| | February 20169CIOReviewMake the Pain Visiblehelps doctors diagnose heart problems, Idea Flow Maps help developers diagnose software problems.Rather than measuring the problems in the code, the Idea Flow Mapping tools integrate with the developer's IDE to measure the number of hours the developer experiences `friction' in Idea Flow. With a data-driven feedback loop, developers can identify the biggest problems impacting the project.The learning framework is based on the scientific method. The developers focus on their biggest problems, breakdown the causes, then run systematic experiments to learn what works.Rather than focusing on code improvement (repairing the car), Idea Flow Learning Framework focuses primarily on skill improvement (driving skills). Better decisions about code improvements are a consequence of better skills.The framework is designed to sit on top of whatever the team is already doing to help them learn and improve. Other than making time for learning, about a couple hours per week, there are no process changes required.The Idea Flow FactoryIdea Flow data can be aggregated to the team, supply-chain, and organizational level, to create broad visibility of prob-lems across the organization. The effects of poor staffing decisions, team structure, and problems with coordination, are vis-ible in the aggregated data. Long-term trends of growing friction are plainly visible.In the manufacturing world, statistical process control and supply-chain management led to revolutionary reductions in cost, but these tools have never been successfully applied to software development. The inherent variability of software tasks leads to noisy, meaningless metrics.By measuring the variability of friction, rather than the variability of execution, suddenly, the quality and risk management tools from the manufacturing world can be applied to software development. The Idea Flow Factory is a software supply-chain model that enables statistical process control and supply-chain management in the software world.At a business level, the invisible costs in software development cause problems too. For example, software companies have a tendency to chase after `bad deals', where supporting the customers exceeds the revenue gained. If the costs are invisible, how do we know when increasing revenue will decrease profit?Traditional cost accounting compares operating costs with revenue, and completely ignores the cost dynamics associated with chaos and increased effort. Bad decisions look like good decisions because we only see the things we measure. We save 10 hours here and lose 1000 hours over there, and it looks like a good decision.It's about time we came up with a new accounting method.In the book, The Goal, Eliyahu Goldratt describes "Throughput Accounting", a replace-ment for traditional cost accounting in manufac-turing. Throughput Accounting measures the "rate at which the system makes money" by comparing the revenue generated through sales versus the investment cost to support the sales.By using a combination of the Idea Flow Factory to build a cost model, and Ash Maurya's Customer Factory from the Lean Startup world to build a revenue model, we can implement a Throughput Accounting system for running a software business.The revolution of cost reduction in the manufacturing industry started with measuring the enormous wastes in the manufacturing process and making the costs visible to leadership. If we start making our software costs visible to the investors of the company, I can assure you, there will be lots of motivation to fix the problems in the software supply chain.Let's make the pain REALLY visible, and then learn our way to success! Janelle Klein
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