Using Jira, but…

Does your organization use Jira to manage work, but did not spend that extra few $$ to add powerful reporting? I’ve built leanmetrics.ca – a secure & powerful tool to analyze your Jira project’s change logs to give you insights in your delivery processes and identify room for improvement.

The jargons – DevOps, TechOps, Lean Kanban, Critical Chain

It’s hard not to become a Theory of Constraints aficionado. If you’ve read The Goal by Eli Goldratt, you know what I mean. Process throughput is a function of your slowest process. It’s common sense. Improve the throughput of the slowest process and you have increased the velocity of your system.

Combine these principles with Lean and Six Sigma, and you’ve just concocted a very powerful system that decreases the time work spends inside your system. The top three reasons why we care about work spending as little time inside the system are:

1. Value is only realized once it reaches the customer.

   • Work sitting in progress isn’t value — it’s potential value.

   • The faster it moves through the system, the sooner your customer benefits, and the faster you can measure impact.

2. Good design evolves with iteration.

   • Technical teams refine design as they build, test, and adapt to constraints.

   • Shorter cycle times create more opportunities to adjust and improve quality before small issues turn into rework.

3. Slow flow hides opportunity cost.

   • Every day a piece of work sits in the system, it ties up capacity that could be used on the next valuable idea.

   • Reducing time-in-system isn’t just about speed — it’s about increasing your organization’s overall rate of learning, innovation, and value creation.

If these reasons matter to you, you need more an agile mindset to figure out what will  work for your team and your culture. There’s been a proliferation of agile frameworks over the last decade. A lot of them are just plain stupid. The key in knowledge work is to understand Lean, Theory of Constraints and Six Sigma, and then adapt them to your starting point and culture.

This blog will document my experiences with agile across industries, functions and companies. Once you understand the core principles, you can also apply it to improve your productivity in your personal life.