Tonic’s Rules to live by are quoted without permission from a little booklet I got at the SIGGRAPH ’93. Be kind Put things where they belong. Few are won over by misplaced, misalinged, misdesigned anything. Form, really, is a function. Be kind to the user. Observe a lot. Test everything—because sometimes “common sense” is neither. It’s hard to make …
Author Archives: Martien van Steenbergen
People, Product, Process
So, everything boils down to changing ”’human behavior”’ based on ”’feedback”’ and ”’learning”’. People give each other feedback and feedforward so the may learn to cooperate and collaborate better. So doing, they improve their behavior. We run a ”’Lean Startup”’ to pivot like crazy in order to improve our product, while the product and its …
Agile & Lean Product Development Topics
Now, how can you get all these Agile & Lean Product Development Topics and some descriptive texts on a single, beautiful, comprehensive, and elegant A0-sized poster?
Just Say No
Just say no to make your yes mean something. Spending your limited time on the things that really matter creates a more intentional and solid yes, builds trust and coherence. If you believe that you must keep your promises, overdeliver and treat every commitment as though it’s an opportunity for a transformation, then the …
Mirror Mirror On The Wall
Find out where you are on you path to agility.
Flower Chart
Somehow, I always have disliked radar charts. They connect unassociated dots and I find them antique remnants from the past millennium. They yearn for a fresh new look. Pondering and visualizing, I came up with the “flower chart”. The unfolding of the flower shows its gradual development, adds the time laps or ‘Zeitgeist’ to it. …
The Universe on Agile
This just in, a [http://www.tut.com/inspiration/nftu Note from the Universe] captures the essence of agile: Start it; you don’t have to be fancy. Keep moving; you don’t have to go crazy. Visualize; you don’t have to admit it. See the end result; it doesn’t have to be material. Expect miracles; they don’t have to be huge. …
Rehearse to boost adaptive power
General Stanley McCrystal from the U.S. Joint Special Operations Task Force in [https://hbr.org/2015/08/what-companies-can-learn-from-military-teams HBR » What Companies Can Learn from Military Teams]: I still believe in rehearsals, but I’ve learned they have a different value. When I joined the Army Rangers in 1985 we’d rehearse airfield seizure operations—we’d parachute in wearing night vision goggles, and …
Teaching is learning
The one who learns the most is the teacher, not the students. Teaching, in contrast to being taught, is a wonderful way to learn. Schools have reversed the proper role of students and teachers—the roles that were played in the old one-room school house. The students taught each other with assistance from the teacher as …
Development and growth
”’Growth is an increase in size or number; development is an increase in competence”’.