New to the Kanban Method? Maybe you heard about it and want to learn more? Maybe you think you know what Kanban is and want to challenge your knowledge about Kanban? Than this talk is the perfect place to start.
Wolfgang will give you an introduction to the principles and practices of the Kanban Method. You’ll learn how the Kanban Method can help to improve and where you should start with your Kanban initiative.
Organizations need to cope with a fluctuating, fragmented, and often, conflicting demand. Ideas for fulfilling customer needs or solving a business problem can be generated much faster than they can be realized. This is the source of much frustration and tension (and loss of value). Improving the capability to deliver (e.g. with Kanban) only solves part of the problem as worker pull, as realized with (System) Kanban, only goes so far. What is needed is customer pull as a way to relieve the tension between those that create or capture the demand and those that fulfill the demand. In this presentation we will discuss Customer Kanban and Upstream Kanban as enablers for customer pull. They are the start of a journey towards Business Agility by engaging the whole organization, not just the delivery team.
Predictability is paramount for traditional government agencies. Knowing when certain projects will be done often sets the targets for government agency budgets and goals for contract support. Once a budget is set, change is quick to follow. What was once a performance target for an agency is likely to be irrelevant. What do you do? How do you quickly adapt in a changing environment? How do you know if your agency is fit relative to its mission or purpose?
Through a two-year case study involving an innovative software development effort at the Department of Labor, we will examine how the Kanban method and associated support technology were introduced and matured through ongoing coaching, training, and mentoring activities. Performance data will demonstrate how use of the Kanban method more than doubled the performance of two teams involved in the software development effort. By using a Systems Thinking mindset, attendees will learn practical tips, guidance, and techniques for how to transform and improve the quality, performance, and predictability of their services and teams.
75 years ago, the challenges of combat in the South Pacific were exceeding the U.S. Navy’s decision-making capabilities. Ship captains were overwhelmed with data from radars, radios and other sources. They could not make sense of their work fast enough. Today, many of us are faced with the same challenge: we have too much data and too little actionable information.
The U.S Navy’s revolutionary solution was the Combat Information Center (CIC). It distributed the cognitive load using visual tools, created a clear model of the work, and enabled faster decision-making. Effective Kanban systems accomplish the same goal, reducing our individual cognitive load while simultaneously enabling more effective decision-making across the system. I’ll describe this history, define how distributed cognition works, and give you specific ideas for how to accelerate effective decisions with your Kanban system.
To many, CMMI is a four-letter word. Pressure from organizational leaders or customers to "do CMMI” often leaves teams or individuals with little direction to move forward. What is involved in implementing CMMI, and how might it affect an organization that uses Kanban?
This session will introduce the basics of CMMI implementation and appraisals through a case study of a TriTech project that implemented Kanban and received a CMMI maturity level 3 appraisal. Attendees will receive advice for implementing CMMI in a Kanban environment.
There's a dynamic between Kanban, Complexity, Concavity / Convexity and Tribal Behavior. There's a link between David Anderson's Process Evolution, Snowden's Cynefin, Taleb's Antifragile and Ray Immelman's "Dead Boss". Usually organizations look for new process when they're fragile or resilient - when robustness takes over they face a new challenge to the next step: get Antifragile!
Learning objectives:
Summary:
Tired of constantly updating burn-up charts? Are you tired of hearing that Agile teams don’t have plans and can’t provide project end-dates?
This session will demonstrate how you can tackle these issues directly.
The case study will give you new insights into how to measure and report from your team to provide higher confidence for stakeholders and improved health-checks for the team.
**Participants in FlowLab part 1 must also sign up for and attend FlowLab part 2 **
As most organizations have had their share of experience with Agile development they are now looking at how they can make their entire business agile. A deeper insight in how and why agile works is the pre-requisite for business agility and the agile organization. Flow thinking has proven to be foundational and Kanban systems are known to improve flow. But the concept of flow is not an easy concept to master for people that have not experienced it. Rational explanations of flow only go so far. Without intuitive understanding based on experience they are not sufficient to mobilize a team or organization into action. This is the fundamental bootstrap problem: in order to mobilize a team, flow must be experienced; in order to get the chance to experience flow, the team must be mobilized.
In this one-day workshop, Brickell Key Award winner Patrick Steyaert, will help you solve this bootstrap problem and let you experience the deeper meaning behind the concepts of flow. Not just through a one-off game with predetermined rules, tucked somewhere between all the mind-boggling theories, but rather through a full blown simulation artificially creating a, true to reality, knowledge work environment.
The workshop is based on Okaloa Flowlab, a laboratory filled with a variety of board play flow simulations developed as experiments. Each experiment is designed to allow participants to experience the impact of decisions and policies on the flow of work and the flow of value. In the starting simulation (a team level simulation) participants experience how flow comes into existence and how agility emerges from that. It allows us to build the new metaphor of flow systems based on Stocks and Flows models, constraints, impedance, feedback and uncommon sense. Subsequent simulation(s) allow participants to experience how the flow systems metaphor scales up to the enterprise level (cross-team flow) and across the entire value stream (end-to-end flow from suspected to satisfied need), acting as a bridge builder between the islands of agility in the organization. At the end of the workshop participants will walk away with a deeper rational understanding of flow systems (flow systems theory); a deeper intuitive understanding of flow systems (flow systems experience); and a new way of teaching flow thinking through simulation that mobilizes into action.
Agenda / topics:
1) Flow systems as a new metaphor for organisation
Introduction to how Business Agility differs from Agile development and the importance of flow systems as a new metaphor for agile organizations and organizations in general (in addition to new forms of self-organization such as Holacracy, Sociocracy, Teal organization, …).
2) The machine metaphor for organization
In the 1st round of simulation we explore the machine metaphor for organization in a typical command and control, resource efficiency, silo-ed way of working. Not only does this simulation set a baseline for improvement it also allows us to develop a deeper systems view. Participants learn how to observe and analyse such a system of work through the flow systems metaphor (Stocks and flows, constraints, impedance, feedback, uncommon sense).
3) Experiment with flow
In the 2nd round of simulation participants set up their own experiment(s) to allow flow to emerge. They will define an experiment to validate their hypothesis about how the system of work can be improved. By doing so they will test the understanding that they have developed in the previous round (e.g. what is the impact of WIP constraints on collaboration, what is the impact of collaboration on quality, …).
4) Enterprise flow
In the 3rd round of simulation participants will practice what has been learned in the previous rounds in a fairly complex and realistic business simulation. They will learn how the flow systems metaphor scales up to the enterprise level (cross-team flow) and across the entire value stream (end-to-end flow from suspected to satisfied need). This round will cover upstream was well as portfolio type of kanban systems.
5) Reflection and discussion
In a lean coffee style discussion we will reflect on what you have experienced and how this relates to your own situation, resulting in takeaways and concrete actions to start working on improving your flow.
Learning objective:
Attending a workshop based on Flowlab will shorten the time that is required to become an experienced flow thinker and lean agile practitioner!
Participants of the workshop walk away with an understanding of
While playing the simulations you will also discover new techniques to handle change and adaptation. You will learn:
Who the courses is targeted at?
Beginning and experienced Kanban practitioners and coaches. Beginning Kanban practitioners will get a deeper understanding of flow thinking. Advanced practitioners and coaches will learn a new way of teaching and coaching flow thinking.
Leadership involves the management of systems and enabling people to become protagonists of their own work.
Clarity
Latitude
Encouragement
Accompaniment
Resources
Deming helps set the stage:
“The most valuable ‘currency’ of any organization is the initiative and creativity of its members. Every leader has the solemn moral responsibility to develop these to the maximum in all his people. This is the leader's highest priority.”
"People are already doing their best; the problems are with the system. Only managers can change the system."
Servant leadership is a fad. It's a buzzword that leaders latch on to, for example, soon after Scrum is rolled out into an organization. The Scrum Guide declares that the Scrum Master is a servant-leader. Managers and HR often need to find a way to create objectives for such a role. It becomes a hot topic, especially when there are concerns that the Scrum teams aren't delivering on the promises of Agile. Soon, questions arise, such as "Do we have the right Scrum Masters?”.
There is a need to be more clear.
The Scum Master competency red bead experiment (and similar ones for Product Owners, Developers and Coaches) continues until someone takes some kind of leadership responsibility and learns to adopt a systems thinking mindset. Until then, the whole conversation around servant leadership will be obscured by preconceived notions, wishful thinking, ass coverage and blame.
Leaders serve well by managing systems and by ensuring that the people working in and with such systems are the well-served protagonists of their own work and whose lives are enriched thereby.
The CLEAR model helps traditional management thinkers connect with key concepts in a way that is non-threatening and easy to remember.
The CLEAR Leadership Action Canvas helps managers to design acts of leadership (policies) that bridge the gap from people management focus to systems management.
You may have heard of NoEstimates or you may simply want to understand how to plan better and reduce risk. If so, you should attend this interactive workshop session for a multi-team game that will help you:
- Find out through experimentation what — and how much — different factors influence delivery time
- Learn how to create a probabilistic forecast that provides a less risky way to plan
- Understand how to reduce variation that affects — and creates risk in — delivery
**Only Participants from FlowLab part 1 may sign up for and attend FlowLab part 2 **
As most organizations have had their share of experience with Agile development they are now looking at how they can make their entire business agile. A deeper insight in how and why agile works is the pre-requisite for business agility and the agile organization. Flow thinking has proven to be foundational and Kanban systems are known to improve flow. But the concept of flow is not an easy concept to master for people that have not experienced it. Rational explanations of flow only go so far. Without intuitive understanding based on experience they are not sufficient to mobilize a team or organization into action. This is the fundamental bootstrap problem: in order to mobilize a team, flow must be experienced; in order to get the chance to experience flow, the team must be mobilized.
In this one-day workshop, Brickell Key Award winner Patrick Steyaert, will help you solve this bootstrap problem and let you experience the deeper meaning behind the concepts of flow. Not just through a one-off game with predetermined rules, tucked somewhere between all the mind-boggling theories, but rather through a full blown simulation artificially creating a, true to reality, knowledge work environment.
The workshop is based on Okaloa Flowlab, a laboratory filled with a variety of board play flow simulations developed as experiments. Each experiment is designed to allow participants to experience the impact of decisions and policies on the flow of work and the flow of value. In the starting simulation (a team level simulation) participants experience how flow comes into existence and how agility emerges from that. It allows us to build the new metaphor of flow systems based on Stocks and Flows models, constraints, impedance, feedback and uncommon sense. Subsequent simulation(s) allow participants to experience how the flow systems metaphor scales up to the enterprise level (cross-team flow) and across the entire value stream (end-to-end flow from suspected to satisfied need), acting as a bridge builder between the islands of agility in the organization. At the end of the workshop participants will walk away with a deeper rational understanding of flow systems (flow systems theory); a deeper intuitive understanding of flow systems (flow systems experience); and a new way of teaching flow thinking through simulation that mobilizes into action.
Agenda / topics:
1) Flow systems as a new metaphor for organisation
Introduction to how Business Agility differs from Agile development and the importance of flow systems as a new metaphor for agile organizations and organizations in general (in addition to new forms of self-organization such as Holacracy, Sociocracy, Teal organization, …).
2) The machine metaphor for organization
In the 1st round of simulation we explore the machine metaphor for organization in a typical command and control, resource efficiency, silo-ed way of working. Not only does this simulation set a baseline for improvement it also allows us to develop a deeper systems view. Participants learn how to observe and analyse such a system of work through the flow systems metaphor (Stocks and flows, constraints, impedance, feedback, uncommon sense).
3) Experiment with flow
In the 2nd round of simulation participants set up their own experiment(s) to allow flow to emerge. They will define an experiment to validate their hypothesis about how the system of work can be improved. By doing so they will test the understanding that they have developed in the previous round (e.g. what is the impact of WIP constraints on collaboration, what is the impact of collaboration on quality, …).
4) Enterprise flow
In the 3rd round of simulation participants will practice what has been learned in the previous rounds in a fairly complex and realistic business simulation. They will learn how the flow systems metaphor scales up to the enterprise level (cross-team flow) and across the entire value stream (end-to-end flow from suspected to satisfied need). This round will cover upstream was well as portfolio type of kanban systems.
5) Reflection and discussion
In a lean coffee style discussion we will reflect on what you have experienced and how this relates to your own situation, resulting in takeaways and concrete actions to start working on improving your flow.
Learning objective:
Attending a workshop based on Flowlab will shorten the time that is required to become an experienced flow thinker and lean agile practitioner!
Participants of the workshop walk away with an understanding of
While playing the simulations you will also discover new techniques to handle change and adaptation. You will learn:
Who the courses is targeted at?
Beginning and experienced Kanban practitioners and coaches. Beginning Kanban practitioners will get a deeper understanding of flow thinking. Advanced practitioners and coaches will learn a new way of teaching and coaching flow thinking.
