Friction - Agile Singapore Conference 2016

Published on: Monday, 17 October 2016

Speaker: Mary Poppendieck (@mpoppendieck), Owner @ Poppendieck.LLC

You have great software engineers. They work on autonomous product teams that deliver frequently. The products are doing well. But -- there is always a But. Things could be better. Something is frustrating team members or disappointing customers or slowing things down. What is it?

Friction. No matter how well things are going, there will always be friction. Consumers experience friction when using your product. Friction delays a team's response to a product request. Friction makes the code difficult to change. Differing expectations create friction among team members. Competing goals create friction between teams.

This talk looks at the most common sources of friction in software systems, and present patterns for reducing friction that can be used again -- and again -- to identify and address points of friction on an on-going basis.

About the speaker

Mary Poppendieck started her career as a process control programmer, moved on to manage the IT department of a manufacturing plant, and then ended up in product development, where she was both a product champion and department manager.

Mary considered retirement 1998, but instead found herself managing a government software project where she first encountered the word "waterfall." When Mary compared her experience in successful software and product development to the prevailing opinions about how to manage software projects, she decided the time had come for a new paradigm. She wrote the award-winning book Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit in 2003 to explain how the lean principles from manufacturing offer a better approach to software development.

Over the past several years, Mary has found retirement elusive as she lectures and teaches classes with her husband Tom. Based on their on-going learning, they wrote a second book,Implementing Lean Software Development: From Concept to Cash in 2006, a third, Leading Lean Software Development: Results are Not the Point in 2009, and a fourth book, The Lean Mindset: Ask the Right Questions in 2013. A popular writer and speaker, Mary continues to bring fresh perspectives to the world of software development.

Slides: https://speakerdeck.com/agilesingapore/friction-mary-poppendieck-agile-sg-2016

Event Page: http://2016.agilesingapore.org

Produced by Engineers.SG

Help us caption & translate this video!

http://amara.org/v/XvSt/