Monday, November 05, 2012

What can we expect at the Kanban Leadership Retreat in San Diego this month?

The Kanban Leadership Retreat consultants’ camp format unconference is coming up in San Diego later this month. What topics can we expect on the program and amongst those hotly debated by Kanban consultants, trainers and corporate change agents?...

My feeling is transitions from Scrum will have a much bigger part to play as the American market adoption seems heavily skewed to adding Kanban to challenged Scrum implementations.

Here is a list of things I think will be on the program…

Current areas of innovation in Kanbanland include

Depth of Kanban

I expect to see some debate over the absolute assessment of practice adoption (begins to look like a CMMI style appraisal) for organizational comparison versus the relative assessment for driving improvement and kaizen (as posted by Pawel Brodzinski, for example)

Kanban Kata

It was obvious at Lean Kanban Central Europe that Hakan Forss has stirred things up with his interpretation of Toyota Kata. I’d like to see more discussion about it. Personally, I believe it takes us forward

Lean Risk Management

My two key notes in Vienna and Utrecht and recent speeches in Berlin and Munich have given this topic momentum. People are ready for more risk dimensions than just cost of delay. Classes of service is a deep topic. Alumni of my 3-day coaching workshop have already had exposure to this stuff

Simulation

Unfortunately Troy Magennis can’t make it for family reasons but I expect Monte Carlo simulation to be a big topic and perhaps we’ll see some live sessions creating SimML?

Coaching Role Transitions

It’s emerging that changing the self-image and social group fabric is the means to insure institutionalization of changes. Hence, Kanban’s “start with what you do now” and “initially, respect roles, responsibilities and job titles” means that much of Kanban coaching is about support during personal J-curves - role transitions - as people find their role changing - from Scrummaster or PO to Risk Manager or Risk Management Facilitator, for example.

Virginia Satir’s material finally finds its way into Kanbanland.

Wild Cards

What else do you expect to see on the program in San Diego? Perhaps the Dave Snowden fans will flood the program with discussions on application of Kanban to complex domain problems? Cynefin seems perennially popular with our community but is it making its way into pragmatic solutions actually used in the field?

Registration

If you’d like to be part of this event and contribute to the state-of-the-art in Kanban then register now. It’s a great venue and a great all inclusive price!

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

What People Are Saying About My 3-day Advanced Masterclass

Alumni of my coaching and leadership masterclass for advanced Kanban practitioners have taken the time to tell us why they valued the experience and what it means for them and their clients…

Jeff Anderson of Deloitte in Toronto said

The instruction and coaching I received as part of the Kanban leadership class has added foundational thinking tools to effect organizational change.  As the lead for Deloitte LEAN, a service offering dedicated to helping technology workers excel in their craft, I can speak first hand to the influence David’s class has had on how I have conducted numerous large scale organizational transformation initiatives.

Read more…

I’m very delighted I participated in this Kanban masterclass, with trainer and author David Andersson and a group of very experienced agile coaches. The class gave me lots of hands on advice and new insights about change management, process evolution and communication in different levels of organizations, with techies as well as executives.

After this class I can understand more about what’s happening at my workplace and how I can address serious issues in agile transitions or taking the next step in mature organizations and teams.

I also learned about implementing change in small steps and how Kanban differs from some other common agile approaches.

I highly recommend this class for anyone interested in change management and work processes in IT heavy organizations. Also for you who believe you already know everything about Kanban & Lean - there is always much more too learn.”

Ulrika Park, Stockholm

The distinctive blend of content and culture that characterizes this community continues to draw me and more importantly others in our organization back for more.  Through his work (grounded in the work of Donald Reinertsen), we have learned how to make a start at organically transforming our organization. We have learned from Books, Blogs, Videos, Conferences LSSC et. al., introductory training, advanced training, leadership retreats. We have learned about culture.  We have seen healthy culture.  We look forward to learning more.

The Advanced training is an opportunity to hear DJA’s latest thinking and experience reports from the field. You will get a chance to meet others working some of the same problems in their places of work.

Gary Perkerwicz, Minneapolis

As a process consultant, I found the three day class to be an excellent investment. By the end of the workshop, I was much more confident in my ability to assist clients in implementing the Kanban method in their organizations. The knowledge I gained allowed me to be to be more productive and in the end, more valuable to my clients. Because of this additional value I was able to provide, I was quickly able to recoup my investment.

Steve Porter, Canada

Since LeanKit makes Kanban products for knowledge workers, David Anderson’s books literally created the market that we serve. So we naturally have the highest gratitude and respect for him as a trailblazer and thought leader. But, authors and thought leaders can sometimes be, well, academic - their advice not practical when it comes time to implement. That’s not at all the case with David. Several of us have attended his classes and Kanban Leadership Retreats and we plan to send more of our team in the future. His teaching style is engaging and practical. His material is rich with real world examples. And the caliber of fellow attendees, and the conversation that engenders, is phenomenal. David and his team are on the elite short list of Lean-Kanban trainers around the globe

Jon Terry, LeanKit Kanban, Nashville

I attended the 3-day coaching and leadership class ran by David Anderson of David J Anderson and associates. I found this class very interesting and useful, the interactive nature and the depth of knowledge and stories that David brought to the class brought the concepts that are covered in his book Kanban: Successful Evolutionary Change for Your Technology Business to life.

I found this class valuable and would recommend it to anyone who is interested in deeper understanding of the Kanban method.

Nader Talai, London

This Kanban masterclass has helped me to deeply understand the Kanban method, with a more organizational and management point of view. Advanced topics such as change and risks management, and other models have been covered, which makes it complementary to David’s Kanban training class.

The workshop format allows great conversations with other Kanban practitioners with different contexts, and different implementations, leads by David, which brings the real richness of this class.

Laurent Morriseau, France

We had the pleasure of attending the Kanban Leadership Workshop in Vienna 2011. The format was very open and flexible and this allowed us to elaborate and dig down into details to a level that you normally doesn’t do in other, normal training. So if you want to go beyond the normal skill and really master Kanban, this is the one training you should attend!

The workshop gave us an extra dimension to Kanban where the bits and pieces come to place. The Workshop also gave us the opportunity to discuss Kanban from our reality. It was also great to get the opportunity to discuss things like leadership, management issues and risk handling.

So from our point of view it was very well spent days, which gave us the extra understanding that was needed in order to be able to have a good Kanban implementation in our company and to be able to act as good coaches for Kanban.

Petra Hallin, Asa Zetterlund, Anders Jonsson, Volvo IT, Gothernburg, Sweden

I referred to David’s coaching and leadership class a “master class” with good reason. As a musician, I’ve been to many master classes where you are able to spend focused time on specific challenges with the best of the best. That is what David’s coaching and leadership class felt like - rewarding time with other accomplished professionals and “the masters.” That is a rare opportunity in today’s professional training environment.

Michael Robillard, McKesson, Colorado

I attended David Anderson’s 3-day Kanban Leadership Workshop in January 2012. The workshop combined in depth discussion, interactive workshop activities, and a Kanban game experience in a fluid, small class environment. My keen interests in exploring specific topics—including upstream Kanban, change management, Kanban design, pull criteria, metrics, and more—were thoroughly satisfied.

A chief benefit of attending is that the master in Kanban for software products, David Anderson, delivers this course. I found the ability to dive deep, test out ideas for handling issues for specific projects, interact with other experienced lean and Kanban experts, and learning from “the master” to be a rich, intense, and rewarding experience.

Ellen Gottesdiener

I was fortunate to be able to take David Anderson’s Kanban Leadership Class. If I base my understanding of Kanban only on books and discussion groups and blogs it remains flat and lifeless.  The guided interactions with David and the rest of the class brought Kanban to life for me. The experience enabled me to view Kanban with the passion and depth that are necessary when working with those that are new to it. I’m glad I took the course and I hope to take it again.

Alan Atlas

The Kanban Coaching class provided by David J Anderson was of tremendous value to me and my organization.  Through the training I gained a deeper understanding of the principles that are the foundation of the Kanban method and of approaches to applying those principles in various situations.  Another benefit was learning the value of trading the many times hostile and defensive relationship we have with other internal organizations and with customers, to one of humility, open collaboration and partnership.  That alone yielded immediate benefits upon my return from the training by improving the conversations and reducing impedance.

Miguel O Alvarez

Thursday, October 04, 2012

Calculating PPP Adjustments for Lean-Kanban University Pricing

I thought I’d share some of the internal workings of Lean-Kanban University. More and more, I find that my day job is becoming the CEO of Lean-Kanban University and less and less it is about delivering Kanban training to clients and attendees of open classes. LKU is growing into a global training business and some aspects of its operations and business model are quite novel. For example, were you aware that LKU adjusts its pricing for purchasing power parity in many countries of the world? This means that member companies operating in countries with lower cost economies can price their training accordingly and pay fees to LKU in accordance with what they can afford. Today, I was asked to calculate a PPP adjustment for Romania. This is how it was done…

Background on PPP

Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) is a trick used by economists to normalize the value and costs of goods and services across different economies. It is accepted practice to report Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in PPP adjusted US Dollar equivalent. This enables the economy of one country to be more accurately compared to that of another. Various methods of calculating PPP have been devised. Perhaps the best known is the Big Mac Index which looks at the true cost of buying a Big Mac in different countries. However, the Big Mac index is notoriously inaccurate. For example, McDonald’s in America is a low cost restaurant chain offering burgers to the masses at low prices. In some developing nations, however, McDonald’s is positioned as a premium brand for rich upper-middle class knowledge workers and the restaurants are placed in flashy shopping malls. As a result, a burger is unusually expensive in these countries. For Lean-Kanban University we have needed to research a more reliable and fairer mechanism for calculating PPP adjustments.

Anecdotal Experience

We use a number of data points to validate our PPP adjustments. The first is actual experience from visiting these countries. Generally, I get to visit the countries of LKU member firms every year or two, perhaps several times per year. So far there isn’t a member in a country that I haven’t visited in recent memory. This may change soon though. When I’m visiting I look at the cost of basic goods and services and I also speak with people at client firms and get an understanding of their lifestyle and often their pay and how it relates to levels in the United States. This led to a more rigorous approach…

The Development Manager Index

We now research the gross salary levels for a software development manager with around 15 years industry experience and 2 or more years of experience managing a department of 15 to 30 people. Often salaries are expressed as net amounts of take home pay per month, so we have to research the tax deductions and extrapolate an annual gross amount. We also normalize for big cities. So we don’t compare a rural area or small town salary with a big city in the United States or vice-versa.

Romania

My research today taught me that Romania and Bulgaria have similar economies with some minor differences. For PPP purposes they can be treated as similar. This was convenient as my Kanban book is now available in Bulgarian and there will be Kanban promotional events and classes offered in Bulgaria in 2013. So I got two PPP adjustment factors for the price of a single research effort. First I contacted some Romanians that I know in the industry. I was in luck. A good friend who had spent many years living in Italy recently returned to Romania where he works as the enterprise architect for the offshore arm of an American media company. He gave me some excellent salary information. It seems the net monthly salary expressed in Euros is in the range 2000-2200. This grosses up to 3600-4000 per month. Expressed in US Dollars this is 4680 to 5200. If we take the mid-point of this we get $59,280 as an annual gross salary.

Cost of Living Adjustment

However, we also have to examine the cost of living in Romania compared to a large American or Central European city. There are various data available for this but I chose this one which uses basket of goods and services and normalizes for $1.00. The result is $0.70.

If we then divide the gross salary by this fraction, we get an idea of the buying power of the salary in Romania compared to an average for the EU. This gives us approximately $85,000 USD per year.

Comparing to US Levels

While salaries vary across the US and from one metropolitan area to another and we could access professional tools such as IEEE Salary Survey to get precise data, we work with information from our knowledge of the Seattle market. We would expect a Development Manager role to pay across a range with perhaps a median point of around $140,000. If we then compare this to a cost of living adjusted $85,000 in Romania, we get a ratio of approximate 0.6

Comparing our Dev Mgr Index with the Big Mac Index

One mechanism for establishing a Big Mac Index PPP adjustment is to look at how long a worker in a McDonald’s has to work in order to earn enough to buy a Big Mac in that country. If we look at this evidence, it shows us that the Romanian and Bulgarian economies are similar. It also shows us that there is a 6x difference between the United States and Romania in terms of the true cost of a Big Mac. This would suggest a PPP adjustment ratio of 0.16. This is a significantly different result to our 0.6 calculated using the Development Manager Index. So far our research has shown, in countries such as Chile, that the Development Manager Index is proving a much fairer method to calculate PPP and adjust Lean-Kanban University fees for local markets.

Conclusion

Lean-Kanban University now has a PPP adjustment ratio of 0.6 for Romania and Bulgaria. This means any firms joining LKU in these countries, or consultants applying for the KCP designation, or member firms requesting the issuing of certificates to trainees will pay 0.6x the US level fees. It is through mechanisms like this that Lean-Kanban University is able to grow the Kanban training business globally. By making the pricing fair and affordable for emerging markets and economies, membership and grow and high quality Kanban training can be made available at fair and affordable prices throughout the world.

Advanced Kanban Masterclass - Karlsruhe, GERMANY - 19-21 Nov

This 3-day leadership & coaching masterclass is for advanced Kanban practitioners, consultants, coaches, change agents and managers. Spend 3-day of intense study with pioneer of Kanban, David J. Anderson. This workshop is limited to just 12 people. Achieve the educational requirements for the Kanban Coaching Professional designation from Lean-Kanban University.

This masterclass with the pioneer of Kanban is ideal for anyone tasked with leading a change initiative in their organization or at a client organization in the next year. It is suitable for managers, process engineers, change agents, experienced process or project management coaches and consultants. Existing Kanban practitioners with 1 year of experience, or those who have previously taken an accredited 2-day Kanban class and are actively using Kanban at work are welcome. Attendees are expected to be familiar with the content of the book, “Kanban - Successful Evolutionary Change for your Technology Business.

The Kanban Method takes a evolutionary, cultural approach to capability development, improvement and organizational performance. These intensive 3-day workshops are intended to transfer the knowledge and skills to enable you to lead Lean transformations using the Kanban Method. This is your opportunity to get your hard questions answered by the founder of the method and to develop deep ties in the community and network with fellow practitioners. All attendees will receive an automatic invitation to future Kanban Leadership Retreats - our series 2-day “consultants’ camp” format open space events for advanced practitioners and leaders in our community.

Register today!
USD $4000 per person
EARLY BIRD SPECIAL $3500 USD per person through October 31, 2012!

A copy of the Kanban book in physical or electronic format will be supplied upon registration. Attendees will maximize the value if they are already familiar with the material. Attendees who already have a copy of the Kanban book can opt to receive a copy of Lessons in Agile Management in hard copy format only, as an alternative.

The intent of limiting the workshop to a maximum of 12 attendees (typical attendance is around 8 people) is to have an interactive collaborative session designed to facilitate knowledge sharing and learning. Attendees should come prepared to discuss their own experiences with Kanban and challenging situations they’ve faced with change initiatives at clients or employers

The workshop will open with a round table of introductions and shared Kanban experience. Each participant will be asked for a list of questions they’d like answered over the 3 day session and from this a topic backlog will be built. David will augment this backlog with essential topics and foundational material. The agenda for the remaining time will then be set to insure the fullest of coverage and the maximum value for all participants. The focus will be on shared experience and discussion of the hard questions that clients and team members ask coaches during the introduction of Lean ideas through the use of a kanban pull system. The workshop will include the use of the Kanban Sim by Focused Objective and the option of playing the GetKanban game simulation during one evening. The objective is to understand the use of games and simulation as tools for training and planning in the workplace.

The goal is to enable participants to go back into the field and successfully coach Agile/Lean transitions using the Kanban approach. Every workshop is different because of the unique experiences of each participant and their specific focus and desired outcomes. Each participant will have completed the educational requirements for the Kanban Coaching Professional (KCP) designation from Lean-Kanban University. Proceeding with, and achieving KCP status is optional and will require participants to submit an application to Lean-Kanban University and present to a review panel who will examine their experience and knowledge before granting KCP status.

Kanban offers process coaches and managers another tool in their transformation toolbox. It offers an evolutionary approach to change that focuses on the culture of the organization. Attendees will be introduced to the 3 Kanban Kata that are core to the approach. Kanban is proving to be a facilitator of evolutionary change with low resistance and an enabler of accelerated achievement of high levels of organizational maturity. Organizations embracing Kanban have been seen to improve predictability, risk management, governance and their capability to manage and embrace change.

Location: Karlsruhe, GERMANY
Dates: 19-21 November
Venue: Renaissance Hotel (Marriott), Karlsruhe

Wednesday, October 03, 2012

Advanced Kanban Masterclass - Charlotte NC - Nov 15-17

This 3-day masterclass is for advanced Kanban practitioners, consultants, coaches, change agents and managers. Spend 3-day of intense study with pioneer of Kanban, David J. Anderson. This workshop is limited to just 12 people. Achieve the educational requirements for the Kanban Coaching Professional designation from Lean-Kanban University.

This 3-day masterclass with the pioneer of Kanban is for anyone tasked with leading a change initiative in their organization or at a client organization in 2012 and beyond. It is suitable for managers, process engineers, change agents, experienced process or project management coaches and consultants. Existing Kanban practitioners with 1 year of experience, or those who have previously taken an accredited 2-day Kanban class and are actively using Kanban at work are welcome. Attendees are expected to be familiar with the content of the book, “Kanban - Successful Evolutionary Change for your Technology Business.

The Kanban Method takes a evolutionary, cultural approach to capability development, improvement and organizational performance. These intensive 3-day workshops are intended to transfer the knowledge and skills to enable you to lead Lean transformations using the Kanban Method. This is your opportunity to get your hard questions answered by the founder of the method and to develop deep ties in the community and network with fellow practitioners. All attendees will receive an automatic invitation to future Kanban Leadership Retreats - our series 2-day “consultants’ camp” format open space events for advanced practitioners and leaders in our community.

Register today!
$3500 per person

A copy of the Kanban book in physical or electronic format will be supplied upon registration. Attendees will maximize the value if they are already familiar with the material. Attendees who already have a copy of the Kanban book can opt to receive a copy of Lessons in Agile Management in hard copy format only, as an alternative.

The intent of limiting the workshop to a maximum of 12 attendees (typical attendance is around 8 people) is to have an interactive collaborative session designed to facilitate knowledge sharing and learning. Attendees should come prepared to discuss their own experiences with Kanban and challenging situations they’ve faced with change initiatives at clients or employers

The workshop will open with a round table of introductions and shared Kanban experience. Each participant will be asked for a list of questions they’d like answered over the 3 day session and from this a topic backlog will be built. David will augment this backlog with essential topics and foundational material. The agenda for the remaining time will then be set to insure the fullest of coverage and the maximum value for all participants. The focus will be on shared experience and discussion of the hard questions that clients and team members ask coaches during the introduction of Lean ideas through the use of a kanban pull system. The workshop will include the use of the Kanban Sim by Focused Objective and the option of playing the GetKanban game simulation during one evening. The objective is to understand the use of games and simulation as tools for training and planning in the workplace.

The goal is to enable participants to go back into the field and successfully coach Agile/Lean transitions using the Kanban approach. Every workshop is different because of the unique experiences of each participant and their specific focus and desired outcomes. Each participant will have completed the educational requirements for the Kanban Coaching Professional (KCP) designation from Lean-Kanban University. Proceeding with, and achieving KCP status is optional and will require participants to submit an application to Lean-Kanban University and present to a review panel who will examine their experience and knowledge before granting KCP status.

Kanban offers process coaches and managers another tool in their transformation toolbox. It offers an evolutionary approach to change that focuses on the culture of the organization. Attendees will be introduced to the 3 Kanban Kata that are core to the approach. Kanban is proving to be a facilitator of evolutionary change with low resistance and an enabler of accelerated achievement of high levels of organizational maturity. Organizations embracing Kanban have been seen to improve predictability, risk management, governance and their capability to manage and embrace change.

Location: Charlotte, NC USA
Venue: TBD