Monday, July 09, 2012

Why I resigned from the board of the Lean Systems Society

Yesterday Alan Shalloway and I resigned from the board of the Lean Systems Society. Doubtless Alan will want make his own public statement about his reasons for resigning so I won’t speak for him. I do, however, feel I should share my own reasons with the community.

History

At my 2009, Lean & Kanban conference, in Miami, a group of interested parties met and formed the Lean Software & Systems Consortium. Amongst many goals, the consortium envisaged building a body of knowledge for Lean in knowledge work activities, standards, curriculum and some form of certification or accreditation for those taking Lean (and Kanban) training. However, few organizations joined the consortium. Initially it was my own firm, Alan’s firm and Indigo Blue in the UK. Rally paid a membership fee and joined for one year. The board was made up mainly of people from my own firm, as well as Net Objectives and Rally with Donald Reinertsen, Jim Sutton and later Rich Turner replacing Don. All the work for the organization was done by staff of my own firm and those of Net Objectives with a not insignificant contribution from Karl Scotland (of Conchango and later Rally.) No other firms were willing to join the consortium or pay membership fees. A program initiative involving Kanban software tool vendors to develop some standards failed to gain full traction and hasn’t established anything of value. Those vendors did not join the consortium as members. This was in part due to their financial positions at the time. The only truly viable program within LSSC was the conference series within the United States that was ultimately run and bankrolled by my own firm. The Limited WIP Society which the LSS lays claim to was started by Rob Hathaway, of Indigo Blue, Karl Scotland, Janice Linden-Reed and I. It has been a considerable success mostly through the incredible efforts of Janice and to some extend Karl over the past 3 years. I’d go as far as to say the Limited WIP Society has thrived despite the LSSC rather than because of it. It is, however, one of the notable successes. It was fair to say that by April 2012 the board had concluded that the business model of the Consortium had failed and that it was time for a change of direction.

Board Meeting

In April 2012, a month prior to the 2012 conference in Boston, a board meeting was held at Janice Linden-Reed’s home in Seattle. During this board meeting it was decided that the organization needed a fresh start - a new name and a new charter. The Lean System Society was born. The name and charter inspired by my suggestion that we model the new organization on the Royal Society. In doing so, the LSS would get out of commercial activities and necessary market development activities that were happening naturally in the market without stimulation or assistance from the LSSC. This would include getting out of the conference business. My firm would continue to run the North American conference returning to the name Lean Kanban North America and falling into line with the other regional events held in Europe.

The LSS would form a fellowship to honor those who have made outstanding contributions to Lean for knowledge work. An initial list of 45 people were selected and invited to join the fellowship. Most of them accepted. A process to nominate future fellows was put in place. The LSS would take charge of the Brickell Key Award to honor recent outstanding achievers and winners would be automatically nominated to the fellowship. I had started the award in 2010 as part of the conference as an initially unilateral decision. Anyone inspecting the trophies awarded to winners will notice that the LSSC was never mentioned on them. The LSSC has however been funding the travel grant awarded to the winners. LSS considers the Brickell Key Award a sufficiently good idea that it wants to adopt it and fund it for the foreseeable future. So the LSS will have 3 initial programs: the fellowship designed to amplify the contribution of fellows; the Brickell Key Award designed to highlight the work of up-and-coming members of our community; and the Limited WIP Society.

Jim Sutton, president of the LSS, announced these changes at the Lean Software & Systems Conference in Boston in May. Phase one of the transition was complete.

Lean Kanban University

In 2011, Alan Shalloway and I launched Lean Kanban University as a web site to highlight and market quality Kanban training (and other Lean knowledge work training that may come later). In November, we expanded this business with 16 charter member firms to develop standards for teaching the Kanban Method including a defined curriculum and an accreditation program for training materials and trainers. Accredited trainers are known as AKT (Accredited Kanban Trainer.) There are now 24 member firms and this number is likely to continue growing. This program was possible because we’d taken it out of LSSC and developed it as a separate commercial entity. However, some legacy remained that the LSSC had been formed originally to develop such a program. The new LSS was not in that business but this was not explicit rather it was inferred by omission.

It was evident, however, that the market didn’t understand the difference between the two organizations and all the branding for both entities at our events was confusing.

Giving LSS Wings

I decided to resign from the LSS board and encouraged Alan to do the same, in order to clearly communicate that Lean Kanban University and Lean Systems Society are two separate organizations with separate goals and purposes.

I believe that after 3 years, it is time for some fresh blood on the LSS board and that new people, with new energy and enthusiasms will help it to thrive and build its own identity and relevance in the market. I consider this move the completion of phase 2 of the transition from LSSC to LSS

What’s next for LSS?

Currently there are two open positions on the board of LSS and the remaining board members are looking to appoint two members from the fellowship to fill these positions. Alan and I will not get any say in the new appointments. It is, however, my desire to see some diversity on the LSS board and I would encourage the board to consider appointing a European and a South American to fill the open positions. And so phase 3 of the transition begins. With the appointment of new board members I believe the transition will be complete and the LSSC will be dead. Long live the Lean Systems Society!

Saturday, April 21, 2012

Lean Kanban Southern Europe Madrid 9-10 May

I’m proud to be the opening key note speaker at the first Lean Kanban Southern Europe Conference in Madrid, Spain next month. This small event is an attempt to emulate the first Lean Kanban conference in Miami in 2009 and catalyze the emergence of a strong community in Spain and Portugal. It’s a 2 day event with a single track of top quality international speakers the first day with 2 tracks on the 2nd day, one offering a full day of Spanish presentations with speakers from Spain, USA, Peru and Argentina. The pricing makes the event accessible for Spanish and Portuguese attendees in these tough economic times and makes this a truly low cost opportunity to learn Kanban and meet some of the leading practitioners from around Europe and further afield. There is still time to register. Pricing starts at 445 euros + VAT. Register now! Come enjoy Madrid and build your network of Limited WIP Society members

I’m particularly proud of the program we’ve put together for a smaller regional event. We’re working with the assumption that much of the audience will be new to Lean thinking in software product development and IT services and learning about Kanban for the first time. The first day is a single track designed to give attendees an overview and basic understanding of Kanban and how and where it is being used. This first day includes a presentation of the award winning Kanban implementation at BBVA by Atos Origin consultants, Oscar Garrido and Erika Weiss that earned them a Brickell Key Award nomination at the Lean Software & Systems Conference in Boston the following week.

The speaker lineup in Madrid is also very impressive as well as the quality of the businesses represented. Brickell Key award winner, David Joyce, on his way from Australia to Boston, will break his travel to give the 2nd key note. David is always an entertaining, informative speaker with beautiful presentations. As well as the BBVA case study from Spain, Angel Diaz, will present his experiences at ING Direct. Sticking with the financial industry, Eileen Shuter will tell the story of Vanguard, an American pensions firm, and their 3 year story of large scale Kanban adoption. From the media industry, we have Leopoldo Simini from Thomson Reuters in Argentina. Kevin Ryan will talk about portfolio level Kanban pioneered with the Financial Times. And at the other end of the scale, Nina Schwab from mobile search app startup, Tupalo in Vienna, will tell their Kanban story.

Explore the whole speaker line up for yourself. This is the truly unique opportunity to meet and share Lean and Kanban experience around Europe this spring. While a regional event, Greenlight PM have put together a high quality program and offer superb value for money. Don’t miss out. Register now! See you in Madrid!

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Lean Camp New England May 13th

One aspect of our Boston Lean Party, conference week next monththat I am particularly excited about is the full 1-day open space event that will be led by Jim Benson, Lean Camp New England. It’s available as a separate one day registration for $300. Lean Camp Registration

It has been evident from previous events that open space only works when it has a dedicated time slot on the program. This year we were restricted by venue availability to May 13-16th for the main conference. It is amazing how few venues there are in Boston for a conference of 300-450 people. Even planning more than one year in advance, we had limited choices available. When we settled on the Seaport Hotel and World Trade Center, we knew we would have Sunday, May 13th on the program. The question was, what to do with a Sunday?

The answer was create a one day open space event and make it available as a separate registration at an affordable price so that local enthusiasts for Agile methods, process improvement and Lean could come together with our elite world class invitation only speaker list and share their experiences peer-to-peer. And who better to put in charge of this than Jim Benson, the leader of the Personal Kanban movement, the founder of Lean Coffee, and organizer of the Seattle Lean Camp in 2011.

Lean Camp New England provides a unique opportunity to collaborate and share your Lean, Kanban and process improvement challenges with a truly global set of participants. Our event will feature participants from Europe, the Middle-East, South America and Australasia, together with Americans, Canadians and especially local enthusiasts from the Massachusetts and greater New England region. We can’t confirm any Asian or African participants at this time but who knows. Single day open space, “camp” events, tend to be local in nature. They help foster a community of peers but rarely is there the opportunity to integrate such an experienced set of global practitioners.

So register, come along to the World Trade Center Boston, its a spectacular venue with great views of the Boston waterfront, and make your own program - get the answers you need from the experts, and meet a whole new set of peers and turn them into long lasting friends. Lean Camp New England! The must attend event in May!

Attendees of the Lean Software & Systems Conference should insure that they also registered for Lean Camp. It may not be included in your registration.

To register visit http://lssc12.leanssc.org/ and make a date on May 13th.

Monday, April 09, 2012

Thoughts on #lssc12

The 2012 edition of our Lean Software & Systems Conference is almost upon us. I’m particularly proud of this year’s edition and the team who’ve worked hard to put it together. I thought I’d take a few minutes to reflect on why I’m referring to it as the Boston Lean Party and why I feel it will such a worthwhile gathering…

Register now! Use code DJAA200 through April 14th for the best available price.

Why Boston?

I decided to take the conference to Boston in 2012 as I felt that Lean approaches to managing software and systems engineering activities are coming of age. Boston (or more precisely, Cambridge, MA) is the academic home of Lean as we know it in the West. Boston is and has been the spiritual home of Lean Thinking for over 20 years. It was therefore time that we took our community, our thought leaders, our presentations and our anecdotal and empirical evidence to the home of Lean. It was time to underscore that Lean in knowledge work fields has to be about optimizing flow and not about waste elimination. And that counter-intuitive ideas like using kanban systems in knowledge work workflow actually enable kaizen cultures much better than an intuitive approach such as identifying non-value-adding activities performed by workers.

The Program

This year we’ve invited 3 key note speakers from outside the fields of software development and systems engineering. It was time to reach out and to further encourage the diversity and the cross-pollination that we’ve become well known for this past 3 years. So this year’s edition features Steven Spear, author of High Velocity Edge, that reports his findings from years of studying Toyota, Greg Howell, of the Lean Construction Institute who’s focus has been on building new hospitals faster and better, and from outside Lean altogether, Jochai Benkler, who’s book The Penguin and the Leviathan, looks at how to design better more cooperative human systems.

This year’s venue offers us a unique 500 seat amphitheater, so we decided to borrow another idea from the Agile conference and feature a main stage. The criteria for inclusion meant every speaker must have published a book on a relevant topic. in addition to our 3 key note speakers, our main stage will feature: Donald Reinertsen; Jim Sutton; Alan Shalloway; Michael Kennedy; Jim Benson; Hillel Glazer; Pujan Roka (another new face to this audience); Mary Poppendieck; and me. In itself the main stage is a major conference on Lean Software Development but there is more, a lot more…

Jeff Anderson from Deloitte is chairing a Learning Organizations track that features Steve Denning (Radical Management), Brant Cooper (Lean Startup), Joe Dager (Business 901) plus Jeff himself talking about how to synthesize ideas like Kanban, Lean Startup and Gamestorming.

David Joyce, Russell Healy and Benjamin Mitchell (always a good guy to stir things up a bit) are leading a 3-day Kanban track. This represents the largest Kanban conference ever held. Truly a conference within a conference. For the Kanban diehards a feast of new material and new faces from around the world.

Bob Charette will reprise his lead on the Risk track. Once again Bob has found a few new faces for us to enjoy. Troy Magennis revisits the conference but this time to talk about Monte Carlo simulation, while Brian Hagen looks at how to calculate the value of a Lean program. Mike Burrows will explain how Kanban moves risk upstream to places where it can better be managed.

And once again we make space for a pure play systems engineering track, this time with Richard Turner in the lead. Richard will be presenting some of his recent research into scheduling large scale systems engineering programs using kanban systems. Neil Siegel will look at the social context for large scale programs. Greg Yezersky is back to give us more on the General Theory of Innovation. Greg Parnell will look at identifying and measuring the value of Lean on large scale systems engineering projects. Mark McKinney looks at how to actively involve the end user in design and development of complex systems.

Lean Camp New England, May 13th

As if this were not enough, there is a full day of open space on Sunday May 13th, marketed separately as Lean Camp New England and 2 full days of tutorials also open to those who don’t attend the main conference.

Lean Action Kitchen and 2012 Brickell Key Awards

Jim Benson will also be demonstrating his culinary talents with Lean Action Kitchen (limited to 30 attendees). There will be the opening social gathering on Sunday May 13th and the gala banquet dinner for the presentation of the Brickell Key Awards. This year we have another outstanding set of nominees from around the world: Markus Andrezak; Jeff Anderson; Jim Benson; Oscar Garrido & Erika Weiss; Arne Roock; Yuval Yeret. The party after the dinner and awards will be open to all full conference attendees. Come along on the evening of May 15th and celebrate all the incredible contributions to our community.

Sponsors & Exhibit

This year we’ve seen the biggest, most positive response from sponsors to date. Software Engineering Professionals are back again as our stalwart backers, together with my own firm and Lean Kanban University taking the lead to promote accredited Kanban training. In purely alphabetical order I also need to thank Atlassian, Constant Contact, Deloitte, GBMP, Hansoft, Kanbanery, Kanbanpad, Lean Kit Kanban, Net Objectives, PMI, Rally, Swift Kanban, Target Process, Ultimate Software, and last but certainly not least as the one of only two sponsors to be with us all four years, Version One. This year’s exhibit area will be the biggest and best to date. I’m looking forward to a series of exciting product launches and updates from the many Kanban software vendors attending!

Look out also for the book table immediately outside the main stage entrance. This year it will feature the most extensive range of books from more than 10 of our speakers. It’s your chance to get your favorite books signed by the author. It will also be the first chance to purchase my new book, Lessons in Agile Managament being launched at the conference.

Organizing Team

This year’s event has been put together by a stellar team with Kelly Wilson leading on event planning with her team of Samantha Cotten, Amanda O’Rourke, Courtny Cotten, Lilian Nijboer and Janice Linden-Reed. Hillel Glazer led the program while Donna Cotton coordinated the Brickell Key Awards.

Venue

It’s the biggest! It’s the best! It’s the Boston Lean Party and it is taking place at the Seaport Hotel and World Trade Center, May 13-18, 2012. Don’t miss out! Register now!

Sunday, March 04, 2012

Microsoft launches Beta of Kanban Guide

I’d like to bring to your attention the new Practical Kanban Guide from the Microsoft ALM Rangers. Adam Gilmore in the UK has led this effort but I believe it had many contributors.

While this template doesn’t really deliver the spirit of kaizen nor easily enable the a sequence of changes and improvements, it is a big start. It will go a long way to encouraging adoption of kanban systems and a service-oriented, service-delivery model for software development. Kanban systems do help control variation in flow (mura) and eliminate overburdening (muri, if WIP limits are set even vaguely correctly). So I really want to encourage Microsoft and encourage .Net users and MSDN members to consider adopting it. It’s a step in the right direction and as a community I’d like us to get behind it and encourage it.

Get full details!