About the Authors

Before we set out on this journey together, it might be interesting for you to get to know us a bit. Here we are—plain and simple:

JOAKIM is a thinker, the brains in our dynamic duo. He often lets a person talk for quite a while before he makes up his mind what to say, and then he responds with something profound meant to make them think. This annoys some people, because they usually just want to know what “to do.” He has solid theoretical knowledge in all things Lean, agile, and about the Toyota Production System. And he has a lot of practical experience to go along with it, too.

In his spare time, Joakim is a foodie and a movie buff, and quotes from obscure Danish dogma movies sneak into his conversations from time to time (much to the confusion of those around him).

Joakim has four kids (ages zero to nine) and a wife (Anna) and still manages to be engaged in the progress of the company he works for (Spotify) and the Lean and agile communities in Sweden and around the world. He’s a regular speaker at international conferences.

MARCUS is a doer and thus the muscle of the pair, to continue with the “dynamic duo” metaphor. He prefers to try something out and fail rather than think about doing it right the first time. This leads to him having do stuff over and over again—much to his irritation and the amusement of others.

Marcus has approached the Lean and kanban communities from a developer’s perspective and has a strong interest in the practices that make these ideas work in the wild: test-driven development, pair programming, specification by example, and impact mapping, among others.

When he has time, he can be found blogging or at the Salvation Army or reading up on the latest brass-band news. Trying to incorporate much of that into work-related situations is both hard and pretty much useless, as you can probably imagine.

Marcus is married to Elin, and they have three boys (5, 3, and 3 years old^[1]). By the time you read this, they will all have moved to Indonesia, where Marcus will work for the Salvation Army. He will lead the work at a foundation, for the Salvation Army’s 6 hospitals and 13 clinics in Indonesia. This will, of course, be done in an agile, Lean fashion, drawing inspiration from and using the techniques found in this book. Marcus will also teach brass instruments to the youngsters at the Salvation Army orphanages.

¹ Yes, the last two are twins.