är svåra att lära känna, men att när man väl lärt känna oss är vi lojala vänner. Inget större fel med den approachen, slutresultat verkar ju bli bra. Ett problem finns dock. När vi är på jobbet har vi inte alltid flera månader eller år på oss att bygga upp relationer med varandra.

Bristen på tid, upplevd eller verklig spelar ingen roll, leder till ibland märkliga situationer. Som när en person i ledande befattning, något försenad såklart, stormar in i ett konferensrum och hälsar på en handfull människor han aldrig träffat förut med orden: - “Låt mig börja med att berätta hur vi ska göra saker på det här bygget”.

Adobe Goes Agile, Makes Life Easier

Thu, 22 Mar 2007 08:49:38 +0000

In the article “Adobe edits the development cycle” on Regdeveloper, Mary Branscombe lets Adobe tell the story of how they switched to a more agile, incremental, development cycle. The result, according to Russell Williams of Adobe: “Better quality, plenty of features, fewer nights and weekends: what’s not to like?”

Note especially the focus on developing by feature and how the maintenance of excellent engineering practices makes this possible. “The goal is to always have the product in a state where we could say ‘pencils down. You have x weeks to fix the remaining bugs and ship it’”, says Williams.

More Poppendieck on Lean

Tue, 27 Feb 2007 18:09:27 +0000

Here’s a new interview with Tom and Mary Poppendieck on the topic of lean software development. Thanks to Rickard Johansson for the tip!

Around 25 minutes into the interview, the topic of RUP appears. Tom points out the amount of knowledge available in the RUP, but also how it has often been implemented with a focus on the specific practices, rather than on the principles that lie behind the RUP: iterative, incremental software development.

Custom Searching From Inside the Browser

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 12:55:04 +0000

Ever notice that little search box up in the corner in Firefox and Explorer? Of course you have. You’ve probably used it dozens of time to search for stuff on the web, probably using Google.

You may have noticed that you can also search using many other search engines from this field, and that you can add new search engines if you want to.

What I did not know until today, was how easy it is to add support for your own custom searches using the OpenSearch standard. I started out following these guidelines on how to create my own OpenSearch plugin, but soon noticed a link to a neat tool for doing this for me. Using this online tool, it was a breeze to create a Firefox and Explorer compatible search plugin for Metacritic.com, which is an indispensable site that gathers reviews on games, movies and other entertainment stuff. So, now I can search directly on Metacritic from inside my search field in the browser. Neat!

Mary Poppendieck on "Competing on the Basis of Speed"

Wed, 27 Dec 2006 10:49:06 +0000

In a new clip on Google Video, Mary Poppendieck talks about lean software development on the topic of competing on the basis of speed.

Ron Jeffries on Running Tested Features

Tue, 12 Dec 2006 10:05:21 +0000

In this video on InfoQ, Ron Jeffries talk about agile software development. What is worth pointing out is how he emphasises the similarities between the different agile methods. One difference between how Ron explains things, and how Ken Schwaber does it, though, lies in the graphing of the growth of features. When Ken draws the line, it starts out growing slowly, indicating more focus on “architecture” early on (but still producing features every sprint). When Ron draws the line, it is more linear, indicating his desire to have a more constant growth of features with a really evolutionary approach to “architecture”.

The Power of Closure

Mon, 11 Dec 2006 16:22:23 +0000

I have a new short article up on the Scrum Alliance site, where I look at Scrum from the perspective of closure. Don’t miss this weekly column, where good little articles pop up every now and then. Last week’s was by Ken Schwaber on the topic of sprint reviews.

Workshop: Testdriven utveckling och refaktorering

Fri, 01 Dec 2006 16:28:24 +0000

Magnus Ljadas på Citerus håller snart en tvådagarsworkshop på temat testdriven utveckling och refaktorering. Missa inte detta tillfälle att förstärka din förmåga att hantera dessa kraftfulla verktyg!

Requirements: Still Need to Handle Them, Post-Agile

Wed, 29 Nov 2006 21:58:15 +0000

Many problems we’ve traditionally had with understanding, communicating and implementing solutions for user’s needs are reduced or go away as agile development lets us shift our focus from requirements documents to frequent conversations about actual, current, needs.

Still, these things in no way mean that we should stop thinking about requirements, even written ones. We’ll still be facing them even when the terminology and the means of handling them change. And context is key, as always: if you must have very formal written documents, if you really must, well, then you must.

The Power of Closure

Wed, 29 Nov 2006 21:33:05 +0000

Have you ever watched an episode of, say, Prison Break, and noticed how they stop for commercials just when the action is most intense? Of course you have. Those moments are called cliffhangers. You are literally left hanging for a while, and that’s a situation you want to get out of.

Psychologists have a name for this phenomenon, this need to bring stability back into an unstable situation. They say that what we’re so desperately longing for in cliff-hanging situations is closure. We need to close the book to be able to move on. Until we’ve done so, we can literally feel like we’ve been left hanging.

Slides - Am I Agile Now? Öredev 2006

Fri, 17 Nov 2006 17:07:03 +0000

Yesterday, I spoke on the topic of agile software development at the Öredev conference. Here are the slides from that talk.

Positive Reviews Just In

Sat, 28 Oct 2006 11:29:18 +0000

I’m glad to read that Henrik Mårtensson, whose interests and knowledge I have come to respect through the reading of his blog (and even more now that I’ve met him in person), enjoyed a recent Scrum Kickstart I facilitated, and he participated in:

“It is rare to meet someone that can talk about the same subject matter for two days straight without being boring even once.”

Don’t miss out on Henriks excellent blog: Kallokain.

Video med Guy Kawasaki om entreprenörskap

Wed, 20 Sep 2006 15:31:07 +0000

Guy Kawasaki berättar om entreprenörskap baserat på sin bok Art of the Start.

Video med Jeff Sutherland

Wed, 20 Sep 2006 15:26:58 +0000

Jeff Sutherland beskrev tillsammans med Ken Schwaber det ramverk för utveckling av mjukvara som vi idag kallar Scrum. I en utmärkt och intressant video på InfoQ berättar han om detta.

Video med Ken Schwaber

Wed, 13 Sep 2006 19:40:54 +0000

Ken Schwaber har precis dykt upp i form av en videoström på Google Video. Han berättar bland annat om historiken bakom Scrum.

Kurser om Scrum och DDD snart på Citerus

Tue, 15 Aug 2006 09:43:39 +0000

Under hösten kommer vi på Citerus dels att fortsätta med våra populära utbildningar i den lättrörliga arbetsmetoden Scrum, dels ha en del andra intressanta evenemang. Se här till exempel:

Eric Evans budskap är minst sagt angeläget. Han vill hjälpa oss mjukvaruutvecklare att utnyttja kraften i domänmodeller för att lösa våra kunders problem. Det handlar om ett nytt fokus på att använda våra kunskaper om begreppsmodellering för att dels prata med kunden på kundens sätt, dels implementera objektorienterade lösningar på ett elegant och effektivt sätt.

Interview with Don Reinertsen on Product Development

Mon, 14 Aug 2006 21:24:40 +0000

Here’s an interview with Don Reinertsen, author of Developing Products in Half the Time and Managing the Design Factory.

Disagreement on Common Sense Caused by Change of Age?

Thu, 10 Aug 2006 11:37:23 +0000

Why do some people see agile methods as common sense, while others see them as senseless? Why is it so natural for some people that development processes need to be broken down into stepwise descriptions of each step to take to arrive at a solution, while others say that this approach does not make sense?

In a speech at the “Systems Thinking in Action” conference in 1993, Russell Ackoff makes the case that we have entered a change of age - a paradigm shift. For Ackoff, this change is about a switch from a Machine Age to a Systems Age. Such a change of age is brought about when we discover enough problems that cannot be solved by the current mode of thinking.

MVKJG 2: Fråga varför tills du får en smäll

Wed, 07 Jun 2006 20:29:44 +0000

I det snudd på magiska ordet varför ryms ett otroligt kraftfullt sätt att lära sig mer om vad som helst.

Det berättas ibland sedelärande historier om chefer hos biltillverkaren Toyota som kommer till insikt om sina egna bristande inköpsdirektiv när de frågar varför det finns en oljefläck på golvet. De lyckas helt enkelt härleda det stora från det lilla, med den frigörande frågan: “Varför?” Det visar sig att de själva är ansvariga för oljeläckaget, eftersom de stipulerat inköp av oljefilter från den billigaste leverantören, som tyvärr också visade sig vara den sämsta. Själv brukar jag använda mig av ett ganska praktiskt verktyg som ibland kallas varför-hur-trappan [1]. Har man tillgång till något att rita på ritar man helt enkelt en liten trappa, och lägger gärna till en pil som pekar upp för trappan med texten “Varför”, och en pil som pekar nedåt med texten “Hur”. Sen är det bara att skriva in det vi vill lära oss mer om någonstans mitt på trappan, och sedan följa trappstegen i endera riktningen. Tar vi ett steg uppåt frågar vi oss varför, går vi nedåt frågar vi oss hur.

Notes from the dark side

Wed, 07 Jun 2006 16:19:32 +0000

Here’s an interview with a guy who worked for three years at a Toyota Group company. His experience is that lean is hard to understand outside the context of the Japanese work culture, in which long hours and less workforce mobility is common.

MVKJG*) 1: Skriv automatiska tester

Sat, 03 Jun 2006 11:47:56 +0000

För en tid sedan påminde jag några utvecklare om hur användbart och effektivt det är med automatiska tester. Jag tyckte att jag intog en ganska pragmatisk inställning, och tipsade (för att vi skulle komma igång med testskrivandet) om följande introduktionsupplägg.

Under den kommande iterationen kunde vi för varje bugg vi hade uppdrag att fixa först se efter om det verkade gå att skriva ett automatiskt test som återskapade buggen. Om det å ena sidan verkade gå kunde vi helt enkelt skriva testet. Om det å andra sidan inte verkade gå kunde vi skriva ned några anteckningar om varför det inte gick, och sedan tillsammans gå igenom vad som gjorde det svårt att skriva tester.

Men vad kan jag göra?

Sat, 03 Jun 2006 10:41:27 +0000

Sitter du fast i ett projekt som också sitter fast? Har du tappat hoppet för mänskligheten (eller bara för den del av mänskligheten som utvecklar mjukvara)? Håll ut: det finns hopp. Du behöver inte förändra världen, eller ens ditt projekt, med ett svepande hugg. Du kan göra saker bättre ett litet steg i taget, helt på egen hand.

I min ficka har jag samlat inte mindre än 99 tips om vad du kan göra redan idag för att börja förbättra ditt projekt. Helt utan att be någon annan om tillstånd. Utan någon större investering. Utan att behöva anlita en hord av RUP-konsulter. Det finns ljus i tunneln. Ett steg i taget bara. Ett steg i taget.

The Visible Planning Calendar

Fri, 02 Jun 2006 13:05:31 +0000

Planning is great. Too bad it’s so hard. Too bad it so often results in weird plans and deadlines that jump around in the calendar like drunken fleas.

Here’s an idea (yet untried by me) for a counter-measure: The Visible Planning Calendar. Goal: to make planning more transparent by at least making dates somewhat less jumpy. Contents: an agile, or at least iterative, development methodology, plus some extra rhytm to it.

Spark rakt i varumärket

Tue, 30 May 2006 18:59:10 +0000

Tjabbigt att behöva återkalla 987 000 bilar när man byggt så mycket av sitt varumärke på att vara kvalitetsmärket nummer ett. Ingen är felfri.

24 musklick senare...

Mon, 29 May 2006 10:29:36 +0000

Uppsala Nya Tidning rapporterar om 240 miljoner skattekronor som har östs in i ett system som är så dåligt att användarna väljer att sjukskriva sig.

Det som är mest fascinerande när det skrivs om den här typen av fiaskon är att man kan ana viss förvåning över slutresultatet. Själv blir jag inte längre förvånad, mest förbannad över att man aldrig lär sig. Framför allt är det beklämmande att läsa om de åtgärder man hoppas ska lösa situationen: “Bland åtgärderna nämns bland annat en riskanalys samt handlingsplan för utbildning, anpassad introduktionstid, så kallade lathundar och utökad support”.

Using your Scrum senses

Fri, 12 May 2006 08:24:49 +0000

I’ve written a short piece on the importance of learning to use your senses to gather information. It’s published on the scrumalliance.org site.

Where Did the Time Go?

Sun, 23 Apr 2006 10:58:54 +0000

Efficiency in an iterative mode of working requires that we have little overhead in all our processes. For example, if building a release candidate takes us several days of manual work, we will have a hard time working in two week iterations, since so much of the iteration will be consumed by release work. Add to this slowness in detailing specifications and test cases, and we’ll get even less product created in the iteration. Then add cumbersome and manual design/coding (developers have not yet learned how to utilize whiteboards to visualize holistically, and refactoring tools to fluidly change the source code), and we start to understand why so many development organizations have a hard time adopting iterative modes of development.

Smultron för Mac OS X

Tue, 11 Apr 2006 20:27:36 +0000

Idag hittade jag äntligen en skön editor för Mac OS X som både är gratis och har den rätta Mac-känslan: Smultron.

Tidigare har jag kört en utvärderingsversion av Rails-folkets favorit TextMate, men den gick ut idag. Har också prövat TextWrangler, en gratisvariant av den gamla Mac-trotjänaren BBEDit, men känslan är helt enkelt inte helt rätt. Detta problem gäller inte för Smultron. Efter ett par timmars användning känns allt bara bra. TextMate har fler roliga finesser, men Smultron räcker långt för mig just nu. Pröva!

Donald Reinertsen till Sverige, 3 maj

Fri, 07 Apr 2006 12:26:11 +0000

Donald Reinertsen är konsult och författare till “Developing Products in Half the Time” och “Managing the Design Factory”. Hans approach är särskilt uppfriskande i dessa tider, när metod ställs mot metod. Lättrörligt mot traditionellt. Istället för att ge sig in i såna strider föredrar Reinertsen att utforska hur olika faktorer faktiskt påverkar varandra. Han går tillbaks till ekonomin, och visar till exempel hur kostnaden för en försening kan ställas mot värdet av en ny feature.

Certifierad Scrum Master, 25-26 april

Fri, 07 Apr 2006 12:17:16 +0000

Den 25:e till 26:e april kommer jag och min kollega Mikael att hålla en Scrum-workshop i Uppsala, i Citerus regi. Fullgjord workshop innebär att deltagaren kan titulera sig “Certifierad Scrum Master”. Det blir två interaktiva och roliga dagar på temat lättrörlig projektledning.

Agile är finskt

Fri, 24 Mar 2006 11:31:39 +0000

Elektroniktidningen har ett scoop: agile är en finsk metodik.

A day in the life of...

Tue, 21 Mar 2006 21:57:16 +0000

…Noel Llopis, who writes about what it’s like to work in an efficient and agile manner at High Moon Studios.

Create a Calendar

Tue, 28 Feb 2006 22:15:22 +0000

I needed a calendar print-out, and Google found me this excellent site that generates calendars for you, complete with local holidays. And with lots of customization features. Generate, print, and take it to your next planning meeting to scribble on.

Lean i vården

Mon, 20 Feb 2006 18:36:59 +0000

“Herrestads vårdcentral satsade på Lean. Nu hinner personalen med mer och kan ta emot fler patienter.”

Ericsson utvecklar sin utveckling

Mon, 06 Feb 2006 11:52:27 +0000

Tidningen Ny Teknik skriver om hur Ericsson bland annat upptäckt hur dagliga byggen kan hjälpa utvecklingsarbetet, och att produktledningen och support måste hänga med när utvecklingsprojekten börjar bli effektivare.

Thinking Tools

Thu, 02 Feb 2006 12:12:29 +0000

In the article pointed to in my last post, Pascal van Cauwenberghe used the “Evaporating Cloud” technique to attack a dilemma. Frank Patrick writes more about this and other thinking tools.

Is it the people or the process?

Sun, 29 Jan 2006 22:32:45 +0000

Pascal Van Cauwenberghe writes on how the characterization of problems as having to do with either people or process is a false dichotomy, and explores how we can sneak a liberating third option into this dilemma: http://blog.nayima.be/blog/Entry20060121.html.

What Makes Teams Work?

Fri, 06 Jan 2006 18:02:08 +0000

In an article from year 2000, Fast Company asks a number of managers the essential question ‘What makes teams work?

Try Ruby

Fri, 30 Dec 2005 15:49:08 +0000

Why not spend fifteen lovely minutes and try Ruby, courtesy of “Why, the Lucky Stiff”. Great idea, great implementation. What will be the next thing we can try out on the net?

Jim Womack on the Origins of "Lean"

Thu, 24 Nov 2005 14:16:09 +0000

Jim Womack writes about the origins of the expression lean.

Learning About User Stories

Wed, 16 Nov 2005 13:22:40 +0000

I don’t know enough about how to write good user stories (I know, I know, I’m falling behind here), but I’ll try to fix this as soon as possible. I’ll begin by reading what I can find on the net, and continue with Mike Cohn’s book on the topic. Here are some links to what I’ve found so far.

Interview with Don Reinertsen

Wed, 16 Nov 2005 13:19:46 +0000

Here’s an interview with Don Reinertsen, author of “Managing the Design Factory”.

Scania och lean

Wed, 16 Nov 2005 13:03:33 +0000

Scania jobbar med att bli bättre, bland annat genom att integrera produktion och konstruktion. Eddie Pröckl på Tidningen Ny Teknik har skrivit om företaget vid ett flertal tillfällen.

Saab håller också mästarklass.

Post-it Beard

Thu, 20 Oct 2005 12:53:25 +0000

Post-it Beard: What you give your monitor by putting post-its all around the edges of the bottom half of the screen.

Kopplingen Lean och Scrum

Wed, 12 Oct 2005 19:38:50 +0000

Dataföreningen har publicerat den presentation jag och Mikael Lundgren höll på Sweden ICT Week den 13 september

Lean Forum, Göteborg

Sat, 17 Sep 2005 11:55:42 +0000

Nästa vecka besöker jag Lean Forum i Göterborg. Det ska bli intressant att ta del av de erfarenheter de andra deltagarna har från tillämpningen av lean-tänket i deras respektive branscher.

Lean/agile på Sweden ICT Week

Wed, 24 Aug 2005 20:37:18 +0000

Jag och min kollega Mikael Lundgren kommer att hålla ett föredrag på temat lean och agile på Sweden ICT Week den 13:e september. Vi tänkte berätta lite kort om principerna bakom lean och hur de praktiseras i Scrum. Perfekt tillfälle att knyta ihop teorin och praktiken. Tid: runt två har jag för mig.

Scrum Master Power Tools

Thu, 11 Aug 2005 14:38:39 +0000

If you’re a Scrum enthusiast, chances are you’ve spent some time with Excel, trying to wrestle out burndowns and such. This guy, Jon Peltier, seems to know a thing or two about Excel. Might be a source for inspiration. Remember to keep it simple though: don’t get stuck in Excel like others get stuck in Microsoft Project. It can be dangerously relaxing to just fiddle around with software for a while. Kind of meditative actually.

Vem behöver en arkitekt?

Tue, 05 Jul 2005 18:55:00 +0000

Who needs an architect? frågade sig Martin Fowler en gång.Alla! Om arkitektrollen innebär: en person som är ansvarig för att diskutera lösningen i termer av komponenter som är relevanta för kunden. En person som pratar med kunder på kunders vis, och utvecklare på utvecklares. Arkitekten blir då en sorts koncepthanterare, vilket skulle göra rollen mer intressant. Arkitekt i betydelsen “bestämmer vilka skikt i J2EE-lösningen som ska innehålla vad” är mindre intressant. Arkitekt i betydelsen “sitter i en grupp och utfärdar dekret och är sen sur mesta tiden för att ingen gör som gruppen säger” är självklart fullständigt vansinnigt. Men vanligt.

Intervju med David Schmaltz

Thu, 19 May 2005 20:35:00 +0000

David Schmaltz är intressant som alltid i min intervju med honom på Projects@Work.

An Ethical Responsibility

Thu, 28 Apr 2005 20:15:00 +0000

“Each professional employing a process has the ethical responsibility to inject their own good judgment into their use. We get to choose whether we use process to replace or enhance relationships.” – David Schmaltz, in an excellent interview by Hal Macomber

Apropå övertid

Wed, 30 Mar 2005 23:01:00 +0000

Inspirerad av den helt ofattbart sköna Why’s (Poignant) Guide to Ruby har även jag bestämt mig för att bli tecknare.

Men allvarligt, läs Tom DeMarcos bok Spelrum på jobbet.

Gå den eleganta vägen

Wed, 30 Mar 2005 20:31:00 +0000

Får du ont i huvudet av o-eleganta lösningar? Det får jag. Därför gillar jag Ruby. Och Ruby on Rails, och ja, det är precis så bra som alla säger, verkar det som hittills i varje fall.

Plus, varför är inte alla tutorials lika underbara som den här, om Ruby? (Tips: om du följer denna tutorial, och har svårt att få IRB att funka med {,\ och andra roliga tecken, tänk på att du även måste sätta HOME-variabeln till din hemkatalog, där du lagt .inputrc).

PMI vs Agile, eller inte?

Fri, 04 Mar 2005 14:58:00 +0000

Stora motsättningar kan tyckas råda mellan de teorier som verkar ligga bakom de praktikregler för projektledning som beskrivs av PMI (se Koskela, Howell, 2002) och de tankar som bygger upp idéerna kring lättrörlighet. Trots detta är det viktigt att komma ihåg att en ny teori inte nödvändigtvis diskvalificerar en gammal i detta fall. Kanske är det helt enkelt så, att de senaste årens ökande intresse för lättrörlighet även tyder på en ökad förståelse för den traditionella projektteorin; att kunna avgränsa en teoris tillämpbarhet är ju avgörande för förståelsen av den. De senaste årens uppmärksamhet kring mindre byråkratiska och mer lyhörda arbetssätt har ju inte bara lett till ett ökat fokus på teorin bakom de nya arbetssätten, utan också till ökad kunskap om de traditionella arbetssätten. Mintzberg påpekade redan i “Structure in Fives” att organisationers sätt att strukturera sig behöver vara anpassat efter komplexiteten och dynamiken hos den omgivning de befinner sig i, annars kan de helt enkelt inte fungera effektivt. Något som är värt att tänka på för de mjukvaruteam som inte förstår varför deras i allt väsentligt vattenfallsbaserade arbetssätt (sen kan man kalla det RUP eller vad man vill, lägger man allt krut på att skriva en “komplett kravspecifikation” och sedan “frysa” den jobbar man inte iterativt) inte fungerar som organisationsform gentemot en beställarorganisation vars förutsättningar på marknaden ändrar sig från dag till dag.

MSF

Fri, 04 Feb 2005 18:09:57 +0000

Note to self: det är förmodligen läge att gräva djupare i vad Microsoft vill åstadkomma med sitt Microsoft Solution Framework.

Personal Helicon

Thu, 03 Feb 2005 22:38:05 +0000

Tag en paus och njut av min absoluta favoritdikt alla kategorier - Seamus Heaneys ‘Personal Helicon’.

Rulla på med Rails

Mon, 31 Jan 2005 14:49:49 +0000

Ruby on Rails verkar vara ett intressant initiativ. Pröva på tekniken med hjälp av Curt Hibbs snabba introduktion “Rolling with Ruby on Rails”.

Haleluja, I am Test-Driven

Mon, 31 Jan 2005 10:37:32 +0000

Patrik Fredriksson has published a beautiful story about his conversion to test-driven development. I was one of the dorks who held the presentation on the topic.

Du gamla, du sjuka

Sat, 15 Jan 2005 14:09:10 +0000

Om du ännu inte läst Dagens Nyheters artikelserie om Sveriges sjukvård, tag dig då en stund och kliv in i en fascinerande och skrämmande värld.

Dagens Nyheter - Du gamla, du sjuka

Ovanligt bra nyhetsbrev

Mon, 10 Jan 2005 14:07:36 +0000

“Expose the myth behind the necessity and the stuckness evaporates. Then an array of alternative possibilities appear.”

David Schmaltz, författare till den suveräna The Blind Men and the Elephant har publicerat senaste numret av sitt nyhetsbrev.

Debattinlägg i Computer Sweden

Fri, 17 Dec 2004 10:15:31 +0000

Har du hittat ett “paketerat arbetssätt” som du tänker “implementera” i din organisation? Läs först mitt debattinlägg i Computer Sweden.

Recipe for Insanity

Mon, 15 Nov 2004 15:24:51 +0000

Seeking an objective means to solve a subjective dilemma is a recipe for insanity. – David Schmaltz

Rusell Ackoff om system

Mon, 08 Nov 2004 15:59:55 +0000

Systemtänkande är ett ofattbart spännande ämne, tycker jag. Rusell Ackoff presenterar i det här videoklippet ämnet på det engagerade sätt det förtjänar.

Nakna objekt + nästa generations filsystem

Sun, 05 Sep 2004 23:04:51 +0000

Jag har läst på om Naked Objects, och ska snart börja bygga en testlösning på plattformen. En intressant fråga inför framtiden är vad teknik som Microsofts WinFS (och liknande lösningar på andra plattformar) i kombination med Naked Objects-tänket kan resultera i. Jag ser framför mig otroligt flexibla system, byggda med nakna objekt med en direkt mappning till filsystemet och dess metadatabas.

För mer om potentialen med Naked Objects, läs igenom upphovsmännens egen artikelsamling. Här finns även en givande artikel om olika problem med det användargränssnitt som idag automatgenereras till affärsobjekten. Själv tror jag att detta problem kommer att försvinna med tiden, allt eftersom tekniken sprids och nya gränssnittshanterare tas fram.

Naked Objects

Sat, 04 Sep 2004 18:39:21 +0000

Med risk för att få äta upp det (den risken löper man väl i och för sig alltid när man yttrar sig) så tror jag Naked Objects kan vara hur viktigt som helst: www.nakedobjects.org

Varning för användningsfall

Mon, 09 Aug 2004 11:17:17 +0000

När jag först upptäckte användningsfall tyckte jag att de var ett otroligt lyft från den alltför vanliga “IEEE-listan” med krav som alla börjar med “The system shall…”. Sen dess har jag både skrivit användningsfall själv och läst andras, och jag har blivit mer och mer skeptiskt inställd. Läs omedelbart den här sammanfattningen av några av problemen med användningsfall: Use Cases Still Dangerous : Editorial : uidesign.net

Mönster

Fri, 02 Jul 2004 10:27:02 +0000

Är du intresserad av patterns? Missa då inte den här sidan som sammanfattar Christopher Alexanders “A Pattern Language”.

Alistairs artiklar

Mon, 28 Jun 2004 09:34:08 +0000

Alistair Cockburn har länge verkat som en sorts upptäcksresande i projektvärlden, och samlar många intressanta observationer i sin artikelsamling.

Verksamhetsregler med Drools

Thu, 24 Jun 2004 13:44:59 +0000

Jag har tidigare tipsat om konceptet verksamhetsregler, och hittade nyligen till Drools webbplats. Än har jag inte tagit mig tid att kolla närmare på verktyget, men det kanske kan vara något att fördjupa sig i för den intresserade: Drools - Home.

Wicked Projects

Thu, 19 Feb 2004 11:54:47 +0000

Vad är det som gör att projekt som är mer komplexa än att äta en glass inte låter sig underkastas den old school-projektmetodik som går ut att på att bryta ned och fasuppdela? Mary Poppendieck presenterar några teorier kring detta i Software Development Online: Wicked Projects

Gratis är gott - och ibland godare

Tue, 21 Oct 2003 22:34:05 +0000

För er som inte redan visste det - utvecklingsmiljöerna för Java verkar ha kört om Microsofts verktyg med hästlängder. Det är en lustig vändning, eftersom det bara för några år sedan var Microsoft som hade ett rejält användbarhetsövertag. Idag kan man däremot få en kostnadsfri miljö (Eclipse) för Java som inte bara matchar, utan trumfar, Microsofts flaggskepp Visual Studio 2003. Så kan det gå. Det lilla jag prövat av Eclipse är helt oslagbart bra, från det inbyggda stödet för refactoring, via de underbara funktionerna för att navigera runt i koden, till vad som verkar vara ett rikligt utbud av plug-ins till miljön. 3-0 till Eclipse, Microsoft tills vidare utsparkad ur ligan.

Från utvecklare till utvecklare

Sun, 19 Oct 2003 12:09:28 +0000

Den som utvecklar på Microsoft-plattformen kan hitta mycket intressant i de många bloggar som Microsofts egna utvecklare nuförtiden publicerar. Över huvud taget verkar Microsoft ha för avsikt att använda bloggning och personliga sidor som ett strategiskt verktyg i kommunikationen med omvärlden.

Själv kan jag rekommendera Chris Sells sida, där man bland annat kan läsa om hur rekryteringsintervjuer går till på Microsoft.

Portal-syndromet

Sat, 27 Sep 2003 16:10:49 +0000

Det är helt otroligt hur bra mjukvara man kan få tag på helt gratis. Open source-världen har lyckats producera en hel del kvalitetsprogram. Fast just nu, när jag letar efter ett enkelt och stabilt verktyg för att hantera innehållet här på tobiasfors.se, lyckas jag inte så bra.

Mer än en programmerare har upptäckt att hantering av webbmaterial är något som kan stödjas med verktyg. Tyvärr verkar resultatet ganska ofta lida av Portal-Syndromet. Denna skrämmande åkomma yttrar sig i form av webbplatser som lider av ett oöverblickbart fladder av många små rutor med texter, omröstningar, nyheter och allt annat som någon tyckt borde kunna publiceras på en och samma webbplats.

Mjukvaruutveckling = kunskapsutveckling

Wed, 18 Jun 2003 19:00:14 +0000

Nyfiken på verksamhetsregler

Mjukvaruutveckling är i grund och botten kunskapsutveckling. Vad vi gör som skapar datorprogram är att samla in kunskap, och sedan representera den på olika sätt. Det är egentligen inte så konstigt. Konstigt är däremot att vi fortfarande hanterar den insamlade kunskapen på ett så ineffektivt sätt.

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