Management Books

• Workplace Management: Taiichi Ohno by Taiichi Ohno
  "If you insist on blindly calculating individual costs and waste time insisting that this is profitable of that is not profitable, you will just increase the cost of your low volume products. For this reason there are many cases in this world where companies will discontinue car models that are actually profitable, but are money losers according to their calculations. Likewise, there are cases where companies sell a lot of model that they think is profitable but in fact are only increasing their loses." page 32

• Kanban: Successful Evolutionary Change for Your Technology Business by David Anderson
  The book provides specific and useful guidance to those attempting to adopt kanban management in software development. The books is very well written and presents the material in a very easy to digest manner. It is so packed with information it is very difficult to mine even a significant portion of the value in one read. The organization allows for easy reference as you need to focus on any specific topic to find that topic and get an excellent review in minutes.

• Gemba Walks: by Jim Womack
  This book complies Womack's essays on the practice of lean and adds some additional context to the essays.

• The Birth of Lean:
  The Birth of Lean explain, there was no master plan—TPS came about through experimentation, trial and error, and an evolution of ideas that shaped Toyota’s structure and management system. This is an honest look at the origins of Lean, written in the words of the people who created the system. Through interviews and annotated talks, you will hear first-person accounts of what these innovators and problem-solvers did and why they did it. You’ll read rare, personal commentaries that explain the interplay of (sometimes opposing) ideas that created a revolution in thinking. In The Birth of Lean, you’ll get a glimpse inside the minds and thought processes of the system’s creators and innovators: • Taiichi Ohno—the man who envisioned a way of working that would evolve into the Toyota Production System • Eiji Toyoda—the former Toyota President and Chairman who oversaw the development of TPS and the inclusion of TQC at Toyota • Kikuo Suzumura—the Toyota manager recognized as the most influential in translating Ohno’s ideas into actionable items • Michikazu Tanaka—the manager and executive at Toyota affiliate Daihatsu who adapted TPS to his organization • Kaneyoshi Kusunoki—the former head of Toyota’s production engineering organization who refined the buffering system in use in Toyota’s operations • Masao Nemoto—the Toyota executive central to the deployment of TQC at Toyota

Management Articles

• Kanban Family Job Chart by Peter Abilla
  "Our family needs something that is visible, without equivocation, and shows the Person, Jobs, Day, and Status. So, we created a Kanban Family Job Chart ... We want, instead, to teach self-reliance, demonstrate our trust in the kids, and help them grow

• The Principles of the Kanban Method by David Anderson
  Use the 5 Core Properties." 1. Visualize the workflow 2. Limit WIP 3. Manage Flow 4. Make Process Policies Explicit 5. Improve Collaboratively (using models & the scientific method)"

• How an automotive secret can make for better software by David Anderson
  "Kanban is a way of visualizing invisible knowledge work activities such as software development, and limiting the quantity of work in progress. Limiting work-in-progress has several benefits: by avoiding over-burdening, quality is often significantly higher, while workers are happier and better motivated; delivery times are usually significantly shorter and far more predictable; priorities are often clear and prioritization decisions are simplified... Deming’s work is core to everything we do. I think his book, The New Economics, is a seminal work in management thinking... If I could have coffee with just one of these process and management science pioneers it would be Deming."

• Kanban Systems by James Shore
  "In the field, I've seen Kanban work best in chaotic environments where upcoming features don't have much in common. I don't think it's a coincidence that the initial examples of Kanban come from those sorts of environments. David Anderson's team was...

• How an automotive secret can make for better software by David Anderson
  "Kanban is still in the very early stages of adoption. It is true that most people in the software industry have never heard of it. However, there are many hundreds of companies on 5 continents already doing it. Some have very large, successful and well documented implementations. Firms such as the BBC in London, Globo and Petrobras in Brazil, Amdocs in Israel, Vanguard is a well known American adopter."

• Kanban for Skeptics by Nick Oostvogels
  "WIP limits will reveal bottlenecks quickly and create momentum to help others and start the continuous improvement cycle. The power of continuous improvement in Kanban will help you improve flow"

• Actionable Metrics at Siemens Health Services
  "This case study details how a shift from traditional agile metrics (Story Points, Velocity) to actionable flow metrics (Work In Progress, Cycle Time, Throughput) reduced Cycle Times, increased quality, and increased overall predictability at Siemens Health Services. Moving to a continuous flow model augmented Siemens’ agility and explains how predictability is a systemic behavior that one has to manage by understanding and acting in accordance with the assumptions of Little’s Law and the impacts of resource utilization."

Management Web Sites and Resources

• Curious Cat Management Improvement Articles by John Hunter
  Hundreds of useful management articles hand selected to help managers improve the performance of their organization. Sorted by topic including: Deming, lean manufacturing, six sigma, continual improvement, innovation, leadership, managing people, software development, psychology and systems thinking.

• Hemal, Developer in Test by Hemal Kuntawala
  "I'm a test-developer enhancing testing practices using kanban and lean principles. ... I'm keen to see more development teams, agile-adopters or not, move away from the end-of-cycle testing model and embrace true quality assurance by testing throughout the production line."

• Visual Management Blog
  Blog by Xavier Quesada Allue, from Argentina. The goal of the blog is to create a space for the discussion of ideas and examples of Visual Management (the practice of using information visualization techniques to manage work) applied to agile teams and agile project management.

• Evolving Excellence by Kevin Meyer, Bill Waddell
  Excellent and opinionated blog focused on lean manufacturing by Kevin Meyer and Bill Waddell.

• Kanban Chronicle
  Purpose: To provide insight by sharing our experiences in adopting Kanban. Why: When we started, we found that the real examples were the most useful. We would like to add to that body of knowledge. We also wanted to share with our colleagues at work. Our aim: To provide a full lifecycle example from as many perspectives as possible... Why did we choose Kanban, what we read first, what we started with, how we adapted, what worked. by Andrew Walker

• Toyota Production System
  Site on Toyota.com. "The Toyota Production System (TPS) was established based on two concepts: The first is called 'jidoka'(which can be loosely translated as 'automation with a human touch') which means that when a problem occurs, the equipment stops immediately, preventing defective products from being produced; The second is the concept of 'Just-in-Time,' in which each process produces only what is needed by the next process in a continuous flow."

• Benjamin Mitchell's Blog by Benjamin Mitchell
  "I'm a London-based independent consulting focussed on Systems Thinking, Intervention Theory and Lean / Kanban applied to IT businesses. I am a follower of Ohno, Deming, Seddon and Argyris."

• Agile consulting
  Insights on Agile, Lean, Kanban, and Flow by Jeff Anderson and Alexis Hui.

• Curious Cat Management Improvement Connections by John Hunter
  The aim of Curious Cat Management Improvement Connections is to contribute to the successful adoption of management improvement to advance joy in work and joy in life. The site provides connections to resources on a wide variety of management topics to help managers improve the performance of their organization. The site was started in 1996 by John Hunter.

• Personal Kanban
  "Despite our best intentions, life has a way of becoming complicated. People, tasks, responsibilities, deadlines, and even recreation all compete for our attention. The human brain however, simply does not respond well to the stress of juggling multiple priorities... here are only two real rules with Personal Kanban: 1. Visualize your work 2. Limit your work-in-progress"

• Lean Post
  Articles from the Lean Enterprise Institute including authors: Michael Ballé, Jim Womack and John Shook and many guest authors.