Infinite Flow Mentor Guide

How many times have you heard people say,

Application Development (AD) team is a semi-permanent team focused on a single application. 

Broad learning is the ability of the organization to educate and cross-train the Flow team on current and future skills...

Consensus is a general agreement, an accord, or harmony regarding the approach to the...

Business units are changing to meet the demands of the organization business and practices. In many cases, if not most, the Central Information Technology Authority (CITA) cannot keep up with all business unit changes...

Cheetah’s Law States that “Swift decisions are typically better than long, drawn-out analysis.

Engineering design automation (EDA) is a communication method that also works as a means of sharing knowledge.

A communication platform is a standard and well-known method of communicating with a Flow team.

Attentive listening is more than just hearing words, but reading and understanding the….

A community is a sociopolitical and economic organization—a unified body of individuals with common interests...

Connections are multiple favorable interactions and relationships.

Flow contracts should focus on the “happiness circle.”  

A team shared meaning is not about the activity, but the...

Economist Joseph A. Schumpeter coin the phrase “creative destruction” which in our time we call “disruptive technology”.

A daily script outlines the daily task.

While Absentee Flow Sponsors are troubling, just as vexing is the hovering micromanager.

A deep and broad feedback system is structured in layers.

The Coach Mentor perfects and guides the team.

The Constructor Mentor builds the team. 

An Infinite Flow Mentor is a person who provides guidance and coaching to the Infinite Flow sponsor and delivery team.

Demonstration is the action that provides evidence of work.

Infinite Flow is not just a method, but a set of rituals.

Adam Smith, the founder of modern economics, coined the term division of labor in his 1776 book, Wealth of Nations.

An educational time-out is a specific time during the workday to stop and learn something new as a team activity.

Enterprise IT Support EIS: is an Infinite Flow Team that is dedicated to a major enterprise-wide applications such SAP. 

Failure tolerance means taking on increased risk and allowing a Flow team to fail without career damage and adverse reaction.

Over the many years of research, The Standish Group has found that only about 20% of features in a given application are used and have value. 

An architecture is a coherent and consistent set of standards which provide normative guidance for the...

A FlowSet is a bubble in which the team can work without interruptions. 

Fools Law states, “A fool with a tool is still a fool”. 

French Mathematical Economist Léon Walras created the Theory of General Equilibrium. 

General Purpose Support (GPS): is an Infinite Flow team dedicated to a business unit. 

One of the main ideas of Flow is building and maintaining a team that can execute the daily task within the team structure. 

Sadly, there is plenty of evidence in normal software projects that the sponsor shows up at the kick-off and is never seen again.

Imagination is the ability to form new ideas and concepts of objects and services not yet realized.

Searching for the obvious means you don’t go out of your way to build requirements...

Each daily task, when finished, is assessed on value and customer satisfaction by the sponsor.

Our original thinking was that Infinite Flow was a method to manage software development, implementation, and maintenance through a continuous process.

Infinite Flow … makes the software development process more personal and available to business units while adding increased capability for business managers.

The Infinite Flow method provides for rapid feedback and customer reaction.

Marginals are things you do not need or that provide little value in the...

Rapid feedback means getting fast and constant comments, opinions, criticisms, and acclaim for daily... 

The best way to unleash the power of a small team is by automating everything that is both common and frequent.

Automatic feedback includes these four measurements: value, customer satisfaction, strategic goal, and capability. 

The “daily deliverable” is a complete software information systems task or (work effort or deliverable...

The idea of daily delivery means that a daily task must not only be created but also put into place for immediate customer use.

Optimal timing means working on the tasks that are most important now. 

A Flow team comprises one sponsor, two producers, and four actors.

Talent matching requires building and maintaining skills among the team members to foster progress.

The Infinite Flow Method operates as a discrete self-managed unit. 

The Flow Sponsor is responsible for providing inspiration to the team and to the greater business unit.

Keeping promises is, first, a declaration of an obligation; and second, a fulfillment of that...

The Behavioral Economic Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility states that all else equal, as consumption increases, the marginal utility derived from each additional unit declines.

he behavioral economic Law of Diminishing Returns states that in all productive processes, adding one...

Law of Five Deadly Sins states, “You will encounter the Five Deadly Sins in all projects. 

The Law of the Edible Elephant states “The only way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time.”

The Law of the Empty Chair which states “Your best person will leave at the worst possible time.

The Law of the Road states “it does not matter which road everyone comes from if they end up in the same place.” 

Governance is the act or process of governing or overseeing the control and direction of the Flow team and methods.

Law of the Mad Hatter States “Complexity causes confusion and cost.”

Everybody wants everything now, even the Flow Sponsor.

A trade-off is the act of exchanging one or more items for other items as a compromise. 

Master of Information Technology (MIT): is a team focused on a critical area of technology. 

A maylog is a collection of daily scripts or tasks.

Meditation is the act or process of spending time in...

Negotiation is the act of mutual discussion and arrangement of the commitment to a Flow team’s direction. 

The main tenant behind Infinite Flow is that every daily task is a discrete item and stands alone.

The Law of the Panda states “Inaction is the purest form of failure

Patience is the ability to accept slow but steady progress without responding with annoyance.

People over process means the Flow Sponsor should focus more on the people and less on the process and tools. 

Behavioral Economists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky created the Prospect Theory. 

A rapid decision, in the context of Flow, should be measured in...

Rational Choice Theory is a long-established economic hypothesis going back to the writings of philosopher economist, David Hume (1711-1776).

Resourcefulness is the ability of the Flow Sponsor to assemble the right resources for the right work at the right time. 

A retrospective is a ritual meeting held by the Flow team at the end of a...

French economist and businessman Jean-Baptiste Say created Say’s Law which states that supply itself creates its own demand.

Major portions of Scrum are used in Flow is as a basic framework for developing, delivering, and sustaining software.

Sometimes the software changes are to fix a bug; other times it for perceived enhancements. 

The paradox is that software projects have a beginning and an end. 

Competency (or talent) is the quality of being adequately or well qualified to perform the tasks and assignments dictated by the software technology requirements.

Adam Smith introduced the Invisible Hand behavioral economic theory in his book, The Wealth of Nations published in 1776.

The Law of the Long-tailed Monster states: “You will always build too much of what you don’t need and not enough of what you do need.”

The Law of Two Faces states users are both your best friend and worst enemy.  

We see four basic types of flow teams

Economists Carl Menger and Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk of The Austrian School of Economics developed the subjective theory of value.