New Class Aimed at Developing Change Management Capability
Over the summer I blogged my thoughts on why developing a change management capability was so vital to enable successful process transitions and improvement initiatives. My own approach is cultural and focused on developing an institutional evolutionary capability. However, I recognize that just being able to managed a defined transition is a challenge. So I’ve teamed up with Bob Lewis of IT Catalysts to offer a new 2-day class aimed squarely at teaching IT organizations how to develop a change management capability to successful lead and management improvement initiatives. The first of these classes is being offered in Washington, DC, later this month…
Bob Lewis
I’ve admired Bob Lewis’ work since the mid-1990s. I remember my boss, Jeff De Luca, program director of the now famous “Singapore project” where Feature-driven Development was born, was a big fan. Bob has been the face of plain speaking, no nonsense, pragmatic, actionable guidance for at least a couple of decades. As an experience CIO, his IS Survival Guide, remains one of the most useful books on management and most practical guides that a new manager in the IT can field can read. Bob’s pragmatic, realistic approach influenced our thinking back in Singapore and has guided me on my journey since then. I’m delighted that Bob has agreed to be a key note speaker at our Lean Kanban North America conference in Chicago next May. I’m sure that our growing community will enjoy his pragmatism and embrace his challenging skepticism about Lean in IT work.
Business Change Management Seminar
Meanwhile, who better to partner with to develop a class on organizational change management capability than the author of Bare Bones Change Management? I recognized that Kanban and institutionalizing evolutionary capability may be important but providing a framework for change management across a whole IT organization was probably a more pragmatic first step. Meanwhile, why reinvent the wheel. Bob Lewis has a tried and tested framework and an unquestionable credibility in this space. It was logical that we should team up to offer a 2-day seminar on business change management for your organization.
Synthesized Concepts
Our new 2-day seminar brings together Bob’s 7 point framework for managing change at scale and synthesizes my ideas on changing organizational culture and developing evolutionary capability with Kanban. Together it is a powerful combination. We’ll look at why individuals resist change and what you can do about it. How to mitigate the risk of resistance and how to build the capabilities in your organization to lead and management successful change initiatives.
Who Should Attend?
Are you a CIO, VP or director facing new business challenges beyond the current capabilities or your organization? Do you need to lead change in order to deliver on expectations? Then this seminar is for you!
Are you a corporate change agent, process engineer, internal coach or external consultant tasked with implementing change to deliver on urgent and critical business needs? Then this seminar is for you!
Why attend?
Most change initiatives fail. Most attempts to adopt new and improved methods, such as Agile or Lean, fail, not because these methods are poor but because the organization lacks the capability to manage change. Don’t waste your investment on Agile or Lean! Improve your chances of success by properly understanding how to manage change and what you must do to create an organizational change management capability. This seminar is packed with pragmatic actionable guidance that will enable you to return to your organization and put in place the skills and capabilities to deliver successful change and successfully meet your business challenges in 2013.
Register now!
We’re offering two of these new classes in 2012. The first in Washington, DC at the end of October and the second in Los Angeles in December.
The KCP program comes as a direct response to community reaction after the launch of the Accredited Kanban Trainer program in February 2012. On the Kanbandev list some prominent community members expressed dissatisfaction that the AKT designation was showing favoritism to those who offer Kanban training classes, while those who were doing great work within corporations were going unrecognized by the authoritative body that controls the quality standards for the Kanban Method.
This was a real and genuine concern. The AKT program was never intended to cast a negative light on those who don’t teach. Its intent was always a positive one of bringing quality standards to Kanban training throughout the world and building trust in the LKU brand for corporate training.
For those who have taken advanced Kanban training, my coaching and leadership workshop as it was known, now the Advanced Masterclass, they will instantly recognize the sociology in this situation, it is both tribal and relative. By giving a designation to some members of the tribe, it was interpreted as a slight on the others. Professional and experienced Kanban coaches would not only recognize this behavior, they ought to be able to predict it. So today, Lean-Kanban University fixes this tribal issue by introducing a designation for those experienced in leading and coaching Kanban change initiatives.
Organization and Structure
The KCP program will be controlled by an advisory board. This board is chaired by me and initially includes Mike Burrows (Positive Incline, UK), Jeff Anderson (Deloitte LEAN, Canada), Klaus Leopold (LEANability, Austria), Håkan Forss (Avega Group, Sweden), Michael Robillard (McKesson, USA), Laurent Morriseau (Morriseau Consulting, France), Chris Shinkle (SEP, USA), and Stephen Reid (Ultimate Software, USA). The advisory board will set the requirements for achieving KCP status and will appoint review panels for each application. The review panels will consist of advisory board and charter members who volunteer to serve on a panel to review new applications. There are a considerable number of people in the community who already meet the requirements for the program. Each of them is being invited to join as a charter member. These invitations are going out overnight.
Requirements
Applicants for the KCP designation are currently required to have completed a 3-day Advanced Kanban Masterclass. Currently, such classes are only offered by David J. Anderson & Associates. After completing the educational requirements, applicants must submit an application to the advisory board detailing their experience leading Kanban initiatives. A panel will then be appointed to review their case. The panel may request a face-to-face interview and these interviews are likely to happen at Lean Kanban conferences and Kanban Leadership Retreats. An annual fee is levied for KCP members. The fee is adjusted, like all LKU fees, for purchasing power parity, in some regions and countries. This makes involvement in LKU affordable for those in countries where their currency has a low value and the cost of living is relatively cheap in comparison with the United States.
How do I get started on the road to KCP?
For complete beginners the road to KCP starts by attending a 2-day accredited Kanban training class offered by one of over 20 member companies throughout the world. For those already with Kanban experience the second stage is to attend a 3-day Advanced Kanban Masterclass. These advanced classes take up where the Kanban book leaves off. These 3-days of intensive content involve material not yet published or not easily discoverable - presented at conferences or in blog posts in years gone by. Following this, those leading Kanban initiatives must gain experience and document it before submitting an application to the KCP advisory board. The next two 3-day classes are in Chicago and Stockholm in September. Sign up now to progress on your personal journey to the KCP designation.
Advantages of Becoming a KCP
Lean-Kanban University hopes to build a trusted brand around the KCP designation. We already know that alumni of the advanced 3-day classes have a much higher chance of success leading Kanban initiatives than those who have not attended. Learning the psychology and sociology of change initiatives and understanding how to avoid basic mistakes that invoke resistance are elementary to the 3-day training. Graduates of the 3-day training are automatically invited to Kanban Leadership Retreat events and together as a group they have a shared language. They understand why “Kanban should be like water” and why the philosophy of Bruce Lee provides an important framing for the Kanban Method. They understand the answer to the question, “How many Kanban coaches does it take to change a lightbulb?” They understand how to identify the rocks that will stand in the way of successful change within an organization and they learn how to design kanban systems so that those rocks are motivated to change or simply diminish and go away. Coaching Kanban is about judgment, system thinking, and knowing how to design a system to catalyze a desirable outcome. Those bearing the new KCP designation are trusted by Lean-Kanban University to know these skills and to utilize them to delivery superior results when leading improvement initiatives.
I’m offering up to 40 days of consulting and training for free to a maximum of 20 clients over the next 17 months. If you are interested in taking advantage of this offer read on…
Background
During our Kanban Leadership Retreat in Austria this past June, a major topic of discussion was mainstream adoption of Kanban and how we might encourage Kanban to “cross Moore’s chasm” between early adopters and a mainstream market. There are lots of signs that Kanban is currently in the Moore’s chasm. I laid some of these out in my “State of Kanbanland” talk in Boston in May. More evidence has come to light and been reported to me by training and consulting firms and Kanban software vendors. The nature of the market is changing and the people inquiring and curious about Kanban represent a different segment than those who got involved earlier.
One critical factor in turning curious mainstream market leads into buyers who adopt Kanban is to provide them with reassurance that they are not pioneers and that the risk is low. To do this, we need case studies across a range of industries, business sizes and geographic locations. I’m often asked, “are people doing this in areas outside of IT?” The answer is “Yes!” but we don’t have those stories captured. Sometimes the question is more specific, “Is anyone doing this in an HR department?” Again the answer is “Yes!” but those cases are not captured in a consumable form. I want to tour the world and capture these stories.
The Offer
So here is the deal. I will offer 2 to 4 days of my time on 1 or 2 visits to your company. There will be no charge for my time and you can use it as you see fit - training, consulting, coaching, advising senior managers, public speaking. In exchange, you will cover all my travel expenses and allow me to use your story in a future book. Some conditions will apply and these can be negotiated on an individual basis. Ideally I would like to be able to name real people in the stories and real companies, however, some allowance to disguise people and companies can be made. Other terms and conditions may apply. I reserve the right to decline any request for this offer without giving a reason. The free days offered must be taken up before the end of 2013. I am likely to choose to allocate these 40 days across a range of Kanban implementations in different industries, countries and company sizes. My aim is to produce a book for early 2014 publication that will catalyze the mainstream adoption of Kanban. I hope you will be able to help me. This offer expires September 30th, 2012.
Hats off to Jimdo for their new JimKanBan system! QR coded Kanban cards are printed, put on board, photographed at regular intervals and then sent to a server to synchronize the data with their ticketing system. Brilliant!
WTF is a pull system? A session led by Arne Roock (@arneroock) at #lkrat studied what they have coined as “Pull Behavior”, where “everyone in the workforce is empowered to decide when and which item to pull based on policies the team had agreed upon. http://www.software-kanban.de/2012/07/what-f-is-pull.html
Why do I feel (more than ever before), an incredible surge in learning? Perhaps all the material just released from Lssc12 in Boston? Perhaps the recent travel in Europe providing different reflections? I haven’t even gotten to Mayrhofen yet and my brain is revving up to make room for even more learning at the Kanban leadership retreat (#klrat). This roundup includes none other than great learning material.
News
Benjamin Mitchell’s (@benjaminm) post provides two more validations on points worthy of repetition: 1. Good intentions are not enough. 2. After standup is primo time for getting important work done. Read on for reasons why…. http://blog.benjaminm.net/2012/06/08/kanbanvisualisationsconversations/
