Category Archives: Articles

Articles or Blog posts on various topics

Wicked Problems

Posted on April 8, 2018 by Thomas

I’m a process guy, a disciple of Lean, Agile, Six Sigma and Empirical Process Control. But I’m also a contrarian, a critic of those same disciplines because they too often focus on so called best practices, usually in the form … Continue reading →

Posted in On Agile, On Lean, On Process Improvement, On Project Management, On Theory | Leave a comment

A Tale of Two Schools – Differing Responses Standardized Testing

Posted on February 28, 2018 by Thomas

This is a tale of two schools. Actually, it is a tale two events at one school, five years apart, but they might as well be at two different schools based on the response of the faculty to an external … Continue reading →

Posted in On Education | Leave a comment

A Visual Tool for Large Group Facilitation

Posted on February 22, 2018 by Thomas

Problem Statement: A school board which has not agreed to an increase in recommended levy funding in 16 years. A community which regularly votes down the levy funding requests recommended by the board. A school system which is largely under … Continue reading →

Posted in On Education, On Process Improvement, On Project Management, On Theory | Leave a comment

Blue Wall Project Planning

Posted on February 20, 2018 by Thomas

Project management tools can be a great help in managing a project. They assist in workload balancing, help identify critical path, and help visualize project execution. One thing I’ve never found they do well is helping the elicitation process for … Continue reading →

Posted in On Agile, On Project Management | Leave a comment

Keeping Focus in Project Meetings

Posted on February 19, 2018 by Thomas

Have you ever had the experience in project meetings where, when your task list is projected on a screen, you get three or four people talking about a particular task, possibly heatedly, only to find that they are really talking … Continue reading →

Posted in On Project Management | Leave a comment

Visual Management for Complex Requirements Management

Posted on February 16, 2018 by Thomas

How many of your project meetings are actually content free talking head sessions?  How do you move from content free gatherings to purposeful meetings which facilitate rich dialog.  One way to do so is to focus on data rich visualizations.

Posted in On Project Management | Leave a comment

How I Achieved an 85% Decrease in Downtime

Posted on February 15, 2018 by Thomas

Probably the most rewarding job of my career was building assembly line control systems. While there are many aspects of the job that I valued, what made it most rewarding was the radical improvements I was able to make to … Continue reading →

Posted in On Process Improvement | Leave a comment

Our Education System: An Unacculturated Outsiders View

Posted on February 19, 2017 by Thomas

A few years ago I was sharing a table at a conference with a public school superintendent from the State of Maine. She was telling me about how she and her board where contemplating turning down federal funding because of … Continue reading →

Posted in On Education | Leave a comment

The Whiteboard Dance

Posted on September 14, 2012 by Thomas

The White Board Dance refers to the power of kinesthetic interactions often found in white board planning session as compared to project planning using software tools alone. This is the story of how one nuclear power plant tried to go … Continue reading →

Posted in On Project Management | Leave a comment

The Agile Elevator Speech

Posted on September 10, 2012 by Thomas

“Agile is about making it safe to make changes.” This was the conclusion blurted out by a client of mine after working with him for three days to design a development ecosystem in which his organization could bring their proof … Continue reading →

Posted in On Agile | Leave a comment