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December 2007

Team or Staff?

by Pete Abilla on December 22, 2007

leadership and horse sense

The etymology of words has always been fascinating to me.  I’m a student of Leadership and have though often about team dynamics and how to best lead a team.  Then, it dawned on me what others have called their teams — I’ve heard them call the group of people that they work with as “Team” [...]

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Amazon Alumni Group, Peak Season

by Pete Abilla on December 15, 2007

Peak Season at Amazon was so fun and memorable and the queues are massive. There are two peak season — the inbound peak and the outbound peak.  Inbound is when inventory is brought into the Fulfillment Centers (FC), which is around August to September.  Thanksgiving and beyond is the outbound peak season.  It’s a busy [...]

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Everyday Poka-Yoke: Cost of Poor Quality

by Pete Abilla on December 12, 2007

There is wisdom in the definition of Six Sigma, which is 3.4 defects per one million opportunities (DPMO), allowing for a 1.5 Sigma shift.  But, some companies subscribe to sloganeering such as “Zero Defects”.  The “Zero Defects” sloganeering is counterproductive, unhelpful, statistically impossible, and completely cost prohibitive. Statistically, zero defects means a defect level of [...]

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Agile, Lean, and the Silver Bullet

by Pete Abilla on December 11, 2007

silver bullet solution

Today, Mary Poppendieck responds to Corey Ladas‘ question on the relationship between Agile and Lean and what to make of all the methodologies in software engineering. Corey Ladas said, November 28, 2007 @ 4:23 pm Lean would seem to allow for a broader set of ideas and practices than some Agile adherents would find acceptable. [...]

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Poppendieck: Should Lean be top-down or bottom-up?

by Pete Abilla on December 5, 2007

top down, bottom up, change management

Last week, I invited the readers of shmula to pose questions to Mary and , the authors of Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit for Software Development Managers (Paperback), which won the Software Development Productivity Award in 2004 and, the sequel Implementing Lean Software Development: From Concept to Cash (Paperback).  Several questions were submitted and, [...]

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Poppendieck on Waste & The Handoff

by Pete Abilla on December 2, 2007

Last week, I invited the readers of shmula to pose questions to Mary and Tom Poppendieck, the authors of Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit for Software Development Managers (Paperback), which won the Software Development Productivity Award in 2004 and, the sequel Implementing Lean Software Development: From Concept to Cash (Paperback).  Several questions were submitted [...]

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