Not just change, but LEAN change!

We've all experienced change in the workplace... some good and some not so good - although it seems like we have more experience with the bad & ugly. What makes change management so difficult? Oh right - there's the people factor. People are unique and will react differently.

Jeff Anderson and Alexis Hui from Deloitte presented their thoughts on 'Lean Change' to the KW Limited WIP Society on September 10th. Their methodology is a combination of Kotter's 8 Steps, Lean Kanban, and Ash Maurya's 'Running Lean' principles.

Lean Canvas

I was introduced to a new concept called a 'Lean Canvas'. It's a one page business model that is produced on a large scale (whiteboard, empty wall) to ensure visibility. It reminded me of an A3, only blown up from its 11x17 piece of paper. In Kanban style, post-it notes are used on the Canvas to capture key points.
The Canvas presented by Jeff and Alexis captured key points on Urgency, Vision, Success Criteria, Target State, Action, Change Recipients, and Wins/Benefits.
At the bottom of the Canvas, Action Post-It Notes were moved Kanban style from a 'to-do' pile, to a 'work-in-progress' pile in the middle, and finally to 'done' once fully completed.

 

Change Risk

Three types of change were addressed in the presentation:

1. Change risk: will the business problem be fixed or do we have the wrong change?
2. Resistance risk: will people adopt the change or is it a bad "fit" (i.e. cultural barriers)?
3. Sustainability risk: will people continue with the change?

Organisations need the ability to continually transform their people, processes and technology. Lean Change is a relatively new concept. It was interesting to learn a new application for Kanban methods. Having stakeholders involved in building a Canvas and Action Plan using visual Kanban should increase buy-in and enhance chances of a successful change adoption. And if not, the team can work together on another change option (using an iterative approach) to find the best solution to address the problem.

For more from the experts... check out http://agileconsulting.blogspot.ca/

Thoughts on AgileTour Toronto 2012

AgileTour Toronto is a highly recommended annual, one-day Agile conference in our region.  It is a great, low-cost opportunity to learn, meet experts, and share experiences with hundreds of practitioners from the Greater Toronto Area and Southern Ontario.  The conference usually has a well balanced program that has something for everyone, regardless of their functional role.  The 2012 edition of this conference, taking place will not be an exception.

Warning: the tickets to this conference went on sale this week!  Last year, they sold out in less than one full week; this year, the venue is bigger, so it may take the organizers a bit longer to sell them out.  Don't procrastinate.

Now I would like to highlight several sessions in the conference program that might be of interest to our group.  In the participant survey during the September meeting (thank you everyone who attended and filled it out), many people asked for some introductory and how-to content related to Lean and Kanban.  As one of the organizers, I assure you that we will be offering such content in the upcoming meetings of the Limited WIP Society.  But in the meantime, there is this great local conference where you might get some useful ideas sooner.

Here is the link to the conference program.  The session descriptions are not finalized yet (as one of the speakers, I know that the deadline to jazz them up is October 16th), however, you can get a pretty good idea of what most sessions will be about.

Manvir Singh Grewal and Brandon Byars will speak about the Lean Data Architecture.  Their experience report from applying Lean thinking to data warehousing and mapping the value stream of business intelligence sounds fascinating.  Mike Edwards will "ask", The Lean PMO: Oxymoron or Possible?  I suppose his answer is possible and he will show how we can rethink the concept of PMO so that it can create value in an Agile organization.  Jeff Anderson will present Lean Change: Enabling Agile Transformation through Lean Startup, Kanban, and Kotter, repeating his September presentation to our group, in case you missed it.

Yours truly will be Unveiling Kanban - it's a gamified, illustrated introduction to the Kanban method.  I am also teaming up with Gerry Kirk to introduce you to Personal Kanban.  Our joint session is titled Lean Coffee or an Introduction to Personal Kanban.  And last, but not least, if you want to get a taste of Seattle-style Lean Coffee, we'll do our best to organize one at this conference - arrive one hour before the official start and join one of us in the breakfast room.