Gerald M. Weinberg The Secrets of Consulting: A guide to giving and getting advice successfully As a consultant, I find it illuminating and resourceful as it puts rationality and structure around seemingly irrational subject area. As a manager, I find it full of wisdom and wit, but perhaps lacking clear message and specific take-aways. As a reader, I simply find it entertaining. What am I talking about? "The Secrets of Consulting" book by Jerry Weinberg. Jerry defines consulting as the art of influencing people at their own request. Even this definition alone makes me think hard and deep about my role as a consultant... or as a person who needs consulting help. In a casual conversational manner, Jerry introduces rules and laws helping a consultant become more effective and ultimately more successful at what she/he does.

To give you a taste of what this book is about, I listed a few of my favourite rules and laws below:

• The Duncan Hines Difference: It tastes better when you add your own egg.
• Prescott's Cucumber Principle: Cucumbers get more pickled than the brine gets cucumbered.
• Rhonda's First Revelation: It may look like a crisis, but it's only the end of an illusion.
• The Harder Law: Once you eliminate your number one problem, you promote number two.
• Fisher's Fundamental Theorem: The better adapted you are, the less adaptable you tend to be.
• The Bolden Rule: If you can't fix it, feature it.
• The Principle of Least Regret: Set the price so you won't regret it either way.

Happy reading!

It is finally here. The long waited ReSharper 4.0 has been released: http://www.jetbrains.com/resharper/.

Since we moved our .NET development to Visual Studio 2008 and .NET 3.5 at the end of last year, we have been using daily builds and betas of ReSharper 4.0. I am happy to see our favourite C# productivity tool released! 

OTUG usually meets every 3rd Tue of the month. Usually, but not this month... Please, note that there is no OTUG meeting on June 15. Our next meeting is on Thu, June 26. As usual, check http://www.otug.org for more information.

Who:	Dale Schumacher
What:	Actors Make Better Observers
When:	Thursday, June 26, 2008, 5 pm
Where:	O'Shaugnessy Science Hall, University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, MN

See you there!

Welcome again. Here is what I picked for this month's review:

Michael N. Kennedy Product Development for the Lean Enterprise: Why Toyota's system is four times more productive and how you can implement it. I first learned about Toyota production and product development around 5 years ago. Their numbers are truly impressive: Toyota is consistently named at the top in owner satisfaction surveys Toyota's  milestone dates are never missed Toyota's engineers and managers achieve incredible 80% of value-added productivity (vs. 20% auto industry average in the US) What does Toyota do differently from everybody else? How can we apply their principles to IT? Product Development is substantially different from Manufacturing. Which one is a better fit for an IT organization?

While there is plenty of information on wildly admired Toyota Production System (Lean Manufacturing), there is considerably less data on Lean Product Development (Knowledge-Based Development). In order to better understand how these two systems are different, take a look at the table below:

	Lean Manufacturing	Lean Product Development
Cycle Time:	Short (minutes, hours)	Long (days, weeks)
Core Material:	Physical material	Knowledge and information
Teams:	Smaller, focused	Larger, more diverse
Focus:	Focus is on executing predefined tasks and automation	Focus is on defining new solutions and building knowledge and expertise

In his book, Michael Kennedy introduces the principles of and key elements behind Lean Product Development:

• Set-Based Concurrent Engineering
• System Design Leadership
• Responsibility-Based Planning and Control
• Expert Engineering Workforce

In an engaging and humorous manner, he explains how these principles can be adapted and implemented in your organization. The book is thought-provoking, sophisticated, and extremely fun to read.  It appeals to my sense of humor and has a plot and engaging characters that no reader will forget. It will keep you occupied until early morning hours... ;-)

Principles of Lean Manufacturing work well for IT maintenance and support. Lean Product Development fits well IT software development teams. If you are a technical or functional leader in an IT organization, this is a must-read book for you!  I am sure you will enjoy it.

Happy reading!