Michael Bolton won an award for his talk on two futures of software testing. The message of it is in essence for testers to focus on the needs of the business instead of the plan. Even though it’s a presentation it has lots of notes and a lot of nice stuff there that turns testers to being more agile. Check it out.
Mattias Skarin has a post on Agile for support and operations in 5 min. A bit thin on information, but it has some interesting concepts like kanban boards and visualization of cycle time.
Toyota is the ever recurring example of lean success. It is the basis of most things lean, and deserves all the credit. We should however find new examples and stories, grinding the Toyota story to convince people can get a bit old.
Having said that, I ran across the points called Toyotaism on Mike Wroblewski’s blog. Interesting foundation for a company. It was originally defined in 1935 and revised to current form in 1989. For a agile and lean believer like me it of course leads to a warm and fuzzy feeling. 😉 Here they are:
Always think of the customer first; considering the basics of manufacturing, always making products that are outstanding for their high quality, low cost and technical excellence.
With a foundation of mutual trust between labor and management, cheerfully make progress as a company highly valuing creativity.
Stimulate Toyota activities everywhere, inside and outside the company, while cooperating to expand business.
Contribute to expanding our economy and building up a better living environment for our society by doing business actively all over the world.
Strive to improve yourself through self enlightenment, constantly on the alert for any new social or market trends.