We are pleased to announce that Astah’s latest version 6.8 has been released which includes over 45 Bug fixes and improvements/new features such as…

- New start up screen (right top screenshot) that appears every time you launch Astah. It includes a list of diagrams and all you do is choose a diagram to start a new diagram. It also has a list of recent projects worked on to help load files quickly without needing to find it.

- Time Constraint in Sequence Diagram
- Duration Constraint in Sequence Diagram
- Entry Point and Exit Point in Statemachine Diagram (Right bottom screenshot)
- Activity Parameter Node in Activity Diagram
- Enable to hide Executive Specifications in Sequence Diagrams
- Enable to automatically align lifeline length
- Organization Guide in Structure Tree
- Enhanced alignment guide and resizing assist
- Align Lifeline length automatically
- Enable to create/edit Activity diagrams via Astah API…and more.

Take a look at the highlighted new feature in version 6.8 :
Read full release note: Astah Professional / Astah Community

Download version 6.8 Now : Astah Professional / Astah Community

Cheers,
SJ

On 101 to Oracle.

Yesterday (Jan.21,2014) I visited Oracle at CVC (Customer Visit Center) to learn the future of JavaFX.

We have been developing Astah as a desktop application of Swing for the past 10+ years. Now we have a good customer base in Japan, Brazil, Germany, and other EU countries as well as in the US.

Our concern is how JavaFX is and will be treated in the whole Java strategy and how effectively we can integrate it with our application framework. In the meeting, I found JavaFX is considered highly as part of JavaSE and Oracle is committed to invest on it. Now we feel safer to put our engineering effort to improve our product Astah’s UI with JavaFX, although we need more internal discussion after I return to Japan.

After the meeting. From the right, Nandini, me, Henrik, Stevens, and Aurelio.

Thank you very much Nandini Ramani and Henrik Stahl for taking the time for encouraging our adoption of JavaFX, and Aurelio Garcia-Ribeyro for showing the big picture of Java SE, ME and JavaFX, and Stevens for showing empathy as a support(sustaining engineering) side for our problems and concerns.

Astah team’s new year resolution calligraphy

We showed our “new year resolution calligraphy” picture to Nandini in which everyone in our team saying something. Apparently I’m saying “JavaFX”! (read more about this Calligraphy…)

Now it has been more than 10 years since we’d started this Astah as our journey and we are feeling that now is the time to refresh our UIs into a modern design, using JavaFX as the possibility for the future platform.

Also I’d like to mention the atmosphere I felt there at the CVC, which was so welcoming and inviting for customers who are using Oracle technologies. I respect their customer relation designs.

At the reception of Oracle 500(Customer Visit Center)

Thank you very much Terada-san and Emi Ejiri-san for arranging the meeting at Oracle HQ, I was very satisfied with the meeting results. (as well as the great lunch!)

Coincidentally, I met Suzuki Yusuke-san who was attending the Oracle User Group Leadership meeting at the same hotel, and we three, Terada-san, Suzuki-san and I had a good dinner together.

Cheers!
-Kenji

With Yusuke Suzuki, Terada, and me

Japanese Calligraphy

Astah team’s new year resolution calligraphy

On Jan.6, we held a small party as a start of the year 2014 at Change Vision, Fukui office. Doing Calligraphy for new year resolution is our tradition.

Do you want to know what each piece means?

• “喜” — Joy
• “夢” — Dream
• “愛” — Love
• “しすえむえる” – SysML
• “GSN” — Goal Structuring Notation
• “新” — NEO
• “支” — Support
• “馬” — Horse(reversed) (this year’s animal symbol in Chinese astrology, but reversed into “dance”)
• “明日” — Tomorrow (but the pronunciation of this word “A-shi-ta”sounds close to Astah)

From here, getting a bit realistic..

• “黒” — Black(black-ink figures in accounting ?)
• “金” — Money(Wow, this is so real)
• “プリキュア” — Smile PreCure!(What?)

Hope our customers, all the members of Friends of Astah, and developers using Astah, including you have had a great start to the new year.

Looking back on the last year, I visited a lot of places to show Astah outside of Japan. I’m sooooo much grateful to “Friends of Astah” who helped me a lot during my travels to India, Germany, and Canada, especially, I’d like to thank Nabi(at SAP Germany), Klaus(in Germany), Jan and Brita at HIS, Anna(at PHP Quebec who is also organizing ConFoo.ca), and Prem(in India) for the local arrangement, helps and much more.

Well, that’s all from Fukui, Japan as new year greetings.
Anyway, starting your 2014 with upgrading Astah to 6.8 may be a good idea !

Kenji’s “NEO”

-Kenji

[Editions for:  Astah Professional, Astah SysML, Astah GSN and Astah Commuity]

With some projects, you may need to use specific color to certain models in accordance with a company standard or regulations. Here’s an instruction to set common default color to use in a team.

First, one person configures the common default color to models using his/her Astah.
(1) Go to [Tool] – [System Properties] to open the [System Properties] dialog.
(2) Select [Default Item Color] from left menu(*1). A list of applicable models for default color setting appears. Choose the right box and set the color you want then click [Apply] – [OK].

To share this configuration with team members,
(1) A person who made this change distributes his/her “JudeP.properties”(*2) to team members. “JudeP.properties” file can be found at USER_HOME\.astah\professional (sysml, gsn or community)
(2) Anyone who received should save this file under USER_HOME\.astah\professional (sysml, gsn or community) then start Astah, then the color setting will apply.

(*1) If you are using Astah SysML or Astah GSN, select [New Item Color].
(*2) File name varies depending on the version you use as below.

• Astah Professional: JudeP.properties
• Astah SysML: JudeY.properties
• Astah GSN: JudeG.properties
• Astah Community: Jude.properties

[Notes]
This property file”JudeX.properties” contains all the configuration of System Properties, so overwriting this shared configuration file will lose all the personal preferences that you set before. So you need to re-configure the personal preference by yourself.

Cheers,
SJ

We are coming back to Germany (Our previous Germany trip) to exhibit Astah at Embedded World 2014 on Feb 25-27.

Embedded World 2014

About Embedded World
In English: http://www.embedded-world.de/en/
In German : http://www.embedded-world.de/

This is our first time to exhibit Astah at Embedded World, so we are very excited. If you are coming, visit us at “GAIO” booth or drop us a line, so that we will let you know where you can find us!

This time we have powerful helpers at our booth. Nabi Zamani (Friends of Astah member) and Jan Buehrig from HIS (Certified Astah Professional member) who are able to introduce Astah in German.

Nabi (Left) and Jan (Right)

We will look forward to meeting you!

Cheers,
SJ

We are happy to announce that our free communication tool, Astah Share‘s latest version is now out which is compatible with Astah files created in Astah Professional/Community version 6.8.

Astah Share

Commenting Feature

Astah Share is a simple communication tool that enables you to upload Astah files created with Astah Professional or Astah Community on the web and anyone can view the diagrams on the web browser. Its SNS like commenting features and permanent links will help you communicate and review models with team easier. Your clients or reviewers no longer need to install Astah to view diagrams. Instead, all you do is upload the file on the web and give them a link to it. They don’t need to write out the review result in emails. Instead, they can directly comment on the diagrams.

Astah Share is completely free to use.
Experience demo site to see how it easily works!

You can find all the information and download links of Astah Share from here.

Cheers,
SJ

Our SysML modeling tool Astah SysML‘s latest version 1.1 is now out!

What is SysML?
SysML is already the standard for complex and large engineering problems, and its use is growing everyday. SysML creates a common language and standards for engineers across many different fields including software, electric and mechanical. (Read more about SysML)

What is Astah SysML?
Astah SysML is a lightweight and intuitive tool works on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X to make SysML modeling simple by letting you draw following diagrams:
- Internal Block Diagram
- Block Definition Diagram
- Requirement Diagram
- Requirement Table
- Parametric Diagram
- UseCase Diagram
- Activity Diagram
- Statemachine Diagram
- Sequence Diagram and Mind Map

Since version 1.1, API is available so that you can extend Astah SysML’s functionalities by creating your own Plugin to achieve your specific needs. Read Astah SysML 1.1 Release Note

Get your Free Trial
For learning SysML, comparing with other tools or any of your purpose, you can try out Astah SysML for free for 50 days from here or click the button below!

Waiting for your feedback
Please let us know what you think about Astah SysML, and feature requests. We’d like to improve our tool by incorporating all of your feedback.

Thanks,
SJ

Hi Astah SysML users,

I wanted to break down new functions and improvements of Astah SysML 1.1′s Release Notes here.

Astah SysML API Sample application on Github

API
Based on requests from our loyal users who wish to integrate SysML models of Astah SysML with other tools, we released API. We have user guide, JavaDoc on our website and are sharing sample applications on Github for you to learn how to use our API.

Plug-in architecture and SDK
Needless to say, we have laid out the architecture for you to easily develop Plugins to extend its functionalities to achieve your specific needs. Plug-in development tutorial and Astah Plug-in SDK will help you get started on your plug-in development.

Official Multi-platform release
Officially and completely Astah SysML is available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS. Older versions were already working on them but this time its official meaning more stable and firm technical support for multi-platform.

[Align Port] menu on Block/Interface Blocks
Alining multiple Ports on Blocks are now easily done with just a click of this new [Align Port] menu. It even automatically resizes the block to be in the best size as visual.

Stereotype to ObjectNodes in Activity Diagram
Now you are able to add Stereotypes to ObjectNodes in Activity Diagram.

Auto-add {stream} to the ObjectFlows
Now setting “stream” to ObjectNodes will automatically add {stream} notations on the diagram.

[Information Flow Dependency] in Block Definition Diagram
[Information Flow Dependency] button is added under [Dependency] in Block Definition Diagram’s tool bar.

This was a bit of breakdowns of Astah SysML 1.1‘s new improvements. We believe small improvements can make a big difference when modeling. More usability improvements are implemented in version 1.1, download a free trial to experience it by yourself.

Cheers,
SJ

[Editions for: Astah Professional, Astah Community, Astah SysML and Astah GSN]

Did you know that you can show States and Submachine States of Statemachine diagram in the Structure Tree?

To do so,
(1) Go to [Tool] – [System Properties]  and select [Project View] from the left menu
(2) Check the option [Show States and Submachine States on the structure tree] and then click [Apply] – [OK].

Now they appear in the structure view.

Actions of Activity diagrams and other models can be shown in the structure view in the same way. Take a moment to browse the System Properties ([Tool] – [System Properties]), there may be options that you were looking for and changing them can make Astah much easier for you to work with!

Cheers,
SJ

Java 8 is now available. However Java 8 is not included in the System Requirements for Astah yet. So we recommend you not to use Java8 with Astah yet. If you still would like to use it, please read the known issue below.

If you are on Mac:
Appearance of Start screen can cause the freeze upon on launching Astah or it makes it extremely long to launch it. So choose not to show Start screen in the System Properties. (For how to do so, please refer to [3. Solution] on this post.

If it lets Astah freeze when launching, you can try the following way:
(1) Open the property file (User home\.astah\professional (or Community)\JudeP.properties (Jude.properties (if Community) with a text editor
(2) Search for “diagram.editor.initial_operation”
(3) If found, make its value as “false”. If not found, add “diagram.editor.initial_operation=false” and overwrite the file

We’ll make an announce when we fix a release plan that will support Java 8.
No technical support will be provided to any issues arose on Java8, but we still accept reports for our further development. So please feel free to send us reports through here.

Cheers,
SJ

Objective-C export is now available with any<code/> Plug-in’s update made on March 23rd.

The any<code/> is a free code generator specially made for Astah which our Friends of Astah member Jose developed. This enables you to export UML models to Java, PHP or technically any language you want using Templates. This Plug-in works with Astah Community edition too, so that it is a big option for Astah Community users because currently Java import/export functionalities are built in in Astah Professional only.

At this update, Jose made the two following main changes:
- New template engine (Groovy) to replace Freemarker with
- Objective-C 2.0 first directive + tutorial (Read tutorial)

Both are made based on actual user’s feedback, so now it must be a lot easier to use.
Update any<code/> plugin is available from here.

Thank you Jose for your great work and continuous effort.

Cheers,
SJ

Related post: Free Code Generator for Astah

Yesterday I received a request from one of our customers saying “I’d like to get a list of hyperlink information in a project.”

This is their background:
They have one “Template” model which everyone makes a copy of and modifies for their own use. They heavily reuse UML Activity diagram with lots of hyperlinks. And this customer wanted to list up models that have hyperlinks to certain type of model (in their case, it was a CallBehaviour Action).

Let me show you the solution we provided using a sample diagram below.

There are three Activity diagrams, A, B and C and [Action0] has a hyperlink to [CallBehaviorAction0] (Red) and both [Action1] and [Action2] have one to [Callbehavior Action1] (Blue) and they wanted to know all about the hyperlink information of the CallBehaviorActions (towards to the CallbehaviorActions) in the project. So that helps them to know what models they need to be careful with when they modify the model.

The easiest way to do is using our new Script Plug-in which enables you to add features via a scripting language dynamically. (Read the “Introduction of Script Plug-in” post for details and how to use.) So one of our developers wrote a Java script for them using Astah API.

Here’s the result of running the Java Script using the Script Plug-in:

In the bottom pane of the Script window, it lists up all the model information which has hyperlinks to CallBehaviorActions.

You can download this Java Script here and there are more Script samples up on our website. Script Plug-in is free to use for both Astah Professional and Astah Community editions. Take a look, download and get the good use of it! Hope we have a library of useful scripts for all the users to share in near future. So if you create one or have any sample requests, please feel free to let us know!

Cheers,
SJ

Sometimes we receive this question:
“How could we represent the shared target style like the sample figure below (in red circle)?”

The answer is this.
(1) Create Classes and Generalizations to State Class from each Class – this is the separate target style.

(2) Select the three lines and go to [Edit] – [Shared Style] – [Vertical] from Main Menu.

(3) Done!

Cheers,
SJ

Alining lines is a simple gesture but could be irritating especially for models that have multiple lines originating from themselves like ones in the figure below. This post will show you how to draw the two composition lines (in pink) faster.

I believe majority would draw this way.

(1) Select [Compositions] from the tool bar and click the LinkAction Class and InputPin, and do the same to the other.

(2) Two Compositions are created.

(3) Then adjust both lines by dragging every connecting point of both lines on the Classes to make them parallel.

The other way is this.
Before you create the compositions, click the third button from the right on the tool bar to disable one option.
This option is ON by default. What this does is to determine where you want to draw a line from and where it ends. While this option is ON, starting point and end point is always set in the center of the models. By disabling this option, you can start the line anywhere you want on a model and connects it anywhere you want it to be. So let’s try this.

(1) Click the third button from right on the tool bar to disable the option
(2) Select Composition on the tool bar and click exactly where you want to start the line on the LinkAction Class and do the same on the InputPin Class

(3) Draw another between LinkAction and LinkEndData
(4) The Compositions are created as shown below (the top figure) straight and you won’t have to spend your time on adjusting them at all.

Cheers,
SJ

We released Astah SysML 1.2 last Friday.
Version 1.2 has new functionalities and improvements made based on user’s feedback such as:

Copy and paste models in Block Definition Diagrams

Read mode at New Features 1.2.

SysML is already the industry standard for engineering large, complex systems.

You can try out Astah SysML for 50 days, download from here:
Astah SysML Free Trial Download

If you have been using Astah SysML already, you can update it to version 1.2 from downloading and installing it from here too.

Cheers,
SJ

We released Astah SysML 1.2 last friday. SysML is the International Standard to support MBSE (Model-Based Systems Engineering) and Astah SysML is proudly the only tool for it made in Japan.

Kenji (CEO of Change Vision) had a short interview with Astah SysML’s product owner Yi after its release.

Kenji and Yi

Version 1.2 Release!

Kenji(K): Yi-san, congrats on the 1.2′s release!
Yi (Y) : Thank you. I am happy and relieved at the same time that we were able to deliver ver1.2 today as planned and I hope that many more people will use our tool.
K: What is the most important policy when you develop Astah SysML?
Y: Keeping its usability is the most important focus. There are many modeling tools out there for UML and SysML and etc, and our “Astah” series has high reputations for its intuitive usability. So keeping its level to the top is one thing. And the second is to listen to the users. Since Astah SysML’s initial release, we’ve received many feedback.. really A LOT and that made me determine that I want to enhance Astah SysML with many of the users who send us their feedback.

Difficulties during version 1.2 development?

K: So this was a version-up from 1.1 to 1.2. Were there any difficulties?
Y: Yes, the most difficult part was to determine what functionalities we should implement in such a short term.
K: I see. How did you manage to decide?
Y: I knew there was a big room to improve Astah SysML’s functionalities in ver1.1 and we had so many feature requests after ver1.1′s release, so it was very difficult for me to choose what to implement. And this time we chose “Team Development Support” based on the amount of requests for it and its necessarily. We often heard that “I’m currently using Astah SysML by myself solo but want to use it with my whole team eventually”. So we added an ability to copy and paste models via files and made improvements such as an alignment of Ports and easier setting for Port’s flow direction, these may be small but all dynamically becomes useful when used in a team base.

Applying User’s feedback

K: I see. Who are using Astah SysML now?
Y: Automobile and robotics in Japan and some army organizations and academic outside of Japan. To hear their feedback directly, I talk with them via Skype or go visit them. Especially AIST (Advanced Industrial Science and Technology) has been helping us giving their opinions since its first release and we much appreciate their contribution.
One of the new features “Nested Parts”(Right figure) was a request from Mr. Geoff Biggs from AIST and “Copy and Paste models” was from another user who is also a long time user.
K: What levels are the Astah SysML’s users at?
Y: Many of them are still learning SysML. In Japan the usage of MBSE and SysML seems to be growing bigger. So they are adopting SysML and learning it at the same time. So I’m trying to make Astah SysML to be a tool anyone can use it easily even at their first time. So that they can focus on learning SysML without learning the tool itself. Multi-platform is also important too, number of developers with Mac is increasing so we’ve made it run on Windows, Mac and Linux and file exchanging possible without any OS-specific issues.

Future vision of Astah SysML

K: What is the vision for Astah SysML in the future?
Y: I want Astah SysML to be able to support the communication among engineers in various fields, mechanic, electronic, software and hardware with using the standard common notations. Also we’ll continue to attend OMG’s technical meetings and comply with the latest specification of SysML. This is the basic and core vision of how Astah SysML will be in the future and we want to grow it better by hearing actual users’ feedback.

We want to hear from you!

K: Ok, then last message to the readers?
Y: I repeat this, we want to develop Astah SysML with you. We want Astah SysML to be the easiest possible to use for all the users especially at their first try. Anyone can try out the full features of Astah SysML for 50 days for free, so please download it, use it and send us your feedback. We read any comments you make via Facebook, Twitter or Community Site where ever easier for you to post.
Thank you very much!

Astah SysML Overview: http://astah.net/editions/sysml
Astah SysML Trial Download: http://astah.net/editions/sysml/download

Yi and Kenji

We receive many questions about how to create the delegation connectors. So here’s how to do so:

(1) Create a Class, and add a Port to it.
(2) To add a lollipop or socket, right-click the Port and select [Add Required Interface (Socket)] or [Add Provided Interface (Lollipop)]

(3) Now  create a Part inside the Class and add a Port to it
(4) Copy the Interface (Lollipop or Socket) by using shortcut key (Ctrl+C) or [Copy] from its Pop-up menu
(5) Paste the Interface (Lollipop or Socket) on the diagram by using shortcut key (Ctrl+V)  or [Paste] from its Pop-up menu
(6) Drag and drop the pasted Interface within a Class
(7)

[For Lollipop]
Select [Realization] from the tool bar and then draw it from Part’s Port to the Lollipop within the class.

[For Socket]
Select [Usage Dependency] from the tool bar and then draw it from Part’s Port to the Socket within the class.

(8) At last, select [Connector] and connects two Ports

Hope this helps. There are are several ways to depict this delegation connector but this is the fastest way to do so in the Composite Structure Diagram.

Cheers,
SJ

We are pleased to announce that Astah GSN Beta version was released today.

GSN (Goal Structuring Notation) is a graphical notation developed at the University of York for specifying safety cases for safety critical systems. Several standards such as ISO26262 (Automotive E/E systems) and IEC62278 (Railway) mandate the use of safety cases and GSN supports their argumentation structures and its relation to evidences in a comprehensible yet compelling form.

Astah GSN is a simple and intuitive tool to model this GSN.
For about 5 months since its alpha release, we received some feedback and kept changing its abilities and usabilities to make it a better fit to our users. (Many thanks to Kobayashi-san and all the other users who took time to write us the detailed feedback.)

Here are the main changes made in this beta version:

(1) Ability to set “undeveloped” for multiple models at once
Now you can set “Undeveloped” to multiple models once from the Pop-up menu.

(2) Ability to add a Note and Note Anchor
Now you can enter free text and attach it to the target models.

(3) Moved the focus to “statement” when a model is created for efficiency
At a time a new model is created, the focus used to be on its ID, but we moved it to the “statement” to let you enter the most important information as soon as a model is created.

(4) Module will no longer have its diagram as a hyperlink
Module will no longer have its diagram as a hyperlink. In previous version, hyperlink icon was added to the Module when it was created in a diagram, but it wasn’t when it was added in the Structure view (see bottom figure), so this change was to make it all consistent. Now double-clicking the Module directly in the diagram will open its diagram.

When Diagram was added to a Module in the Structure Tree

Download Astah GSN Beta from the link below and try & see how much better it works for you now.
We look forward to hearing your your feedback.

PS: Astah GSN product release is planned at the end of next month!

Cheers,
SJ

On June 19 in Salt Lake City, I’ll take part in Agile Roots 2014 and it is quite a honor for me to do the opening keynote. I was asked to come by Kay Johansen (@utahkay), who has been a friend of mine since the Agile Development Conference 2004 in Salt Lake City. (Wow it is 10 years!)

Japan’s influence to Agile and Lean

I’m preparing very unique sessions from Japan for this “Roots” conference.

1. People As the Conveyer of Knowledge:
   Lessons Learned from Prof. Nonaka, grandfather of Scrum
2. Drink Lean From The Source

The first one is about the origin of Scrum, and the second is about the origin of Lean, both strongly related to Japanese culture and industry.

The first one is the keynote. I’m so humbled to speak about the origin and grandfather of Scrum…

• People As the Conveyer of Knowledge: Lessons Learned from Prof. Nonaka, grandfather of Scrum

In 1986, Prof. Ikujiro Nonaka co-wrote with Prof.Takeuchi a well-known paper “The New New Product Development Game”, and coined the word “Scrum” which is later referred to by Jeff Sutherland in his modern Scrum in Agile development context. Here I’ll present some important ideas about “how knowledge is created” and “who is the center of the knowledge creation”, discussed in the Nonaka’s Scrum concept but not yet discussed in the Agile world.

He originally discussed Nonaka’s SECI-model in his book “Knowledge Creating Company“, and now I’ll put it in the context of Agile. How tacit and explicit knowledge transform each other into innovation, and why “Design Thinking” (or empathy to the users through experience) should be inserted to the first part of the development (or Ideation phase).

I want to share the “missing links” between his original Scrum thought and the current implementation of Scrum in the Agile world. Also this talk includes a concrete example on how intensive user involvement worked in the real industry.

And this is also written as a newly published Japanese book “Agile and Scrum: Collaborative Software Development and the Leadership That Connects Customers, Engineers and Management”, co-authored by Ikujiro Nonaka and me, which will be translated into English – hopefully :).

Other speakers are Mary Poppendieck, Israel Gat, Diana and Willem Larsen, Lisa Crispin, … I’m so excited to the reunion with them!

See you in Salt Lake City :-)

-Kenji

AgileRoots 2014 (photo by @Agileroots)

Keynote by Kenji (photo by @nawoto)

I attended Agile Roots 2014 in Salt Lake City held on June 19-20, which turned out to be a wonderful as well as very special conference to me. I was so humbled to be able to do the keynote there to share ideas and thoughts of my predecessors.

Because I’m from Japan, AND, this conference is named “Agile Roots”, I thought I should bring something very unique from Japan and also suitable for this “Roots” conference.

Japan’s influence to Agile and Lean

The right map is the map (by Yasunobu Kawaguchi) of the Agile and Lean concept I showed to the audience. The particular parts I talked about in the conference are marked (1) and (2) and here are the slide decks.

• (1) Keynote: People As the Conveyer of Knowledge: Learning from Prof. Nonaka, grandfather of Scrum

People As the Conveyor of Knowledge from Kenji Hiranabe

In 1986, Prof. Ikujiro Nonaka co-wrote a well-known paper “The New New Product Development Game” with Prof.Takeuchi and coined the word “Scrum” which is later referred to by Jeff Sutherland, Ken Schwaber, and Mike Beedle in their modern Scrum in Agile development context. In my keynote, I presented some important ideas about “how knowledge is created” and “who is the center of the knowledge creation”, discussed in the Nonaka’s Scrum concept but not yet discussed in the Agile world, also why “Design Thinking” (or empathy to the users through experience) should be inserted into the first part of the development!

I also wanted to share the “missing links” between his original Scrum thought and the current implementation of Scrum in the Agile world.

My Scrum Book co-authored by Prof. Nonaka

This topic is also written in a newly published Japanese book “Agile and Scrum: Collaborative Software Development and the Leadership That Connects Customers, Engineers and Management”, co-authored by Ikujiro Nonaka and me, which will be translated into English – hopefully. :)

Here’s Mary Poppendieck’s comment on my presentation.

I really enjoyed your keynote at Agile Roots in Utah.  I particularly like the idea of establishing empathy, and the example of the bread machine.  This is a good example of why empathy is more important than data in deciding how to build great products.

• (2) Drink Lean From The Source

Drink Lean from the Source — mind map

I shared the roots of Lean concepts including Kaizen (Continuous Improvement), Gemba (Go See), Muda-Dori (Waste Elimination), WIP limitation, Pull production system, and “People” as the center of the process via a Japanese video.

I’m not sure our cultural differences were well communicated by my translation, but the audience looked they were enjoying. (Did you ?)

I also enjoyed…

• Aaron Skonnard (CEO, Pluralsight)’s keynote “Creating a Company Culture” (This talk was fascinating!! I was so inspired by Aaron as CEO myself)

  Aaron from Pluralsight

• Nawoto’s “How to Bootstrap an Agile Project with Lean Canvas and Inception Deck”

  Nawoto

• Tsuda-san’s “Learn How to Manage Backlog from Toyota Kanban Concepts”

  Tsuda san

• Mary’s “Efficiency Paradox” (You are always cool!)

  Mary’s Efficiency Paradox

• Lisa’s Lean Coffee (Very early morning !)

  With Lisa

• Keith Sparkjoy (cofounder, Pluralsight)’s,”What I Learned from Dr. Deming” (We shared the concept of Dr.Deming together in our sessions)

Lastly, I’ll share this funniest video I took while Willem Larsen’s “Language Hunting”.  Here is how “Japanese” is hunted (See funny Aaron!).

It was a fun conference!

Thank you Kay/Zhon Johansen, Aaron Sanders, Woody/Andrea Zuill(nice talk and artworks), Diana/Willem Larsen(you guys are always energetic), Mary/Tom Poppendieck, Jeff Patton, Israel Gadd(we finally met in person!), Nawoto Nishimura, Ushio Tsuyoshi, Kiro Harada, Tsuda-san, Kenrink, Rob Myers, Timothy Collinson, Andy Mohlman, Jennifer Stone, Margot Dear, Todd Little(Mr. Roots of Lean), Lisa Crispin(Congrats to your new book!), Steve McGee(come to Japan!), Llewellyn Falco(Coolest lightning talks on Math/Quantamn), …. and many more…

Thank you Kay Johansen (@utahkay) again for inviting me to such a great conference in  such a heart-warming way! I heard the conference is ran by voluntary organizers, thank you very very much for this wonderful opportunity!

PS: I also had booklets to hand-out of my white paper “Modeling in the Agile Age - What to Keep Next to Code to Scale Agile Teams”. If you couldn’t get one, you can read it online (“Modeling in the Agile Age” under [PDF] down below on our website or InfoQ)

-Kenji