Category Archives: Lean

Genchi Genbutsu – The real life of a taxi driver by Konrad Marshall

Posted on May 16, 2013 by

Challenged by a suggestion that victorian taxi drivers were “a new and disturbing category of the ‘working poor’ in Australia”  journalist Konrad Marshall sought to find out the truth about exactly how much money cabbies make, as well as gaining … Continue reading →

Posted in Agile, Customers, Lean | Leave a comment

Shaping IT Organisations: CIO Strategy Forum presentation by Nigel Dalton

Posted on February 27, 2013 by

In which the 3rd Reich*, the Catholic Church, and Monty Python are resoundly thumped by William Edwards Deming in the race to design a healthy, productive IT organisation for the 21st century. By the time this is published I will … Continue reading →

Posted in Agile, Lean, Organisation, People | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Agile, Lean and Systems Thinking – What’s the Deal?

Posted on January 3, 2013 by

A Luna Tractor client asked me the other day, “What’s the relationship between Agile and Lean? How do you know which to choose?”  It’s a great question and the answer is actually pretty simple: most of the time you need … Continue reading →

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Genchi Genbutsu – Go and See

Posted on December 6, 2012 by

Taiichi Ohno was reputed to take new graduates at Toyota to the factory floor and draw a circle on the ground.  The graduate would then be told to stand there and observe; if upon his return they had not seen … Continue reading →

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WHY ?

Posted on August 18, 2012 by

At various times I’ve heard Fiona, Nigel and myself telling people “If you only adopt one Agile practice make it the retrospectives” … But why ? The boards are useful, but they are really just give you a prompt when … Continue reading →

Posted in Agile, Communication, Customers, Development, Disruption, Lean, People, Strategy | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Luna USA Field Trip: lessons for the future of retail in Australia

Posted on June 11, 2012 by

If I had a dollar for every whinging column-inch where our Australian newspapers copy and paste press releases from Myer, David Jones and Harvey Norman’s PR departments, blaming the dreaded interweb for the end-of-days in our retail stores, I’d be … Continue reading →

Posted in Customers, Disruption, Lean, People, Retail, Strategy | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

YOW! 2011 Australia Conference – something for everyone, even the economists!

Posted on January 29, 2012 by

As the lunatics in charge of the Luna Tractor, James and I are fortunate to spend time with the 25% of Australian agile professionals who actually give a shit, who we often meet at industry conferences. The smarter among you … Continue reading →

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Command and Control – is there an Option?

Posted on January 27, 2012 by

Sorry. Lean nerd joke. Read this if you don’t get it -  http://www.amazon.co.uk/Freedom-Command-Control-Better-Make/dp/0954618300

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Great Engineering Lasts – The U-2 Spy Plane and the SR 71 Blackbird.

Posted on December 11, 2011 by

We spoke at YOW this year on the topic of innovation and agile over 6 decades, highlighting the Agile and Lean principles we see in space and engineering projects. From the 1930s we talked about the Cabinet War rooms and … Continue reading →

Posted in Agile, Development, Lean, Space, Technology | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

LUNA CASE STUDY: A health insurance start-up.

Posted on November 15, 2011 by

Luna Tractor has had the great pleasure of working with a small health insurance start-up here in Melbourne this year. This is their story. The competitive landscape for health insurance in Australia is dominated by a small number of large … Continue reading →

Posted in Agile, Development, Disruption, Lean, People | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments