Android Development Toolkit Eclipse plugin: What's the point of the Resources view?

If you open strings.xml in the Android Development Toolkit Eclipse plugin, this is what you'll see by default:

 

This is what you see if you switch to the raw view:

Quick!  Tell me the value of each element!  Which view is faster?  What's the point of the Resources view?  Why did anyone bother building that?

Wordle

Okay, I'm probably a few months late on this one but here are some Wordle clouds of this blog.  As you can see, I apparently blog mostly about work, knowledge, people, and decisions.  Experimenting a bit with which font I prefer:

Lowest level of the organisation?

Sometimes people talk about moving decision making to the "lowest level" of the organisation.  This betrays positional authority thinking.  If we're thinking about knowledge-based authority, then it's not about high or low, it's about who has the best knowledge, which is typically the person who is closest to the work.

So I usually say "move decision making to the people who are closest to the work" which depending on the particular decision, may not actually be people who are traditionally considered "lowest level".  High or low is irrelevant.  For a particular decision, for a particular situation, the people who are closest to that work should be considered to be at the most important level,  not the "lowest level".  If anything, for that decision, they are at the "highest level" of the organisation.

From Good to Great... to bailout, bankruptcy, and insolvency

Bob Sutton reminds us that at our moment in history we need more truth and less snake oil and references a blog post by Steven Levitt analysing the Good to Great companies:

Nine of the eleven companies remain more or less intact. Of these, Nucor is the only one that has dramatically outperformed the stock market since the book came out. Abbott Labs and Wells Fargo have done okay. Overall, a portfolio of the “good to great” companies looks like it would have underperformed the S&P 500.

The basic unit of knowledge is a question

Dan Markovitz on another Toyota saying, "The basic unit of knowledge is a question":

This concept of making a question the basis of authority means that a premium is based on knowledge -- the knowledge gained by asking all those questions. The nurses who actually dispense drugs will probably know far more than the Director of Administration about why errors occur. The guy operating the stamping machine will know more than the VP of Manufacturing about why a machine breaks down so often. A sales clerk in a retailer will know more than the store manager about why the merchandise layout isn't working. It only makes sense to learn by asking questions of people that have the knowledge.

An appreciative inquiry of work in 2008 to prepare us for 2009

Alexandar Kjerulf proposes a positive-focused reflection of work in 2008 to target happiness at work for 2009:

1. What went really well for you at work in 2008?
2. What did you do that you’re proud of?
3. Who have you helped out?
4. How have you grown and developed professionally?
5. How have you grown and developed personally at work?
6. Who has really appreciated your work?
7. Who has helped you out and been there for you?
8. Who have you admired at work in 2008?
9. What have been some fun moments at work in 2008?
10. Which 5 things from 2008 would you like to have more of in 2009?

Japan Lean Study Mission summary

Summary post of all the entries on the Japan Lean Study Mission I attended on October 19 - 25, 2008:

• Day 1: Aichi Sangyo and Toto Bath Create
• Day 2: Sango
• Day 3: Toyota Motors
• Day 4: Toyota Home, Norman Bodek, and Takeshi Kawabe
• Day 5: Saijo Inx and a clip of Norman Bodek

Six Sigma is not enough

I just remembered something that was said on my Japan Lean Study Mission, I believe at Sango.

Q: Is Six Sigma used here?
A: Six Sigma is not enough.  Our goal is zero defects.

... which means that instead of tracking incident by severity, they simply tracked number of incidents.

Japan Lean Study Mission Day 5: Saijo Inx and a clip of Norman Bodek

On the Friday, our final visit was to Saijo Inx, a design prototype shop for high-precision folded sheet metal.  We also had a special assignment where we were supposed to assess Saijo Inx and report our results later to Mr. Kawabe, who had joined us from yesterday.

The day ended with sightseeing in Kyoto.

Saijo Inx
Focus is on prototyping but want to be more involved in the "total solution".  They do around 400 prototypes / month.
"People grow as people through work"

"Humans do not operate by orders"

We noticed that there was a noticeable difference in the maturity of the design floor and the manufacturing floor.

To cut to the chase, it seems that I don't really have a good manufacturing eye... other people in the group saw all these improvement opportunities that I didn't notice at all... "Oh... if we pipe the output out of that machine back around into itself we could remove an entire machine" If it was a software development shop I'd be all over it, but it seems that I'm a rookie when it comes to building physical things.

Norman Bodek and Pinocchio
To end, I'll use a clip I captured of Norman Bodek:

Japan Lean Study Mission Day 4: Toyota Home, Norman Bodek, and Takeshi Kawabe

On the Thursday, we visited Toyota Home. For various reasons, this ended up being just a presentation, questions and answers, and looking at models, but interesting nonetheless. In the afternoon, we met up with Takeshi Kawabe, formerly of Showa Manufacturing (he's referenced in Lean Thinking) for a discussion. All along and in between, Norman Bodek also talked about a few things.

Toyota Home
Toyota Home creates 100 modules per day. There are approximately 12 modules per house. So that's 8-9 houses per day.

Having not heard of Toyota Home before, I thought they would be similar to what the Lean Construction Institute talk about but Toyota Home uses what is apparently called a "skeleton and infill" approach, which is somewhat different.

Time from a customer order to ship: 40 days
Time to complete the house exterior on site: 1 day
Time to finish the house interior and deliver to customer: 50 days

The steel-frame based modular homes are 2x more expensive than wood frame homes. But obviously more earthquake-resistant, durable, etc.

Their focus on quality is on completion of work within your step. That is, the idea that the next step in the process is your customer and that you don't leak defects to your customer.

Q: Why get into home construction?
A: In Toyota, there's the idea that each generation should have its own business.

Norman Bodek

"I want everyone to change or at least not be an obstacle to change." -- Hiroshi Okuda

4 targets for kaizen:

1. Make work easier
2. Make work more interesting
3. Build skills and capabilities
4. Improve the work environment around you

[This list is what led to the categories we used for our goal-driven retrospective.]

Norm told a story about the president of a company who would week after week visit a new area to listen to their kaizen ideas and results. He did this because it forced him to see the workers as not just a pair of hands but as creative individuals who obviously deserve respect.

Key point: Share the improvement ideas with managers so that they develop respect for the people doing the work.

Norm told a story about Toyota establishing a new standard. First videos are taken of the best workers doing the task. Then using motion analysis software, they identify and remove wasted movements so at the end you have this aggregate sequence of movements made by the best people. This becomes the new standard, which means team leaders need to learn how to do it and instruct their team members to do it. I thought of this as an extreme form of positive deviance.

Takeshi Kawabe

"If something is for tomorrow and it's here today, remove it."

[YAGNI!]

The problem with cluttered workspace is confusion.

5 day plan:

1. Goto the workplace and look. What is necessary and what is unnecessary?
2. Clean
3. Change layout to get flow
4. Identify people who are more suitable to kaizen tasks. Get them to go through the new work sequence a few times to determine where to best place machines.
5. Write-up a kaizen newspaper and do presentations

Q: What would you suggest should be done with a software development team where there is a significant difference in skill levels, let's say up to 10x difference?
A: Set the best performers as the standard. Pair people with the masters in a master-apprentice model. Find other suitable jobs for those without aptitude. Like professional baseball players, you need to practice every day to be a professional. Software development is a team activity and teams are only as strong as their weakest link.

When Showa was first looking into TPS, they had an idea that they should hire several ex-Toyota managers and get them to show them what to do. So they asked Taiichi Ohno what he thought of the idea. Ohno scolded them yet again. Stop trying to borrow wisdom and think for yourself. Face your difficulties and think and think and think and solve your problems yourself. Suffering and difficulties provide opportunities to become better. Success is never giving up.

Pull systems allow you to stop if the car doesn't sell.

Q: If it's so simple, why isn't everyone doing it? What's missing?
A: Persistence. Never give up.

You can't solve everything at once

I learned about the Copenhagen Consensus from Bjorn Lomborg's TED talk. I don't necessarily agree with their conclusions or even their specific methodology but what I do like is the explicit acknowledgment that we don't have unlimited resources and therefore we need to prioritise our problems.

"Given $50 billion to spend, which would you solve first, AIDS or global warming?"

And perhaps more on the level of our own experiences, if I only have money to pay for 3 months of development, which features should I build first?

Ignite Sydney - 22 January 2009

I first learned about Ignite while investigating Pecha Kucha which I had learned about from Garr Reynolds.  At about that time, I learned about an Ignite for spatial (aka GIS) technologists called Ignite Spatial and attended it to see how the format worked.

Now Stephen Lead, who founded Ignite Spatial, is setting up a Ignite Sydney on the 22 January:

----

What would you say if you had just 5 minutes to give your technical presentation? You get 20 slides, and each slide lasts 15 seconds.
Ignite is coming to Sydney on the 22nd of January, 2009 at the Shelbourne Hotel. See Where for directions.

Duplication and LOC counts

Is it misleading to say that two systems are one million LOC each when one has 70% duplication and the other has 20%?

Japan Lean Study Mission Day 3: Toyota Motors

On Wednesday we visited Toyota Motors in Toyota City.

Apparently Toyota City was originally named Koromo but renamed itself Toyota, essentially acknowledging that its future success was tied to the success of Toyota.

We had the opportunity to look around the Toyota Kaikan museum which actually had very good videos on the Toyota Production System and of course, fancy robots and concept vehicles:

From Enna Japan Study Mission

From Enna Japan Study Mission

Talking to Toyota managers

Before we went on the tour, we had the opportunity to talk to several Toyota managers.

Q: How are new plants developed?
A: They used to use a mother plant system.  Supervisors and team leaders are trained for 6 months at the mother plant and people from the mother plant would be seconded for 1-3 years at the child plant.  This system is no longer used due to recent rapid growth.  Instead they've created a Global Production Centre.

Pay attention to the little things like ensuring that team leaders and team members eat together.

Teach people to see themselves as not just an assembly worker but also a quality worker.  When Fujio Cho, the current Toyota chairman, was overseeing their expansion into the U.S. he personally thanked the first team member who pulled the andon cord at TMMK in Georgetown, Kentucky.

I think Gary Convis, former president of TMMK, said that Toyota has two requirements for team members:

1. Show up
2. Pull the cord
   

The Toyota Production System (TPS) is not a system; it's a religion.  Please believe.  TPS requires Total Participation and Total Agreement.

The line speed (i.e., takt time) of the plant is changed every month.

Machines are better than humans for some things.  For example, tasks requiring high accuracy (e.g., painting) or are dangerous (e.g., welding).

Humans are better than machines for some things.  For example, tasks requiring judgement (e.g., assembly).

Q: What are you looking for in people?
A: Openness to TPS, kaizen mind, system cost focus

The person who detects the problem should lead the problem-solving.

Plant Tour
The plant tour itself was run by a full-time tour guide I believe. There are a series of elevated walkways for you to peer down from. This was different than the Toyota Altona visit since that was on the floor itself and the guides are current or ex-employees.

A lot more robots in operation than Altona, and not just the big welding machines.  Autonomous robots everywhere, pulling cars, providing parts, etc.  It's very Star Wars.

The familiar music, which I'll describe as bad pre-polyphonic mobile ring tone music, was going off all the time as team members pull their andon cords.

When the cord is pulled the light flashes yellow and the chimes start.  The team leader will come over to help.  There is a section marker on the floor.  If the problem is fixed or a work around is in place, then the cord is pulled again and the lights and music shut off.  More complete problem solving may occur when the shift ends.  If the section marker is reached before the situation is resolved, the light turns red and the line stops.  Dependent lines start eating into their buffer stock.  If the situation is not resolved when the buffer runs out, then they stop too.  And so on and so forth.

740 000 improvement ideas by team members last year.  99.8% of improvement ideas are implemented.  500 - 200 000 yen rewards given depending on the significance of the idea.

There was a demonstration area to show fundamental skills training but better yet, there are videos of the plant champions that you can compete against.  So I tried the rope exercise.  Plant champion: 4 seconds.  Me: 8 seconds.  At this point, the plant manager had dropped by to see how we were doing.  We asked him, "What is the standard for passing the exercise?"  His answer: "4 seconds.  If someone gets 5 or 6 seconds, we'll train them to the standard.  Slower than that, we'll find them another position to do."  The best is the standard.

I missed it, but some other people in the group said they saw someone accidentally drop an engine.  When the supervisor is called over (as the team member immediately signaled the problem), he doesn't look flustered at all but calmly works with the team member to check the engine, shows him what he did that caused him to drop the engine, and simply helps people work the situation.

Lean IT in sketches

I recently did a presentation using hand-drawn sketches.  This turns out to take longer than one might expect... In any case, I thought I'd share.

 

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

 

  

  

 

  

  

  

"Boy, are you going to get it when your folks come home!"

Kerry Patterson on cooking rocket fuel in his bedroom and a very Toyota response to this from his Mom:

"What did you learn from this adventure?"

Retrospectives are not kaizen

Retrospectives are not kaizen - change for the better. Change requires action which occurs outside the retrospective.

Retrospectives are at most hansei - serious reflection. Because not all change is for the better.

So retrospectives are not kaizen but may lead to kaizen AND retrospectives that don't lead to kaizen are waste.

So I spent the next 10 years reading about crows in my spare time...

And this is what the world looks like from the perspective of news coverage

Too much meat, too few plants, too much fast food, too little home cooking

Joel on cleaning toilets

Joel Spolsky has an article at Inc.com on his style of servant leadership:

To a 19-year-old assigned to clean toilets, which is almost by definition the worst possible job in the world, the sight of this high-ranking, 38-year-old, manicured, pampered disciplinary officer cleaning a toilet was a shock. And it completely reset my attitude. If he can clean a toilet, I can clean a toilet, I thought. There's nothing wrong with cleaning toilets. My loyalty and inspiration from that moment on were unflagging. Now that's leadership.

This reminded me a lot about what Lean leaders do.  Toto managers cleaning toilets, Sango managers clearing scrap.