The Lean-Kanban University Accredited Kanban Training Program

Yesterday Lean-Kanban University (LKU) announced the Lean-Kanban University Accredited Kanban Training Program. Today my employer Avega Group AB has also announced it’s Corporate Charter Membership and Advisory Board membership. I’m proud to represent Avega Group AB and will their first accredited Kanban Trainer.

So what is this Accredited Kanban Training Program all about?

The goal of the program is to provide high quality training of the Kanban Method world wide.

Trainee’s (end users) taking accredited training will receive a LKU membership and will have the ability to download proof of completion for all accredited training they attend.

As of today the program is not a trainee(end user) certification scheme. But as Mattias Skarin, a fellow Advisory Board member states in the press release:

“We on the Advisory Board only value certification if it validates genuine skills”. 

The decision on certification has therefor been deferred until a possible future date when we find an appropriate way to let both Kanban trainees and Kanban practitioners validate their genuine skills in the Kanban Method. 

The LKU Accredited Kanban Training Program will establish the quality of provided Kanban training based on the status of following three parts:

1. The organization who will provide the training
2. The individual trainer who will run the training class
3. The training curriculum that will be used in the class

The member organizations, their trainers and their training curriculums must meet the established criteria in all three areas in order to call their Kanban training “accredited” under the terms of the program.

This program is not closed for new members. Interested organizations are invited to join the Lean-Kanban University Accredited Kanban Training Program.

To become an accredited Kanban trainer you must attend a train the trainer class(or equivalent) provided by LKU or David J. Anderson & Associates, Inc.

Training material can be accredited by the LKU if it meets the established training curriculum. Currently, training materials from the corporate members are being assessed for accreditation against the agreed defined curriculum. Accredited Training material can be licensed from other member organizations on a case by case basis.

I believe this is a great step to further grow the Kanban community and spread the word of the Kanban Method as an evolutionary method to improve knowledge work process. 

Different forces in Scrum and Kanban for the common goal

Scrum and the Kanban method use different forces to achieve this same goal of creating the most possible value over time for the organization by continuously inspecting and adapting the processes and tools.

In Scrum the main forces are the time boxed Sprints and the cross-functional team. In the Kanban method the main forces are visualizing work and limit the work-in-process (WIP).

Scrum

In Scrum the main forces for improvements are achieved by the time boxed Sprints and the cross-functional team.

It is in the time boxed Sprint the team are supposed to build a potential releasable increment of your product. By setting a fixed time box in which a product increment shall completed including all steps like analysis, design, development and testing will force the increments to be small enough to fit the time box. This will most often reduce risk by the smaller steps with validation of the increment at the end of the time box in the Sprint Review.

The members of the cross-functional Scrum team are the only ones that should work on the product increment. This will force the organization to have all the necessary competence in the team so it can deliver the intended product increment.

The Kanban method

In the Kanban method the main forces for improvements are achieved by visualizing work and limit the work-in-process.

Visualizing and making the work visible is used to make people in the process aware of how work is done and the amount of work that is in the process. Humans are very good at processing visual information and making meaning of it as a very large part of the human brain is dedicated to it. The saying that a picture says more than thousand words is a very good description how the brain works. By visualizing and making the work visible the Kanban method the created understanding and understanding can force the organization to make improvements of how work is done.

The goal of limiting work-in-process is to create an even and continuous flow of work. This is done by reducing the work-in-process in small steps over time. This will force process problems to the surface and together with the visualization it will be visible. Limiting the amount of work in the process will often reduce risk as less work is done in parallel and the focus on getting work done before new work is started.

Different forces for different contexts

Scrum and the Kanban method use different forces to achieve this same goal. Depending on the context the forces will have different catalytic effects on your organization. Based on your current context choose one or the other or combine them to achieve the goal of your organization.

Best of DevSum presentation – What can traffic in Stockholm teach you about your development process?

Here is the slides for the presentation I gave at Best of DevSum in Gothenborg on the 14th of November.

Playing the getKanban Board Game

As part of my Lean/Agile Coaching work I do quite a bit of Kanban training. One of the tools I try to use as part of that training is the getKanban Board Game.

The getKanban Board Game is board game like Monopoly but instead of trying to buy real estate and make your competitors go bankrupt in the getKanban Board Game you try to make your software process flow and maximize your net profit.

The goal of the getKanban game is to maximize the net profit by attracting subscribing customer for your software. You attract new customers by making new features available for the customer. Every third day of the game you will charge your existing and new customer. The team with the highest net profit at the end of the game day 21 will be the winning team.

To maximize your profit you need to manage your software development process by managing what work should be do by who and when. Work in the game comes in four different categories of story (or four classes of service):

• Standard – product features which attract subscribers
• Intangible – work that needs to be done, but that does not directly attract subscribers
• Fixed Delivery Date – work to be deliver before their due dates
• Expedite – work that need to done as quickly as possible

To help you manage the process you will learn how to create and use a Cumulative Flow Diagram and a Control Chart.

During the game different event will occur that the team has to handle by making prioritizations and resource allocation decisions.

This game is a great way to learn many of the mechanics of a kanban powered process.

It has been described as the most effective way to teach Kanban.

I do agree that this is truly a great tool to learn the basics of how a kanban powered process can be managed. The game has many learning opportunities and serves as great reference for further discussions and training. I highly recommend this game.

If you want to play it in your company please don’t hesitate to contact me.

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Here are some example charts, results and pictures from my classes

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Lean Enterprise Software and Systems 2011 – My summary

This is my one sentence summary of the Conference Lean Enterprise Software and Systems 2011 (LESS2011).

Start with why, let the adaptive system self organize and have the teams find the answers by them self.

LESS 2011 was the second International Conference on Lean Enterprise Software and Systems (LESS). LESS is a non-profit collaboration between the Lean Software and Systems Consortium and Mälardalen University. This year LESS 2011 was held at Clarion Sign Hotel in Stockholm between 30^th October to 2^nd November

 

This year there was four main tracks: Transforming Organizations, Lean and Agile Product Development, Complexity and Systems Thinking and Beyond Budgeting.

My goal was to focus on Complexity and Systems Thinking and Beyond Budgeting.

I was also very much looking forward to hear Steve Denning speak about Radical Management as I, after so many hurdles, was able to bring him to the conference and give everyone a copy of his latest book The Leader’s Guide to Radical Management

Pre Conference Day

This part of the conference had been very poorly announced so we where only four people who turned up but we had some interesting discussions about transforming organizations to a Lean mindset. Thank you Alan Shalloway, Karl Scotland and Frode Odegard

The rest of the day was spent on folding name tags and packing conference bags with Jean Tabaka and Karl Scotland

Day 1

I started the day by facilitating the LESS 2011 Stockholm Lean Coffee event.

A short introduction by the conference organizers.

 

Keynote: Bjarte Bogsnes: Beyond Budgeting – a new management model for new business realities

  

This keynote by Bjarte Bogsnes was a well presented keynote with lots of interesting stuff about what Beyond Budgeting is really about. Here is some of my notes.

Bjarte used an interesting metaphor where he compared a cross road with traffic light to a round about.

The traffic light system is often based on historical data and regulated by pre set intervals.

A round about on the other hand is self regulated system based on some simple rules and are regulated based on the current situation.

Beyond Budgeting is event driven model in contrast to traditional calendar based budgeting model. How would you react if your bank would only interact with you during month of the year? What if you had to make all your banking decisions during the month of October? This is more or less what the yearly budget cycle is for a company.

Some examples on how Stateoil principles

• Performance is about performing better than the ones you compare yourself with
• Do the right thing – use sound business judgment for all decisions.
• Resources are made available or allocated on a case by case basis
• Forward looking and action oriented
• Performance evaluation is a holistic assessment of behaviors and results
• Alignment from strategy to people with flexibility and freedom

You don’t lose weight by weighing your self

Ola Ellnestam: Real Options Applied

Olle Ellnestam held an interesting session about Real Options.

Real Options is about "deferring decisions to the last responsible moment". By deferring decisions and avoiding early commitments, you can gain flexibility in the choices you have later.

Olle exemplified this with a business trip where he hedged his traveling options due to the ash cloud. He had a plan ticket, a train ticket and his car available to make the trip. The different options expired at different times and had different costs. He could make the traveling decision just-in-time based on all available information instead of committing early.

When we look back, things appear to have a clear path – this can’t be applied to the future  

I liked the presentation even if he was a little short on time at the end.

Carl Savage: Overcoming Education Inertia

Carl Savage had a great presentation. He talked about how you need to focus on the real customer and the needs of the customer. In his case it was the medical students. Is the medical training done in such a way that the students really learn what they need to know.

Great session. 

Ari-Pekka Skarp: Coaching in Complex Environments

Sorry Ari-Pekka, I did not understand what you wanted to tell us with this session.

Update: After reading Ari-Pekka’s blog post about this talk I got the message he wanted to communicate. This is truly an interesting topic. You can read the blog post here

Jurgen Appelo: Complexity Thinking or Systems Thinking ++ ?

Jurgen is an entertaining speaker with great visuals but I feel he need to be more clear and to the point what he want to communicate with his presentation.  This time it was a non stop barrage of quotes from different Complexity and Systems thinkers but where was Jurgens own thinking or opinions.

If he would not be so fuzzy, as on the picture above, this could have been a much better session.

Marcus Hammarberg: Theory of Constraints and Specification by example

My fellow Lean/Agile Coach at Avega Group Marcus Hammarberg held a great presentation on Specification By Example and how this could be a way of exploit the knowledge bottleneck in software development.

Keynote: James Sutton: The Living, Breathing Organization: Lean, Science and Complexity

 

This was a great keynote by James Sutton. He talked about Systems Thinking, the scientific method, Lean Thinking and Complexity Theory. He used life as a metaphor how all this was connected.

Here are some tweets about the keynote.

The Command & Control version of Lean is called Krap Kaizen

_{Original Tweet: http://twitter.com/jurgenappelo/statuses/131034245115297792}

If Lean is something being done to you… instead of something you are doing to the system… you may have Krap Kaizen on your hands #less2011

_{Original Tweet: http://twitter.com/cyetain/statuses/131044566882205696}

At the end of the presentation James said that some of the tools of Lean manufacturing was suitable in product/software development space. In the Q&A section he was asked what tools and he specifically mentioned Standard work. I think this was especially interesting as my lightning talk on the subject was shortly after his keynote.

What he referred to as Standard work was the detailed work instructions used in manufacturing and the common misconception that these are for controlling what to do when they are really the foundation to continues improvement. If you don’t know how work is done now how can you know that a process change is an improvement or not?

Håkan Forss: Standard work in software development

This was my lightning talk session. You can find the slides in my previous post 

Pim Witlox: Managing Agile Development

Showed us in less than six minuets what his research work on Managing Agile Development was about.

Day 2

I started the second day by facilitating the LESS 2011 Stockholm Lean Coffee event.

 

 

Keynote: Peter Middleton: Lean Software Management: BBC Worldwide Case Study

I really liked this keynote. Peter was very to the point and presented parts of the BBC World Case study. Nothing really new to me in forms of methods, tools or techniques but a good case study.

Peter Bunce: The Leader’s Dilemma

 

This session was not adding anything new that Bjarte Bogsnes had not talked about in the keynote. To bad as I thought the title and the abstract really felt interesting and I had high expectations.

Henrik Mårtensson: A hoop through the OODA loop – Basic principles of business strategy and organization

 

Best session in the conference for me. Henrik’s witty presentation style and well thought out slides was great. Most of the agile methods and tools heavily rest of fast feedback. The OODA loop is just about that – fast feedback loops so you can make decisions based on your current conditions fast.

Henrik talked about how the US Marin Corps decision making structure and “self-organizing” teams is so effective.

He also talked about how Hoshin Kanri organizational structure. Very interesting stuff. 

Claudio Perrone: A3 & Kaizen: Here’s how

 

Claudio had the best slides of the conference! Great content and a great presentation. Claudio talked about how to really do Kaizen and using A3 as an important part of the process improvements.

Paul Gooderham: What Really Motivates Employees?

 

This presentation was to academic for me, I think. The topic is really interesting but I didn’t feel like the question in the talk was answered.

Keynote Steve Denning: Making The Entire Organization Agile

 

 

Before the summer I contacted Steve Denning about speaking at LESS 2011 about Radical Management. Now after so many hurdles on the way I was delighted to hear him speak about the thinks he have written in his book The Leader’s Guide to Radical Management

The presentation was great and had a high pace with lots of content. The main point of his talk was that is now time to change to a new management paradigm if companies want to survive. The old marketplace has changed and now the customer is the boss!

The next generation companies will have to focus on:

• New Goal: Delight the customer – this is the over arching concept
• New manager role: From controller to enabler
• Coordination of work: From bureaucracy to dynamic linking
• New values: Radical transparency
• Communication: From command to conversations

LESS is More

Thank you Steve for coming and I hope everyone enjoy his book The Leader’s Guide to Radical Management curtsey of Avega Group.

Day 3

Day 3 was Tutorials & Workshops day. I was asked by the conference organizers to arrange a game day where we would play two games: the MIT Beer Game and the getKanban Board Game.

You can read more about the LESS 2011 Game Day in my previous post

Conclusion

I really had a great time at this conference. The content was mostly good but what I really appreciated was the open and engaged community. I had such a great time talking to so many great people. Thank you all for coming and hope to see you soon again!

 

LESS is More!