Recap of LSSC12 Conference

I just returned from the Lean Software and Systems conference in Boston. There was a definite common thread around learning cultures and a focus on treating our industry as a set of scientific experiments. The heavy influence from the Lean Startup movement was prevalent. Here are some of my takeaways for those that were not able to attend.

Steven Spear

• Greatness is achieved by increasing the pace of learning

David Anderson

• Kanban Principles

Start with what you do now

• Agree to pursue incremental evolutionary change

• Initially respect current roles responsibilities and job titles

• Encourage acts of leadership at all levels from individual contributor to senior management

• Implement feedback mechanisms added

• Steps for converting to Kanban

• Understand sources of dissatisfaction

From viewpoint of internal and external

• Source of variability that cause dissatisfaction

• Demand and capability analysis

By work item type and class of service

• Model workflow

Understand the knowledge discovery process by type

• Kanban system design

• Visualization

• Roll out plan

Steven Denning

• Dude's Law - David Hussman

Value - Why/How

• Focus on the Outcome

• The only valid purpose of a firm is to create a customer

Not create shareholder value

• Switch your focus from Outputs to Outcomes

• Customer Delight = Providing a continuous stream of value to customers and delivering it sooner

• The goal is to delight the customer. Everything else is a means to getting there

• Less is more. Aim for the simplest thing.

• Costs will come down because you will only focus on things that delight your customer

• Commands kill conversation

• Money kills inspiration

Dominica DeGrandis - Kanban for IT Operations

• Need to get visibility to dependencies because they carry risk

• Design your SLA's into your board. Create timeline like tick marks across your in progress column and move items each day.

• Problems with board where there are names for swimlanes

• Standups are focused on individuals

• Perception of poor performance

• Limits Collaboration

• Focus on utilization

• Pigeon hole folks

• Bring visibility to skill levels of different skills required on team

• Make interrupts visible

• Institute the Goalie.

Handles small interrupts

• Rotates Weekly

• Expands Knowledge base

• Gain flexibility in team

• Make a policy on when the team should create a ticket for something (i.e. takes more than 4 hours)

Jeff Patton

• Focus on Value

• Don't focus on maximizing the output, focus on maximizing the impact of the outcomes

• Think beyond the edges of the Kanban board

Arne Roock and Markus Andrezak

• "Projects" are like waterfall containers that have planning, time constraints, focus, budget and purpose

• Replace projects with epics that align to strategic goal/ outcomes. Let the team work to achieve those outcomes

Don Reinertsen

• Compared Software to Firefighting, "You don't just say this is a complex adaptive problem so we can't create a plan"

Jim Benson

• Change happens in evolutionary leaps

• Kaizen is a status quo monster

Misc

• Can run simulations through board http://www.focusedobjective.com/

• "Standard" is just the status quo written down

Some of the presentations:

• http://www.slideshare.net/cperrone/a3-kaizen-heres-how

• http://prezi.com/lobpkyhtrhf6/continuous-improvement-is-broken-lssc12/