Your path to business agility
In the bestselling book Project to Product, Planview CTO Dr. Mik Kersten introduces leaders to the missing framework needed to create a Value Stream Network — the technology equivalent of an advanced manufacturing line that comprises thousands of IT professionals.
January 17, 2007: Dr. Mik Kersten, Dr. Gail Murphy and Robert Elves founded Tasktop. Here is the announcement about the founding of the company a couple months after the incorporation https://blog.tasktop.com/tasktop-technologies-launched/. Just to put it in context, here are some other highlights from 2007: Apple iPhone was announced and launched Beyonce’s “Irreplaceable” was the best-performing...
Listening to conferences, webinars and podcasts, it’s easy to find organizations that have made significant wins on the project to product journey. It’s also easy to gloss over the significant challenges that were overcome along the journey when you’ve only got 45 minutes to tell a story that took two+ years to unfold. The journey...
Often organizations can be overwhelmed when thinking about continuous improvement primarily because it’s just that … continuous. It’s easy to lose focus and momentum while on this journey because the day to day effort doesn’t bring about incredible change. This is even more true the longer the journey goes. A key to keeping momentum is...
Early on in a project to product journey, people often feel compelled to “do it right”, which leaves them stalled on the start line. It’s impossible to imagine any organization getting it “right” the first time. I strongly encourage you to consider the improvements you make to be “experiments” with a hypothesis that you can...
In my last blog, I emphasized how a compelling reason to change is a fundamental precondition for starting a project to product journey. In this blog, I take that a step further and discuss three key characteristics that your organization should create as they take their first steps. Start small It’s critical to generate early...
Functioning in silos instead of cross-functional value streams, funding scope/projects instead of capacity, leadership collecting metrics on utilization instead of value delivered – many organizations are realizing that their current ways of organizing aren’t enough to stay competitive in a rapidly changing world. While they know they need to change, there’s not a lot of...
“Coach, we’re not ready”, was what we kept saying, just a bunch of lowly high school rookie swimmers on our bus ride to the season’s first meet, the regional swimming invitationals. “Our times aren’t any good, we miss turns all the time, our goggles keep falling off on our starts”. We had tons of reasons...
Looking for something edifying to listen to while you’re tanning on the beach, cruising on a long road trip, or mid-air on a flight on your way to finally reunite with some friends and family that you haven’t seen in a while? Look no further as we serve up some of our favorite bits from...
“As tech giants and startups disrupt every market, those who master large-scale software delivery will define the economic landscape of the 21st century, just as the masters of mass production defined the landscape in the 20th” Dr. Mik Kersten, CEO and founder Tasktop, author of Project to Product As we continue to waft through the...
“I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me!” — Stuart Smalley, Daily Affirmation Folks, let me start by paying you a compliment: You are good at what you do. You’re smart, you’re hard-working, and you’re a good team player. You probably don’t hear that enough. I’m sorry about that. Between putting...
