Agile Trail

Offer choices!

Talking about the pull principle means to talk about not having authorities and hierarchies, but talking about responsibility and commitment. The pull principle means to have the freedom and autonomy to be responsible and committed. And vice versa people who like practicing pull and having their freedom don’t like authorities: Continue reading →

We trust in the responsibility
and the commitment of our people.

At it-agile, the company I work for and with, we use pull systems. Of course, whenever it comes to software development or project related activities (like organizing a conferece or the like), we rely on Agile methods like XP, Scrum, and Kanban, and therefore on pull systems. But you might be surprised to see pull at it-agile when it comes to corporate sales and hiring. Continue reading →

House building can be pushed or pulled

When I write about people pulling work, it’s only half the picture without the customer. He’s the reason people are doing the work in the first place. The customer benefits very much from being part of a pull system. Continue reading →

No need for him: In a pull system,
decisions are made by the responsibility
and commitment of experts doing the work.

The pull principle changed the way we work. In the manufacturing process, pull prevents huge inventories and decreases costs, among other useful effects. But the principle does not stop there. Continue reading →

Piggly Wiggly store 1916, the first supermarket in the world

When Clarence Saunders built the very first supermarket, he did not know that he invented a principle that changed the world. It was 1916, when he was annoyed of the fact, that grocery stores – think of small corner shops and the like – only gave one person at a time the chance to order their products. An assistant would then go into the storage room and fetch the goods. This was a very slow way of shopping, and it was also very labour-intensive because of the assistant’s payroll costs. Continue reading →