Lean from the Trenches

Book description

You know the Agile and Lean development buzzwords, you've read the books. But when systems need a serious overhaul, you need to see how it works in real life, with real situations and people. Lean from the Trenches is all about actual practice. Every key point is illustrated with a photo or diagram, and anecdotes bring you inside the project as you discover why and how one organization modernized its workplace in record time.

Table of contents

  1. Lean from the Trenches
    1. Copyright
    2. For the Best Reading Experience...
    3. Table of Contents
    4. What Readers Are Saying About Lean from the Trenches
    5. Foreword
    6. Preface
      1. Who This Book Is For
      2. How to Read This Book
      3. New to Agile or Lean?
      4. Disclaimer
      5. Acknowledgments
    7. Part 1: How We Work
      1. Chapter 1: About the Project
        1. Timeline
        2. How We Sliced the Elephant
        3. How We Involved the Customer
      2. Chapter 2: Structuring the Teams
      3. Chapter 3: Attending the Daily Cocktail Party
        1. First Tier: Feature Team Daily Stand-up
        2. Second Tier: Sync Meetings per Specialty
        3. Third Tier: Project Sync Meeting
      4. Chapter 4: The Project Board
        1. Our Cadences
        2. How We Handle Urgent Issues and Impediments
      5. Chapter 5: Scaling the Kanban Boards
      6. Chapter 6: Tracking the High-Level Goal
      7. Chapter 7: Defining Ready and Done
        1. Ready for Development
        2. Ready for System Test
        3. How This Improved Collaboration
      8. Chapter 8: Handling Tech Stories
        1. Example 1: System Test Bottleneck
        2. Example 2: Day Before the Release
        3. Example 3: The 7-Meter Class
      9. Chapter 9: Handling Bugs
        1. Continuous System Test
        2. Fix the Bugs Immediately!
        3. Why We Limit the Number of Bugs in the Bug Tracker
        4. Visualizing Bugs
        5. Preventing Recurring Bugs
      10. Chapter 10: Continuously Improving the Process
        1. Team Retrospectives
        2. Process Improvement Workshops
        3. Managing the Rate of Change
      11. Chapter 11: Managing Work in Progress
        1. Using WIP Limits
        2. Why WIP Limits Apply Only to Features
      12. Chapter 12: Capturing and Using Process Metrics
        1. Velocity (Features per Week)
        2. Why We Don’t Use Story Points
        3. Cycle Time (Weeks per Feature)
        4. Cumulative Flow
        5. Process Cycle Efficiency
      13. Chapter 13: Planning the Sprint and Release
        1. Backlog Grooming
        2. Selecting the Top Ten Features
        3. Why We Moved Backlog Grooming Out of the Sprint Planning Meeting
        4. Planning the Release
      14. Chapter 14: How We Do Version Control
        1. No Junk on the Trunk
        2. Team Branches
        3. System Test Branch
      15. Chapter 15: Why We Use Only Physical Kanban Boards
      16. Chapter 16: What We Learned
        1. Know Your Goal
        2. Experiment
        3. Embrace Failure
        4. Solve Real Problems
        5. Have Dedicated Change Agents
        6. Involve People
    8. Part 2: A Closer Look at the Techniques
      1. Chapter 17: Agile and Lean in a Nutshell
        1. Agile in a Nutshell
        2. Lean in a Nutshell
        3. Scrum in a Nutshell
        4. XP in a Nutshell
        5. Kanban in a Nutshell
      2. Chapter 18: Reducing the Test Automation Backlog
        1. What to Do About It
        2. How to Improve Test Coverage a Little Bit Each Iteration
        3. Step 1: List Your Test Cases
        4. Step 2: Classify Each Test
        5. Step 3: Sort the List in Priority Order
        6. Step 4: Automate a Few Tests Each Iteration
        7. Does This Solve the Problem?
      3. Chapter 19: Sizing the Backlog with Planning Poker
        1. Estimating Without Planning Poker
        2. Estimating with Planning Poker
        3. Special Cards
      4. Chapter 20: Cause-Effect Diagrams
        1. Solve Problems, Not Symptoms
        2. The Lean Problem-Solving Approach: A3 Thinking
        3. How to Use Cause-Effect Diagrams
        4. Example 1: Long Release Cycle
        5. Example 2: Defects Released to Production
        6. Example 3: Lack of Pair Programming
        7. Example 4: Lots of Problems
        8. Practical Issues: How to Create and Maintain the Diagrams
        9. Pitfalls
        10. Why Use Cause-Effect Diagrams?
    9. Chapter 21: Final Words
    10. Appendix 1: Glossary: How We Avoid Buzzword Bingo
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Product information

  • Title: Lean from the Trenches
  • Author(s):
  • Release date: December 2011
  • Publisher(s): Pragmatic Bookshelf
  • ISBN: 9781934356852