Although I don't talk about Lean (or Agile) all that much on this blog it still drives most of my thinking - I make great use of Value Stream mappings when exploring business processes - so I figure I should make an effort to mention it more. I'd also recommend taking a look at Dan's or Portia's blogs: I worked with them for quite a long time, and they're more actively agile than I am! Portia in particular is bent on changing the world, one issue at a time...

Anyhow, if you're interested in Lean then I'd highly recommend a read of 'Lean Software Development' by Mary and Tom Poppendieck.

With Lean in mind, I was really pleased to see this feature (amongst others) in Xobni. (Xobni, by the way, is Inbox spelt backwards, and as other commentators have observed I hope this is a trend that doesn't catch on. I've just had a quick check and it seems that Nozama.co.uk (Amazon) is not registered, so maybe...)

Point-based scheduling is something that comes up for criticism in the book. The example given is:

• A: We need to meet
• B: My best time is 10:00. Can you make it?
• A: No, I can't. How about 2:00?
• B: Sorry, already booked. What about 3:00?
• A: No, how about 9:00?
• etc.

So this kind of communication amounts to a lot of wastage and in fact may never converge on a resolution.

Set-based scheduling would be:

• A: I can meet 10:00 - 1:00 or 3:00 - 5:00
• B: Let's meet 12:00 - 1:00

So, I'm pretty keen to get my hands on this capability with Xobni and get a little more Lean this spring. Clicking the link below will help me get into the beta more quickly too ;)