bouchaet's blog

Here is how my kanban board looks after two weeks. There are some improvements from the original board. A backlog appears at the top, a garbage section on the right. I also keep completed tasks over than an week on the far right. Not sure why for now. Let's see in two more weeks.

For many years, I have tried different systems to realize the GTD principles. Since 2006, I have used tracks.tra.in website. And I still use it today. Before, I have tried todo's (or tasks) in Outlook, reminders in a mindmap (freemind), checkboxes in a logbook, gtdtiddlywiki  (that one didn't last at all). Most of time, I used a mixed approach and keep tasks in two to three system at the time. Which is not recommended... I know.  My reality is: a new task comes up, no time to loose so I write it down in my logboook and transfer them back to an "online" system. This double re-entry process forces me to re-think my tasks, which is not a bad idea. However, the "online" version always take a bit to much of time: boot up the software (outlook, browser ...), login, click here and there (date selection is never fast), choose a tag, add information (that may or not help).  Exchange+Outlook never worked great for me. Category (or tag, or label, or project, or contex...

I've just finished a very interesting book lately - The Toyota Way - on lean manufacturing developed at Toyota Motor company and written by Jeffrey K. Liker. It is the first that I read on this kind of subject, management and industrial engineering. And I'm glad I did. The Toyota way is all about how well you keep a healthy and growing business through 14 principles, which brings your organization in the lean production sphere. The principles are organized on the idea expressed in Maslow hierarchy of needs . So basic principles have to be accomplished and lived before climbing to the next level. The principles are : Base level: 1. Develop a long term vision. Seems obvious but in fact only few companies really follows a long term strategy when short-term profits are reacheable. And many times, layoffs are solely due to satisfy shareholders and show great columns in the annual report final pages. Second level: 2. Create a continuous process flow . Stop moving around pieces and ...