Crowdsourcing Case Study: Polaris Industries

Polaris Industries’ crowdsourcing case study is inspiring people both internally and externally—and their story is still relevant today. As a strong believer that the key to success is in the ethics and values of its employees, Polaris has made the creation of great products not just a job, but a way of life. “We’re proud...

Measuring Batch Size, WIP, and Throughput

The part 1 of this series, 5 Lean and Agile Metrics to Measure Track with Your Team: Lead Time and Cycle Time, I shared two of the five Lean and Agile metrics to track. In this blog, we’ll talk about measuring batch size, WIP, and throughput. Let’s get started. The goal for any Agile team is...

Scale Agile Delivery within Your Organisation

There’s a growing interest to incorporate Scaled Agile Delivery principles across the organisation. Companies are learning how lean and agile delivery methods are impacting visibility, strategic alignment, funding, and accountability. It’s a new way of working—one that comes with challenges to overcome, but worth the effort as it can positively influence strategic agility. In the...

Who is a Project Sponsor?

A project sponsor is an important link between a project team and other stakeholders, including more senior executives. We have already addressed how to identify a project sponsor, so here we will focus on what their roles and responsibilities are. These can vary depending on the industry and type of project, but can generally be...

5 Key Strategies to Application Portfolio Management

Now more than ever, organizations are relying on software applications and outside technology vendors to meet their information technology needs. Yet, as these requirements evolve, it becomes difficult to keep track of what applications you have, the purpose they serve, usage, and  value. This is a problem that application portfolio management (APM) can solve. What...

5 Lean and Agile Metrics to Track with Your Team

Management expert Peter Drucker is quoted as saying, “You can’t manage what you don’t measure,” something most product managers or reporting nerds would agree with—especially when it comes to trying to improve the workflow of a development team. That said, not everyone is as chummy with Lean and Agile metrics as I am, which is...

Putting Continuous Planning Types to Work

Welcome to the finale of our four-part series that reviews the types of planning organizations have at their fingertips to convert strategy into results. At the beginning of this series, we discussed the importance of developing plans that are dynamic and continuous in order to adapt to change. Now, we will summarize the different types...

Assess Your Innovation Program

In today’s world of work, disruption—whether it’s from new technology, new business models, or customer experiences—is the new normal. Such disruption, impacting companies regardless of industry, is fueling the sense of urgency behind innovation. Either your organization is innovating or it’s getting swallowed up by the competition. That’s why having an effective innovation program is...

How Innovation Loans May Save British Manufacturing

Britain, historically, has been one of the world’s greatest leaders in terms of technological innovation, going all the way back to the Industrial Revolution. Then, the UK’s inventors and industrialists embraced ingenuity and harnessed the power of steam and kinetics to change the way the world worked. While we have moved on a lot from...