Dreyfus Model

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The acquisition of skills is an essential ingredient in attaining success. In connection to this, with the continuous innovation of technology, models of skills acquisition were developed. One of these was the Dreyfus model of skills acquisition.

Short History

The Dreyfus Model was developed by brothers Hubert and Stuart Dreyfus way back in 1980. It was applied on an 18 pages report on their research at the University of California in Berkeley, Operations Research Center for the United States Air Force Office of Scientific Research.

Moreover, the original Dreyfus model suggests that a student passes through five distinct stages including novice, competence, proficiency, expertise, as well as mastery. The latter model is an efficient tool when it comes to agile adoption.

The Importance of Dreyfus Model

In an organization, to be able to have a united team, Dreyfus model can help to achieve success both in life as well as in the software industry. To mention a few, the following stages are the important things that you must consider in order to make the most out of your project.

The Novice

This is the first stage in the Dreyfus model. It is also called as the beginner, wherein an individual is just starting to learn and acquire new skill.

Competence

It was also considered as the recipe stage. Competent people refer to rules and utilize analytical procedures. However, since the problems that you may encounter are more complex, then you can rely on your past experiences to make a wise decision.

Proficiency

In the Dreyfus model, the proficient team starts to formulate on their emotional experiences from their past success and failures in order to determine the elements of the situation that they are focusing on. In this stage, an individual may take higher risk and commitment to produce positive and rewarding outcome. With this, you may know the things that you must do to be a proficient team.

Expertise

In this stage of Dreyfus model, the expert or the individual does not only see the things to be done, but also see the possible solutions even without having undergoing on an analytical process. In this level, the person has completely immersed in understanding the situation, formulating decisions on how to proceed, as well as the outcome of the situation. With this, the acquisition of the skills and knowledge will be easy and quick.

Mastery

With the use of Dreyfus model, then the team can now go more on agile development. As a result, the flow on projects would be easy and can attain a higher level of success in a particular industry or niche.

The Dreyfus model can be used in different fields such as in medical education and a lot more. It can be the best tool for you to acquire the essential skills that you can use for your future success. This tool can help to increase the level of expertise to make the most out of a particular niche or even in life.

Criticism of Dreyfus Model  

The criticism of the Dreyfus model has been made by Chassy and Gobet. They are the one who developed an alternative theory of intuition. For them, there is no such empirical evidence for the presence of stages when it comes to the development of expertise.

— Slimane Zouggari

CFD – Cumulative Flow Diagram

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Are you looking for a great tool that will effectively track and forecast your projects? Do you want to check and assess the current status of the project, how much is done, what are the progress existed, and how much time you have to wait in backlog? The cumulative flow diagram might be the best option as it will offer you an agile development in the process. Let us learn more about it through this post.

What is CFD?

The cumulative flow diagram (CFD) is a metric chart type that used in the project management in order to manifest the project’s progress. Also, it is serving the same purpose to burn up or burn down charts, as well as flaunt more data.

The cumulative flow diagram is comprised of series of areas or lines that represent the amount of work in the progression of the stages. Just for an instance, in the software development, the typical stages of the development of feature will be – not started, design, coding/development, testing and QA, and complete.

When to Use the CFD?

The ability to showcase the bottlenecks in the process of the development is the main advantage of the metrics in the burn up charts. In planning a corrective action, this one could effectively be used. The corrective action planning such as reassigning the resources from the development to the testing in order to get a project delivery back on the schedule can effectively be worked out. Therefore, CFD is not just reliable but also and helpful for the teams and projects managers who are establishing a project because it will allow them to acquire a good project correction and feedback.

Why Use Burnup Charts (CFD) Over Burndown Charts?

CFD is a sophisticated version of burn up chart that is opposite of the burndown chart. The benefit of using burn up chart over burndown chart is that it can track the growth and offer agile development while burndown chart is just tracking the work that remains over time.

Concrete Examples on How to Create a CFD

The cumulative flow diagram is requiring a lot of data in order to create one that is why it is best to effectively use a software, which already has an access to the data in order to create them. The agile software has the ability to display a cumulative flow diagram for the projects while the Intelligent Reports for the software has the ability to create the MS Word documents that contain a cumulative flow diagram from the software data. Others for the systems software management can also effectively display the cumulative flow diagram from their own data.

The Intelligent Reports for the used software has the ability to automatically insert the burndown chart to the professional reports that are created from the aspects from the software’s data. As one of the easiest customizable solution for reporting for the software, the Intelligent Reports will give you a complete knowledge about the things that happen to the engineering team.

Just in a matter of minutes, you can effectively customize the time sheet reports, SLA reports, progress reports, and any other reports that are automatically delivered to the inbox of your email. So if you want to yield a better result, choose the right software.

— Slimane Zouggari

Causal Loop Diagram

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What is CLD?

The CLD or commonly called causal loop diagram is an analytical tool that explains the dynamics of the system used to develop an understanding of the complex system of the connections. It usually aids in explaining the interrelation of the different variables present in the system.  This fundamental tool is essential in explaining how the system works in Six Sigma methodology. Although there are other analytical tools that could be used, there is still a great advantage in using tools that are comfortable and offers convenience.

Using of CLD as an alternative analytical tool for six sigma methodology is a unique discipline that provides a better understanding of the complex system. Thus, the causal loop diagram composed of a collection of nodes which in turn creates the feedback loops. The diagram is represented by the loops in general. The nodes of one or more references to the symptoms related to the problem while the rest of the nodes is the causal nodes which correspond to the source of the problem.

The causal loop diagram can be applied to six sigma in just a simple way of visualizing the intricate process involved and through identifying the cause of the problem. In addition, this delicate job of causal loop diagram provides insights how complex the process is. Because of the complex behavior of the system, causal loop diagram can easily make it easier to comprehend and understand.

Not just that. The causal loop diagram provides the systemic feedback involved in the process by just expressing how the X variable affects the Y variable and how the Y variable affects Z variable and this can flow in a series of cause and effect. By using CLD, it will be much easier to explain the interactions of the variables as well as the behavior involved in the entire system.

CLD and Applications

Since the CLD is mainly characterized by closed cycles presented in a diagram, it is the easiest form of presentation that can be understood by anyone who is seeking the interaction between the variables involved in the cycle. It can be used as a very good choice of model to some of the complex process.

A typical causal loops diagram consists of arrows that came together in a form of loops wherein each loop is labeled as R or B. the R is the reinforcing loop that describes the relationship and creating growth and collapse in the system. For example, if the person drives more of his car, the tendency is more gas to be used. And when they use more gas, they would spend more of their money just to buy a gas and the cause and effect go on and on like this. Another is, if the car owner spends more money just to buy gas, they will look for possible alternative methods in order for them spend less. And this involved the reinforcing loop feedback. This is how the causal loop diagram is applied in many cases.

— Slimane Zouggari

INVEST

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INVEST is an acronym for Independence, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimable, Small, and Testable, which helps you to remember the criteria for the story. In order to have a good story, INVEST must be present because it is a criterion for a good agile story.

History of INVEST

The birth of INVEST is made possible by the article of Bill Wake in 2003. It serves as a requirement for the evaluator in checking a story. He based it in the SMART acronym, which is exclusively for building a good agile story. In the year of 2004, Mike Cohn’s “User Stories Applied” recommend INVEST as one of the techniques for an agile story.

What is INVEST

INVEST stands for criteria that serve as a requirement to have a good agile story. For a story to stand out, you should have the following:

  • I for independent: It says that your Product Backlog Item (PBI) made by you and not a copy or basses for the other PBI. You have to make your story that does not depend from the other stories to stand alone. A good agile can stand on its own.
  • N for Negotiable story is not a contract; it is a way to have a conversation with others and attain the best result. In making your agile story, there must be a presence of collaboration and discussion between the clients and the customers.
  • V for valuable: Think of the value why you want to do the story. The purpose of the story is to emphasize the role of the user among others. If it’s a business, then you have to emphasize the value of the business in your story.
  • E for estimable: Make an agile story that meets the guidelines of the appropriate size. Remember that user gets interested to the right length of the story and do not pay much attention to short or long stories.
  • S for small: Making the story done in many working days, the period that the expert suggests having a good agile story is 3 to 4 week. Just make it simple then stop.
  • T for testable: Provide all information of the PBI and other contents of the story to have fast testing and make more collaboration. With proper negotiation, you can test the effectivity of your story.

When to use it INVEST

INVEST is a requirement or criteria to meet the best agile story that you can make. It serves as a basis to have a good story that will get the interest of any. The product owner must have an idea about INVEST to meet the need of the team.

INVEST helps to overcome the hard part in making effective and good agile story. You can see an effective story with the products of the company posted on their website.

In the present, many changes and upgrade apply to have the best story. One of it is the INVEST, it is just one of the best in the present. There can be something out there as good as INVEST for criteria in making stories.

— Slimane Zouggari

Personas

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A variety of marketing design has been used in order to catch the attention of a specific audience based on the products that have been displayed. Using personas is considered as one option employed for the marketing strategies. Personas have a design of a detailed craft, synthetic biographies of a pretend users that are designed for a product. It is characterized by a visual and concise approach in providing a common layout usually laid by a single page composed of a name, professional details, and a photograph.

Personas as one of software products are designed with the quality to use more than one category of a person with expectations to the products and the potential to the different preferences. The marketing team usually creates one persona in every category. Furthermore, the design of personas helps in providing focus to the surrounding components by means of adding layers of a real world based conversation.

Since persona are created to illuminate and copy the customer’s behavior pattern, here are few examples of marketing personas. It is mainly directed to give people the ideas on how to create a built out marketing personas.

  1. You can make a persona that is based on the profile of the Enterprise. The raw data that have been included is composed of specific information. There is the position in the Enterprise, the description of the company, course degree that the persona took and a little background check for your life status. It should have the goals and the challenges involved in the business. Thus, the reason of why you love a certain mechanism involved in marketing. This will make the readers more interested to read. All the information that is presented is more specific.
  2. You can also make personas in a more comprehensive and detail oriented manner. All the information that is presented consist of the position of the persona and other related position, qualification of the persona, the demographics mainly based on some of the personal information, goals, and challenges and the reason of why choose that specific persona. The personas represent a personality type.

How to Make Personas?

Making persona design can vary based on the business and industry that need the process. Personas are created in a combination of raw data, educated guesses, the template and the audience that would be interacting with the personas. Marketing personas deliver the most relevant content that would be useful for the audience.

A typical personas template composed of the name of the persona, Job title, demographics, goals and challenges, values and fear and the marketing message that need to be forwarded to the readers. Although it may take some time before to fully comprehend the specifics in persona making, it is very important to identify first to collect the raw data that is the initial things that need to be considered.

Common Issues in using Personas

The usage of personas in product marketing has been confused with the other conceptual tools that are used in defining software requirements. Because of this, personas are considered to be not a user role. This user role refers to a sales person, administrator and many other that are defined based on the task and job description.

Moreover, persona design emphasizes the goals and behaviours of the users. And, personas are not market segments. It is defined based on the demographic attributes which describe personas as users rather than buyers. The confusion in using personas as part of marketing approach makes other think that it’s a little hard to understand the idea behind the personas usage.

— Slimane Zouggari

Value Stream Mapping 

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Short History

This kind of mapping has been used for several years. As a matter of fact, the information about this was published in the 1918 book entitled as Installing Efficiency Methods by Charles E. Knoeppel. Later on, the latter form of diagramming was used with the Toyota Production System as well as by the whole lean manufacturing movement. Moreover, it became useful in terms of lean methodology in various places. It was soon applied to Six Sigma methodologies in the agile industry.

What is it?

Value stream mapping is actually a type of flowchart process in order to analyze, illustrate as well as enhanced the steps that are needed to deliver a specific product or service. With this, you can review the flow of the step process, and essential information from its origin to delivery to the client. In addition to this, it also uses a system of symbols to describe different work activities and flow of information.

The purpose of the value stream mapping is to search and eliminate waste. With this diagramming method, you will be able to identify the items that add value or not for your customer’s happiness and satisfaction. Meanwhile, to make the most out of the process, you can begin by simply sketching through your hand, and later on move to the VSM agile software in order to attain better analysis, communication and collaboration.

How VSM works in various fields?

Manufacturing

With value stream mapping, you can able to trace the waste in the production process. This can be done by simply analyzing every step of the handling of the materials and flow of information. Actually, this is efficient in the lean methodology.

Logistics and supply chain

VSM is one of the essential requirements in order to find out the waste and delays that can be costly in the production process.

Healthcare

With it, steps in treating the patients will be improved in the best possible way.

Common pitfalls

  • It requires persistent training. In order to make the most out of the value stream mapping technique, you must acquire the essential skills when it comes to symbol and mapping strategies. To do this, you can get the support and assistance of an expert and reliable facilitator.
  • Symbology can affect the way of thinking. Since the VSM uses symbols, there are some instances that you can use these symbols in an inappropriate manner. With this, you must be very careful enough to avoid possible problems that may occur in some future time.

Benefits of Value Stream Mapping

The good thing about this type of method is that it can find and eliminate waste in the production process. As a result, you can now have the chance to deliver the best product or service in the best possible quality. In relation to it, you can also make more innovative solutions on how to attain a higher plateau of success when it comes to your business or organization.

In addition to that, you can also receive great amount of savings when it comes to your projects.

— Slimane Zouggari

The Three Amigos

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The Three Amigos refers to the primary perception to examine the work before, during and after. These perceptions are the business, development, and testing. The first to use the term “3 Amigos” was George Dinwiddie for the agile development in the year 2009. The term was named after a movie from the mid 90’s. The Amigos function roles are mentioned above.

The Three Amigos solely represents the and literally mean more than three. The collaboration between agile teams was across the three roles. George wants these three to be heavily collaborative with the Acceptance Test for each of the user story. Business refers to the problem we are trying to solve. Development refers to the solution to the solution of the problem. And testing refers to the things that could possibly happen.

There are people who hold to the perspective that collaborates to easily determine what to do and what are the solutions to these problems. The best concept of the Three Amigos is the balance between the collaboration of people with the various perception which includes the entire team in talking about the details of the increment in work. There were rumors that there was a scheduled 3 amigos style meeting. The idea was created to for each of the users to be ready for the sprint execution. The three amigos limit its discussion for only three people. But if there are other people or stakeholders involve in the work, they may also be included in the discussion. The three amigos discussion may also be expanded into a team. The intention of this work is to include every necessary perspective into the group. The three amigos concept is a meeting which is being scheduled as a regular meeting and is treated as a ceremony for the team.

When do the Amigos Meet?

The three amigos meet as a part of the backlog development and grooming. For example, during the development of the story, the three amigos basically check and ensure the story and make sure that it is on track. Usually, there are demos and discussions to help complete the code drive. Upon the completion of the story, the three amigos will gather around and execute it. They will continue to accept the criteria until the Product Owner is being satisfied. The collaboration in the planning meeting tells how the story is perfectly fit on the Sprint and what will it look like.

What do They Do?

The Three Amigos have its general format. These formats include the 30mins-1 hour meeting. This is set up to 1-2 sprints. There is 1 developer and 1 QA are being invited to the meeting. These are individuals who are invited to test the features. It is the job of the business analyst to preside and begin the meeting by simply introducing the features of the three amigos. The analysts then will show to everyone the requirements which are being reviewed by the amigos. This requirement should be ready for further updates and are ready for development. The developer will ask if the task needs to undergo a pre-feature test.

The Three Amigos shared understanding about the increment of the work. This also helps in identifying the early confusion and thus allow learning to happen. The Three Amigos also provides a reasonable guard which is involved in the discussions about the given work at hand.

— Slimane Zouggari

Kaizen Blitz

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Kaizen Blitz is an improvement workshop that was crafted to produce an approach to discrete process issues in just a few days. It is a more effective way so that teams within an organization can carry out a structured and creative problem solving and process improvement in a workshop environment in just a very short period of time.

When to use it?

The Kaizen Blitz can be useful in the agile industry. It can greatly help to improve the business process and projects in just a few weeks. With it, you can get the chance to attain a high level of commitment from those who are involved. Even more important, you can also focus more on having a practical as well as implementable solutions to specific problems that you may encounter in some future time. Moreover, with the Kaizen Blitz, there will also be a high level of management commitment that will be implemented as soon as possible.

When not to use it?

Always remember that Kaizen Blitz is not a “silver bullet”. It also has its own limitations especially in terms of complex, extensive as well as cross-functional systems. In this case, there is a possibility that you will not be able to formulate a systematic, true as well as root cause within a week.

To mention a few, the following are some of the possible problems that you may encounter when the usefulness of Blitz is unlikely.

  • Lacking management support
  • Insufficient sustainability after the event
  • Interruption in implementation after the event
  • Superficial training due to lack of time which results in poor understanding of Lean principles
  • Lack of data to formulate an effective analysis of root causes
  • Insufficient buy-in for proposed changes which come from those who are not involved in the event

On the other hand, there is also a risk in the Kaizen Blitz. It highly needs more amount of time in order to learn the principles, design methodology as well as tradeoffs. As a matter of fact, the general process is not as easy as what others might think. With this, it should be done with extra carefulness.

Concrete Examples

A great example of Kaizen Blitz is in a manufacturing industry. In the workplace, the level of stress is increasing among the employees. It is due to the higher work space, long hours of work, lack of resources, doing work for absent teammates as well as the blame for quality faults.

In this case, problems that emphasized the stress can be majorly caused by the layout of the workplace as well as the insufficiency of tools and equipment. Well, the best solution to reduce the stress is the cooperation in creating the change process, the team’s organization as well as the great support from the management.

With the use of Kaizen Blitz, you can create an excellent design, analysis, as well as a re-arrangement of the specific product. It can be implemented in estimated 2 to 10 days. The good thing about the Kaizen Blitz is that it produces more affirmative results that can generate enthusiasm and satisfaction with the organization’s team.

— Slimane Zouggari

Ishikawa Diagram

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Ishikawa Diagram is also known as the fishbone diagram and a cause and effect diagram. These casual diagrams are created by Kaoru Ishikawa. This diagram shows the causes of a specific event. Where can you see the diagram? The Ishikawa Diagram is usually used in many product designs and for proper prevention and to detect the good quality of the products. This also helps in to identify the potentials and proper cause and its effect. The variation is often caused by the imperfections.

The effect is shown as the fish’s head which is facing to the right side of the fishbone. The ribs of the fishbone serve as the major causes and its sub-braches for the root causes. The concept of the Ishikawa Diagram is first used during the late 1960s. The diagram is considered as one of the seven basic tools for the best quality control. It got its name because the diagram was shown which is similar to a side view of the fishbone or the skeleton of the fish.

Getting Started

When do we use the fishbone diagram? This diagram is often used and can be an effective tool for team and a group setting. In creating a fishbone diagram, you can use a white board or a chart to get started. There are also some software programs that are also used to create a Fishbone diagram. The effectiveness and the usefulness of the fishbone diagram depend on the level of development. You can easily identify the root causes and effect of the problem. To start making a fishbone diagram, start with the statement of the problem. As a team, everyone must agree with the statement of the problem. Once you are done identifying the root causes of the problem, you are on your way to understand and solve the problem. The key causes shown in the fishbone must be identified and learned by the team.

Benefits of Ishikawa Diagram

Using the Ishikawa Diagram or the fishbone diagram will give you or your team several benefits:

  • It helps to further prioritize and for proper actions.
  • The diagram helps and incorporates the metrics and is used to organize a critical thinking.
  • This tool will help to explore the root causes and helps in the organization of the current issues.
  • It is easy to learn and very straightforward.

The Ishikawa Diagram can also be used to answer several questions that are commonly arising in a problem-solving. The potential root causes of the problem are one of the major concern of the Ishikawa Diagram. The development of the diagram by Dr. Ishikawa helps many people and much other organization. The diagram continuous to improve the methods and the root causes that affects many businesses and organization.

Creating this diagram will surely build the trust between the departments and will help in the growth of the business. This will also help to further understand the key reasons and cause in the goal to reach the set standards. When using the Ishikawa Diagram, it is better to focus on the process of the improvement and to avoid further defect.

— Slimane Zouggari

ADKAR Model

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It is a fact that change is the foundation of all progress. Well, with this, you must develop a more innovative plan to create an effective change management to attain a higher plateau of success. In relation to this, one of the most sought after change models today was the ADKAR model. It was established by Jeff Hiatt way back in 2003. Later on, it was featured as a practical tool by Prosci, a popular change management consultancy and learning center.

ADKAR stands for Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability as well as Reinforcement. The best thing about this change management tool is that it will able you to discover why change is hard and why other changes succeed while others are not. Even more important, it is very effective in the agile industry, thus it can improve the success of every organization.

The Essence of ADKAR Model

Awareness – To attain the goals and missions of a particular organization, it is important that its employees must be aware the importance of change.

Desire – Employees must have a strong desire to cooperate and support the change.

Knowledge – Having the knowledge regarding the process of change, the ultimate goal for the change will be explicit for the organization’s team.

Ability – Change can be achieved successfully by simply having the ability to acquire the essential skills and behavior management.

Reinforcement – Reinforcement will support the change and make it clear to the employees that there is no turning back.

When to use it?

ADKAR model is a more innovative change tool to attain success in a specific organization. Even more important, it is also essential to identify the reasons behind the success or failure of a certain change. As a result, you can learn what not to do the next time and commit less mistakes for your goals or projects.

If you are finding for an effective change management tool, then it will be a wise decision to opt for the ADKAR model. It cannot be denied that change is difficult to achieve. Definitely, the latter tool will able to guide you on the essential things that can lead to a successful change.

Concrete Examples

One best example of portraying the ADKAR model is within a business organization. Success of the company will never be achieved without a greater level of discipline, perseverance as well as teamwork among the employees. With this, change is really important to improve the flow of the business transactions. The employees must be willing to change their working attitude to achieve the goals and missions of their company.

On the other hand, the ADKAR model is also applicable to individuals who want to attain their personal goals. For example, if you want to attain perfect health, then you must have the strong desire to change your habits that are detrimental to your health. Moreover, you must acquire the essential skills in order to be consistent about the specific thing that you want to achieve.

To sum it up, ADKAR model can be your powerful tool to make a better change in your life. It can aid you to live the life that you most desire.

— Slimane Zouggari