Steve Tendon Interviewed by Clarke Ching, November 4, 2015
Clarke Ching “the Bottleneck Guy” interviews Steve Tendon
TameFlow and PopcornFlow foster Unity of Purpose
Unite a systematic way to achieve exploratory validated learning, the PopcornFlow approach, with the focusing and knowledge discovery contributions of the Levels of Disagreement of the Theory of Constraints.
Actionable Agile Metrics Review - Part 11
Dan’s book is simply a must read for any TameFlow practitioner.
Actionable Agile Metrics Review - Part 10: Forecasting and Analytics
Forecasts, linear projections, Montecarlo simulations are all options for knowing when work will be done. They are all heavily data driven. Become methodical about capturing the data.
Actionable Agile Metrics Review - Part 9: Pull Policies
Avoiding Classes of Services, trying to stick to a strick FIFO pull policy, designing the process for predictability, countering variability with excess capacity are all valuable concepts that are all embraced by TameFlow.
Actionable Agile Metrics Review - Part 8: Service Level Agreements
A delivery commitment should be expressed as date range. The closer you are to a stable process, the less data points you need. Service Level Agreements can and should be used in place of planning and estimation. Pick a starting and an ending percentile line to represent your MMR buffer.
Actionable Agile Metrics Review - Part 7: Scatterplots
Scatterplots give a temporal view and can uncover trends over time. You cannot identify special/common causes simply by looking at a Scatterplot. Figure out if any variability is self-imposed rather than being out of control; and if it is internal or external.
Actionable Agile Metrics Review - Part 6: Flow Debt
Learn to use the Approximate Average Cycle Time read off a Cumulative Flow Diagram and compare it to the Exact Average Cycle Time to detect if we are incurring Flow Debt.
Actionable Agile Metrics Review - Part 5: Conservation of Flow
In order not to overload the process you simply need to control how much work is allowed to enter it across the arrival point. Getting a balanced process is the single most important step towards predictability; and how WIP is limited is less important than actually doing it. In Tameflow, the amount of work that is allowed to enter into the process is limited to the amount of work that can be handled by the constraint. All and any prioritization is done only when capacity is available and only to the extent that can be handled by the Constraint. The state of the process must be taken considered when making prioritization and pull decisions.
Actionable Agile Metrics Review - Part 4: Cumulative Flow Diagrams
With actionable agile metrics, you can run experiments with your process and see what gives the best measured outcome in your context. Cumulative Flow Diagrams should not be used to identify bottlenecks, but simply to trigger the right questions.