Linkdropping on NoSQL, Lean and Systems Thinking

I thought I would round up a collection of links that interested me the past few weeks on various topics. First off: NoSQL databases:

• An almost impossibly detailed run-down of NoSQL databases: http://www.vineetgupta.com/2010/01/nosql-databases-part-1-landscape.html. Part 2 should be good too.
• Slides from a talk by Emil Eifrem of Neo4j on the different types of NoSQL databases: http://www.slideshare.net/emileifrem/nosql-east-a-nosql-overview-and-the-benefits-of-graph-databases
• Update Emil Eifrem mentions in his blog post in the comment another very nice overview of the NoSQL ecosystem by Jonathan Ellis of Rackspace.

Then over to Lean and Kanban. Henrik Kniberg and Mattias Skarin just published a new book on InfoQ titled “Kanban and Scrum - making the most of both”. If you’re not familiar with Henrik Kniberg’s work, I also suggest “Scrum and XP from the trenches”. Erling Wegger Linde’s “A Kanban brown bag recipe” is also worth a read.

And in the spirit of Lean: There is a video of talk by John Seddon of Vanguard titled “Cultural Change is Free”. Mainly about systems thinking in the public sector, but private sector aren’t infallible either. Seddon often criticize Lean for being wrong in many places, but I often feel he is criticizing a wrongful implementation of lean ideas, much the same as scrum is often criticized for the misgivings of wrongful implementations. Or rather he is criticizing the tool focus of a lot of lean consultants not the lean principles themselves. And he stresses the differences between the Toyota Productions system and other kinds of organizations. You could also check out is talk “Re-thinking Lean service” on InfoQ which deals with the same topic in a slightly different packaging.