As is the case throughout the book, concepts introduced elsewhere are interwoven. Vi er specialiseret i SAFe,(Scaled Agile Framework) og erSPCT Gold partner hos Scaled Agile, Inc. Ramp meters control the volume of vehicles on the freeway and thereby increase flow without actually limiting access. Queues affect capacity utilization. )", "Go! Fortunately, he broke it into sections representing eight key principles of Lean. It's refreshing to see ideas from these different domains brought together in a coherent way: If we limit ourselves to the relatively simple WIP [work-in-progress] constraints used in lean manufacturing, we will underexploit the power of WIP constraints. Have a feature that nobody would let you implement? Today, only 2 percent of product developers measure queues. In order to trade them off against each other, we have to convert their impact into economic terms. That is what we started with on the Internet 30 years ago. In this chapter, Reinertsen uses traffic control systems because they must adapt to constantly changing and uncertain conditions accidents happen. After all, they want to do everything in their power to eliminate all excuses for failure. Institutionalization of large batch sizes. Even in an organization in which product developers are building tools for internal consumption, there are clear economic drivers that can guide us in good decisionmaking. When one principle calls for integration with another, we get a clear picture of how all these principles fit together to form a coherent strategy for building effective product development organizations. Noneconomic flow control. If anything, he left me wanting more stories that would further illustrate the mountain of golden nuggets he has provided. There got to be so many pages marked that I started putting the stickies on the side of the page so I could tell the new ones from the old ones. If youre wondering how Playbook utilizes these good ideas, you can watch a demo and look for these key points. 0000002215 00000 n Product development in established companies and markets has a clear economic rationale to judge effectiveness and productivity. This snippet is characteristic of Reinertsen's writing style and reasoning. Under such conditions, management will almost automatically support anything that appears to help the "golden" project. Of course, this then makes the package even larger and of higher priority. [This book] will explain why large queues form when processes with variability are operated at high levels of capacity utilization. If its a really good book it will have ideas in it that Ill want to find later, so Ill mark those pages with a piece of sticky note. Don Reinertsen points out that were in business to make a profit, so decisions made during the development process should be made by considering how theyll impact profit. But its also well written and Don Reinertsen speaks a little more strongly when he talks about how present day product development methods are backwards. The simple diagram below illustrates this perfectly. For most companies, the biggest impact to profit is the cost of delay. Reinertsen is keenly aware of what makes product development different from other business functions, like manufacturing, that we sometimes use as a metaphor. But it goes beyond that, including techniques for improving the economics of product development. It becomes a death march where all participants know they are doomed, but no one has the power to stop. The Agile Practitioner: Everythings Going Agile, The Agile Practitioner: The Daily Stand-up, The Agile Practitioner: The Daily Stand Up. Just show it will benefit the "golden" project and you will get approval. With the importance of speed in mind, we need to understand what slows down projects. Inquisitive, provocative and results oriented, David is willing to dig into problems until their true essence is understood and the solution is executed. Reinertsen also provides a number of ways to visualize and monitor WIP to know when to deploy WIP control measures. Since few companies can answer both questions, it should be no surprise that queues are managed poorly today. Small batches (or short iterations) provide fast feedback (more on this later), but they also have the effect of reducing queue size. For me, this chapter packed the largest wallop. Reinertsen does not speak about startups specifically - his book is meant to speak broadly to product development teams across industries and sectors. The use of economic theory to justify decisions is a recurring theme of the book. But, more importantly, it is easy to quantify. There is also a very interesting section of this chapter that discusses how to sequence work.
This is not for the faint of heart. Many of the startups I talk to - and their boards - seem to equate ability to "hit the schedule" with competence and productivity. good ideas here, but Ill briefly summarize what every product developer should know. However, different jobs will often have vastly different costs-of-delay. This leads them to load their porcesses to dangerously high levels of utilization. When they tested improvements in keel designs, they used two virtually identical boats. Startups are frequently guilty as charged - the 4-year death march example above could be written about dozens of venture-backed companies slogging it out in the land of the living dead. 0000002238 00000 n We are now four generations beyond that method." First, how big are our queues? It is what they refer to as the ramp meter.. The following chart shows compelling evidence of the efficacy of WIP constraints. Hopefully by now youre convinced that some form of Lean or Agile product development process is worth pursuing. Remember that startups operate by a different unit of progress: what I callvalidated learning about customers. ), and the resulting extreme uncertainty that is, incidentally, the environment where startups thrive. Good "Scientific" fundament for lean/agile practices. People often ask which they should read first. Reducing batches can have many benefits in a software development environment. They can also assess when it is appropriate to engage leadership. Because Agile development draws from these disciplines, we must be very careful not to take too much with us. we focused on the wrong end of the value chain, optimize the rate at which were creating economically useful information, Science and economics behind failing fast, Part 6 where we look at other key Lean Product Development principles. My favorite part of this chapter was the discussion around alignment. After all, when upper management has been told a project will succeed for 4 years, it is very hard for anyone in middle management to stand up and reverse this forecast Our problems grow even bigger when a large project attains the status of the project that cannot afford to fail. (For an introduction to the topic, I still recommend Reinertsens book. Continuing the theme of ascribing economic value to costs of delay, the chapter on WIP discusses how said cost can be minimized by controlling WIP. Reinertsen is not pulling punches. One of the hallmarks of this book is the use of some unexpected sources for models of behavior. Clearly, big iterations require big queues. Initial attempts to apply lean methods in product development simply copied behaviours that worked in manufacturing. What becomes clear from the pages of this book is that we must remain vigilant for unexpected variations from the plan that benefit the product. It will be particularly useful to companies that are reaching the point of diminishing returns using conventional approaches to product development and lean product development. Reinertsen explains how to calculate the optimal batch size from an economic point of view, math and all. Reinertsen argues that queues are the most important factor in maintaining optimal product development flow. Many of the books are about management topics, which should come as no surprise to those who know me. Unfortunately, many people assume that the principles that apply to the repetitive cadence of manufacturing have no place in the less predictable world of product development. There are no easy answers to this conundrum, but adaptability to a changing situation is paramount. For example, many startups would do better by removing buffers from their schedules, embracing the variability of their delivery times, and reducing their cycle times. I have become a skeptic of concepts and practices that are not measurable and Reinertsen dives right in with this chapter about ascribing economic value to the work we do as product developers. When this time is short, there are fewer extraneous signals that can introduce noise into our experiment. Throughout the book, this is a recurring theme. And that's also where we need to modify some of the specific practices Reinertsen recommends. A3s, Batch Sizes, Build Measure Learn, Cadence, Collocation, Constraints, Cost of Delay, Critical Chain Project Management, Decentralization, Early Learning, Fast Feedback, Flexible Product Development, Flow, Kanban, Knowledge Driven Product Development, LAMDA, Lean Six Sigma, Multitasking, OODA, PDCA, Project Economic Models, Queueing Principles, Rapid Learning Cycles, Risk Management, Scrum, Set-Based Concurrent Engineering, Standup Meetings, Value Stream Maps, Visual Project Boards, WIP Constraints. See if any of these sound familiar: 1. Instead, we will explore some of the more advanced ideas used in the world of telecommunications. 0000002821 00000 n He points out that we often use surrogate (or proxy) measurements that offer little or no economic connection with the marketplace. I came looking for a few nuggets and found an entire gold mine. Today's developers incorrectly try to maximize efficiency Any subprocess within product development can be viewed in economic terms. Don Reinertsen has worked with leading product development organizations for over 30 years, and taught executive courses at Caltech for 14 years. Well, heres a partial list of topics you can choose from. A number of tactics for controlling WIP are put forth. Most of the really good books get just a few pages marked. Reinertsen draws on a variety of areas (economics, queue theory, control theory, the military) to explore the consequences for product development. Design goals are almost always dynamic.
CEO Capacity utilization is revisited with an eye towards determining the correct margin to leave available to ensure higher flow rates. Just for the economic explanations, this book would be worth the price of admission. It is worth noting that Team New Zealand explicitly invested in a second boat to create this superior test environment. We want to take Agile training to the next level and believe that effective learning should be just as fun, interactive and inspiring as serious business and hard work. Then youve found the right place. %PDF-1.4 %
Today, only 15 percent of product developers know the cost of delay. There are many causes, but a common one is that work sits idle for long periods of time (in a queue) before its worked on. Yet it's not correct to say that batch sizes should be as small as possible. This can be done by creating an economic model that everyone on the team understands and buys into. 0000000799 00000 n It is preferred that participants have a basic understanding of lean techniques and at least 5 years of experience in product development. Get started with Lean Product Development, Lean Product Development: Cultural Resistance, 4 ways to Ensure Your Lean product Development Initiative Won't Fail, The planning and task ownership is decentralized, No tasks on the critical path have wait time, You can monitor and control capacity loading. Speaking of text books As full as this book is with good ideas, there is another that actually beats it in terms of density. In the manufacturing world, variability is almost always bad. Creating short feedback loops is nothing new to the Agile practitioner. He is the author/co-author of three best-selling books on product development. Weve created a space, which is designed to meet the high expectations from our driven, creative trainers and consultants, and for you to feel comfortable, almost like home. No self-respecting Lean approach to product development would be complete without discussing batch size. The discussion of creating clear roles and boundaries resonates because too often neither of these is well-defined and clearly communicated in a manner that is actionable by team members at all levels. When leadership defines the mission clearly, teams can interpret their situation against that mission to make good choices. Flow is more like an encyclopedia where you can easily find information. Relying on extensive central command slows things down, puts decisions in the hands of those with the least knowledge of the situation on the ground, and risks miscommunication when orders are returned. He identifies a dozen fatal flaws that plague existing product development, beginning with a failure to properly identify and quantify the economics of development cycles, and outlines how to address these issues. By sailing one boat against the other, they were able to discriminate small changes in performance very quickly. Furthermore, small changes in either can have a profound effect on flow. Or consider principle B9: The Batch Size Death Spiral Principle: Large batches lead to even larger batches: The damage done by large batches can become regenerative when a large batch project starts to acquire a life of its own. In contrast, the competing American design team used a single boat supplemented by computer models and NASA wind tunnels. There is an important caveat, however. By focusing on real economic value, we learn to manage the elements of a project that matter most. Here again, we see the use of a more quantitative approach to evaluating this feedback and defining the right metrics to target economic indicators of performance. Even though Lean and Agile are fairly new topics in terms of hardware product development methods, there are already dozens of books on the subject. By setting up the wrong incentives, we are rewarding the very behaviors that we seek to prevent. Much of this chapter is a rehash of concepts that are familiar to anyone who has used Agile or Lean principles: colocation, short iterations, low hanging fruit, and modular design are all discussed. Unfortunately, this is often limited to what I refer to as a few golden nuggets. Even good books have lots of fluff in between the nuggets, usually in the form of extended stories to illustrate the point. It's wonderful to have an author take these sorts of questions seriously, instead of issuing yet another polemic. As importance grows, such test packages get even higher priority. Fast feedback allows us to remain vigilant for these opportunities. Everything: schedules, efficiency, throughput, even quality. Reinertsen draws on a variety of areas (economics, queue theory, control theory, the military) to explore the consequences for product development. The R&D factory isnt creating a product, its creating knowledge, which comes from information that is understood. In addition to evaluating the work, a good nonfiction book review also provides a taste of some of the information the reader will gain. Myths are busted on practically every page, even myths that are associated with lean/agile. Leadership feels obligated to assert their authority, while at the same time sending messages that people at all levels should feel free to make appropriate decisions. (That would have been a lot of sticky notes!). It focuses on proven leverage points and specific practical methods that have helped participants achieve as much as a 90 % reduction in cycle time. Sound familiar?
I push this technique quite often, because traditional product development tends to work in batches that are much too large. Does this sound familiar? For example, here's him discussing our collective blindness to queues: To understand the economic cost of queues, product developers must be able to answer two questions. will this bug take 5 minutes or 5 weeks to fix? Each section has numbered principles, and there are 175 in all. Six Sigma and Lean thinking encourage us to stamp out variability. These large projects act as magnets attracting additional cost, scope, and risk At the same time, large batches encourage even larger batches. As great as these ideas are, we borrowed a few other methods from other sourcesAgile, and Theory of Constraints. 0000002955 00000 n Just the way physics applies to both large objects and small ones, the methods used in this course can be applied in a wide variety of industries. Even worse, and unlike their established counterparts, startups often experience a non-quantifiable cost of delay. Although the book is under 300 pages long, it felt like many 500 page books I have read. Clearly, there comes a point at which additional features cost more than the benefit that is derived from them. Almost all economic factors can be traced back to managing delay. The reason for this can be represented in the graph below: Here we see two opposing metrics: transaction cost and holding cost. If we showed the Toyota Production System to an Internet protocol engineer, it is likely that he would remark, "That is a tail-dropping FIFO queue. Batches can be more elusive in an uncertain environment. It is a central principle and the entire philosophy tends to revolve around arranging work to get fast feedback. 221 0 obj << /Linearized 1 /O 225 /H [ 1106 1132 ] /L 1346405 /E 969463 /N 32 /T 1341866 >> endobj xref 221 11 0000000016 00000 n He prescribes controlling capacity utilization as the best way to manage queue size. Im certain I read the whole book at least six times within the first year or two after buying it. To give one example, Reinertsen emphasizes the power of measuring thecost of delay(COD) of a new product. He also introduces this idea: when it is imprudent to eliminate variability, the better choice is to minimize its cost. Executives coming to my product development classes report operating at 98.5 percent utilization in the precourse surveys.
One of the best examples of what Reinertsen calls controlled occupancy is familiar to Californians. Given what I have already said, you can imagine that my attempt will be wholly inadequate, but at least I can try to pique your curiosity. Because each principle is labeled with the type and a sequence number, the book is easy to use as a reference. He points out that in the military, field personnel are given a mission, but since conditions on the ground can change rapidly, advantage goes to the fighting force that can adapt the quickest. Reinertsen's book shares 175 principles of product development that challenge all conventional wisdom of how software products are built. It would be difficult to outline the forty-six (or 175!) Let's take a look at each of the eight categories in brief. This can be particularly true with software development projects because we often establish goals for the project in the early stages and become locked into our believe that deviations from those goals are categorically bad. It relies on understanding mechanisms of action and quantifying trade-offs. As the name implies, the book is broken down into a series of principles that have been categorized into eight major groups with several sub-classifications for each. But they can be managed by reducing batch sizes. The usual suspects are rounded up for slashing WIP: cutting low-value features, flexible resource allocation and blocking demand. And Im sure there are many more that I left out. Product development deals in designs, which are fundamentally intangible. Second, what is the cost of these queues? Only with the proper controls in place does the scale become an effective tool within the system. MDF is more like a typical book thats easy to read. Goldratt's Theory of Constraints is invoked along with rate-matching between adjacent processes. This doesnt work development is a profoundly different domain. We often think of product development backlogs as free. As I was trawling the internet for some brain fodder on Lean,I came across a good book that tackles usual questions of batch handling in the lean space.This one is from Donald Reinertsen-he also has couple of you tube videos as well.Am reproducing an excerpt from Eric Ries. While none of these ideas are new, it is valuable to read about them in the context of maximizing economic value. The book is structured as a series of principles, logically laid out and briefly discussed - 175 in all. The Principles of Product Development Flow: Second Generation Lean Product Development, Developing Products in Half the Time: New Rules, New Tools, 2nd Edition, Copyright 2020, Reinertsen & Associates, Covid-19 Testing Scarcity: A Self-Inflicted Wound, Sample Pooling: An Opportunity for a 40x Improvement in Covid-19 Testing, Technical Debt: Adding Math to the Metaphor, The Four Impostors: Success, Failure, Knowledge Creation, and Learning, Sample Pooling: An Opportunity for a 40x Improvement in Covid-19 Testing | Blog.CarlRobitaille.org. By the time a book gets on my radar, it probably has some new information to offer. And while its impossible for me to say whats best for your particular situation, I can share what we have found to be the most useful starting point. To view or add a comment, sign in. In a truly new market, we face no meaningful competition, there are no tradeshows to present at, and customers are not clamoring for our product. Anyone familiar with Lean thinking understands the importance of queues. The techniques covered are general methods of analysis rather than industry specific rules. Thank you for being such wonderful hosts absolutely fantastic environment (+ delicious food) to support the learnings.- Sending my husband to the course asap! We are located only 2 minutes walk from Christianshavn Station and 12 minutes from Copenhagen airport (Kastrup) by metro. The opposite can also be true. So if its a good book, Ill actually finish it. If you'd like to hear when articles come out, Lean product development can be looked at as flow-based product development. Attendees should bring a calculator, since the course will involve some light calculations. (For an introduction to the topic, I still recommend Reinertsens book Managing the Design Factory.). He shows how the actions of people inside traditional systems are motivated by their rational assessment of their own economics. Team New Zealand designed the yacht that won the America's Cup. Reinertsen weaves together ideas from lean manufacturing, maneuver warfare, queuing theory, and even the architecture of computer operating systems and the Internet. Its goal is to help us recognize that every artifact of our product development process is really just a proxy variable. Reinertsen, in typical fashion, offers lots of ways to evaluate the characteristics of managing decentralized control by integrating ideas from all the preceding chapters. Armed with that information, we can make rational trade-offs. Lean Product Development: Where in the world should you begin? Failure to correctly quantify economics. And somewhere along the way I loaned it to Paul and Eric so I dont really know how many times we read it altogether. The principles of product development flow draw on insights from Lean Manufacturing as well as examples from the Telecommunications and Computer Operating Systems industries. If the product development team can be engaged in activities that promote business learning at the expense of shipping - or even selling - product, that's a good trade.