WHEN BIG PLANS FAIL
Step-by-step project plans drawn far ahead often reassure leaders that work is under control, yet delivery still slips; the book ties that false comfort partly to charts named for this engineer.
What is Gantt?
Instead of tasks that sprawl with no finish line, the book fits work into repeating windows, commonly one week up to about a month; each window is this named time-box.
What is a Sprint?
Ohno treated useless effort as harm to everyone, not a private margin slip; he called it this against society itself.
What is a crime?
Planning Poker uses facedown cards, often with this number sequence, so estimates stay relative and discussion follows big gaps.
What is Fibonacci?
When people act badly, the Fundamental Attribution Error tempts you to blame character; the book says look instead for broken this that reward bad behavior.
What are systems?
Compared with slow stage-by-stage handoffs, Scrum behaves more like something alive: it self-corrects as new facts arrive instead of obeying only a frozen script.
What is evolutionary? (adaptive; self-correcting)
Each Sprint must end with something stakeholders can actually use and see; miss that bar and the book answers with this harsh one-syllable verdict on the work.
What is Die?
Offices celebrate juggling many cognitive tasks at once; the book argues throughput rises when people tackle hard work this way.
What is one thing at a time? (sequentially)
When high and low estimates diverge, those two people explain their reasoning, then the team this again until spread is small enough.
What is re-estimate? (votes again)
Maslow’s pyramid tops out with reaching your full potential; Scrum is framed as helping people grow there, not stopping at safety alone.
What is self-actualization?
Waiting until the end to test or integrate hides problems; the book favors thin vertical slices each cycle so outsiders can react while you can still pivot, this style of delivery.
What is incremental? (incremental delivery; in increments)
For daily check-ins, this frequency is enough: one short meeting, not constant status ping-pong.
What is once a day? (daily)
Four chores each partly finished still deliver no finished bathroom, no mailed bill, no fed dog; trim how much this unfinished stuff you carry at once.
What is work in process? (WIP)
Letting only “the smartest estimators” guess work others will do produced useless plans at GSI Commerce; estimates must come from this group.
What is the team? (the people doing the work)
The book lists autonomy, mastery, and this as what people want from work at its best.
What is purpose?
A beautiful chart on the wall that everyone secretly knows is wrong still steals energy because people must keep that document polished instead of building.
Stand-ups should run about this long, focused on speed and blockers, not endless analysis.
What is fifteen minutes?
Hallway life in big companies often sinks into frustration and feeling like a cog; Scrum targets replacing this kind of draining beat with a healthier cadence.
What is a negative rhythm?
When each person copies the prior person’s judgment instead of weighing evidence, estimates collapse toward a herd mistake; social science calls that pattern this.
What is a cascade? (an informational cascade)
Happiness should be measured against performance so cheer does not mask this enemy of continued success.
What is complacency?
The preface contrasts Waterfall’s long unpredictable releases with getting this kind of product out early so customers respond while you can still change course.
What is a minimum viable product? (MVP; immediate feedback)
Treat this resource as finite: protect it with rhythm and focus instead of pretending infinite hero hours fix bad flow.
What is time?
Ohno sorted trouble into overload, uneven flow, and effort with no customer payoff; English discussions often keep the Japanese label this for pointless outcome waste.
What is Muda?
One rosy trait bleeds into unrelated ratings, so good looks imply “must be smart”; psychology names that bias after the ring of light painted above a saint’s head.
What is the halo effect? (halo effect)
Each Sprint the team picks one small improvement, a this word borrowed from Japanese practice, to boost how it feels and works.
What is kaizen?