Beyond Value Streams: Experimental Evolution in Action

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These are the slides from my keynote for Lean Agile Scotland 2013. In this session, I shared stories, workflows and practical thinking tools that illustrate how the act of deliberately capturing and evolving "learning streams" (as opposed to - or rather in addition to - the more conventional value streams) can lead to surprising consequences.

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written, illustrated and performed by

Claudio Perrone

@agilesensei agilesensei.com a3thinker.com

Beyond

Value

Streams

Experimental evolution in action

I’ve seen things most people wouldn’t believe…

Like the rise of A Learning organization, fueled by the enlightened self-interest of ITS people

I saw how Curiosity and courage can generate endless options

... And what it means to develop, and honor people for their ideas & contribution.

All those… moments... will be lost in time

like tears... in... rain

Today, Many of us face a different world…

effectiveness

% o

f or

gani

zati

ons

(*) Courtesy: Steve McConnell – After the Gold Rush & Bob Marshall (“Marshall Model of Organizational Effectiveness” www.fallingblossoms.com)

It’s a world where Invention and innovation are replaced by organizational conformity…

… Knowledge development IS annihilated by bureaucracy, fire-fighting, and command & control

Companies go through many reorganizations, only to stay the same

Organization chart Blame flow

Rule makers

Controllers

Enforcers

Victims Organization chart God

Losers

… You are a “chicken”. You shouldn’t even talk

The traditional agile approach towards management Hasn’t been particularly effective

Arguably, organizations can’t be “agile” if only the development teams are doing Agile

SMs

Typical “Agile” Enterprise

It’s a war we can’t possibly win…

Unless…

BEYOND VALUE STREAMS 1

And we are reducing that timeline by removing the non-value-added wastes. -­‐-­‐-­‐  TaiichiOhno,  Founder  of  TPS  

“ All we are doing is looking at the timeline from the moment the customer gives us an order to the point we can collect the cash.

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0.25h

3d

5h

2.5d

2h

2d

1h

2h

1h Value Adding Time (VAT)

Non VAT

Period calculated: from xx to yy (high season)

F: 200/month

Average: 10/day

Proc. Lead Time: 71.75h

Total Cycle Time: 9.25h

Proc. Efficiency 12.9%

Push arrow

inbox

20jobs 10jobs 5jobs 2jobs due date FIFO $ value

Current State Value-Stream Map

Acme Reinsurance

Date: xxx

Author: Claudio Perrone

Pull arrow

C/T too long

Reduce batch sizes

Train on Kanban pulling

Improve system

validation

Clarify classes of

service

Setup Kanban board

Kaizen Customers Lean destroyed the myth that splitting work

in big batches improves the economies of scale.

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Reinsurance placement

0.25h

2d

4h

1.5d

2h

1d

1h

2h

1h Value Adding Time (VAT)

Non VAT

Period calculated: from xx to yy (high season)

F: 200/month

Average: 10/day

Proc. Lead Time: 46.25h

Total Cycle Time: 8.25h

Proc. Efficiency 17.8%

MAX 5 jobs

Future State Value-Stream Map

Acme Reinsurance

Date: xxx

Author: Claudio Perrone

Pull arrow

Customers

MAX 4 jobs

MAX 2jobs

MAX 2jobs

C/T too long

Reduce batch sizes

Train on Kanban pulling

Improve system

validation

Clarify classes of

service

Setup Kanban board

… And provided many “tools” to obliterate the competition

“but that’s only part of the story…”

Why do you allow your competitors to copy all your tools?

What they need to see… is not visible

What the hell is He talking about?

Do you remember how the story ends?

---W. Edwards Deming

“ 95% of variation in worker’s performance is governed by the systems

W. Edwards deming believed that…

“Improve the world by improving its systems.”

…Which maybe explains why the purposeof the Lean systems society is to…

http://leansystemssociety.org/

Lean Systems Society

“Excellence in Managing Complexity”

---W. Edwards Deming “ We should work on our processes, not the outcome of our processes.

Perhaps…

“At Toyota, improving and managing are one and the same”

Normal daily management

+ improvement

Traditional thinking:

Normal daily management

= Process improvement

Toyota’s thinking:

“ -- Claudio Perrone

Some people question targets. Question arbitrary targets instead. "How are we going to change our systems to achieve it?” That’s an excellent question.

In Lean, Managers have a purpose...

Value Stream

“ (*) replace with “create customer value” or “reach results”, if you prefer

Lean is a business strategy to make money* THROUGH the development of people

I believe

“ -- Claudio Perrone

It’s not what you do but rather what you learn by doing it that matters.

So, maybe...

“learning to see” involves bringing to the surface what we learn

Value Stream

Learning Stream(s)

An A3 report, for example, “surfaces” a learning stream around a problem

Kaizen memo:

Before improvement: Action taken:

Effect:

Submitted by: Date:

We didn’t trace the small, continuous improvements to our work

Created “Kaizen memos” to post on an “implemented ideas” board

Team members trace and celebrate every implemented idea, even the smallest!

Claudio Perrone

Kaizen Memos

A set of kaizen memos can represent another Learning stream…

…Which can also be “SURFACED” on a kaizen board

What other Learning streams

can we seek to surface?

How about stories?

How about change efforts?

How do you introduce and surface change in

your organization?

More specifically…

EVOLVE EXPERIMENTALLY (A Lean Change story)

2

“Once upon a time, in a ‘fortune 50’ land, A prince lived in a much troubled castle”

Scrum is AWESOME!

“after reading a great book, he thought”

Visibility Adaptability

Business  Value Risk

Agile  Development Traditional  Development

Fascinated by the benefits that a mature agile organization can bring…

I want you to turn 33+ teams using scrum.

Do it. Now.

… he said:

Scrum may be a great solution, but…

…What’s the problem?

I went to the “gemba”, the place were the value is actually created. After all…

--- John le Carre “ ... A desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world.

Insights

Options

MVC

Prepare

Introduce

Review

Lean Change Cycle

After some fact finding, I shared my observations and insights…

after 1½ years of waterfall Development, The company was experiencing a seemingly endless integration hell

many People where blaming each other for what was happening

Insights

Options

MVC

Prepare

Introduce

Review

Lean Change Cycle

What could we do?

The ship was sinking fast… So, “Do nothing” was not an option

…scrum was not a viable option

with that urgency, in that context, And with that complexity…

In the end, we agreed to: - aim at a pre-release for a major customer - focus on flow optimization

Insights

Options

MVC

Prepare

Introduce

Review

Lean Change Cycle

change was certainly going to be disruptive (and not so “minimal”)

Insights

Options

MVC

Prepare

Introduce

Review

Lean Change Cycle

…But desperate times called for desperate measures

R&D Teams

“we articulated our Change strategy”

Change Participants

Communication Urgency Target State

Actions

Vision

Committments Wins

Success Criteria

Testing Dep

Mgmt

If we don’t release soon, the ship will sink!

Stable pre-release deployed to Major Client by xx

Cross-funct. teams

Kanban

Pre-Release to Major Client by Focus on JIT fixes

Cadenced meetups

Released by xx

… morale

Baseline for performance

QA ok Major client happy

Review MMFs

Keep Client Keep job

https://leanpub.com/leanchangemethod

we also negotiated and challenged certain (self-serving) policies

Insights

Options

MVC

Prepare

Introduce

Review

Lean Change Cycle

We introduced lean techniques very pragmatically

We moved hundreds of people in just 3 days, to reduce many functional barriers

Programming Team

Programming Team

Testing Team

Documentation Team

Cross-functional Team

Cross-functional Team

Functional Team

Ordered Backlog

Development Pre- Testing CD

Ready 6 3

Rq. Fixed

Done

Expedite 1

Integration

Pre- Tested

Smoke Test Done

Integration Team (Complex configuration)

teams adopted a kanban bord, each fine-tuned according to their specific workflow

DOD DOD DOD DOR

Insights

Options

MVC

Prepare

Introduce

Review

Lean Change Cycle

We reviewed and validated our progress and assumptions regularly

focus on flow optimization, Shared sense of Urgency and executive sponsorship enabled us to deliver fast, against all odds

What would your first lean change

implementation look like?

Start small! These days, When I first engage with any team…

…I often start with a retrospective to collect initial insights (and to obtain permission to help)…

I USE THAT DATA TO feed a change board And SYSTEMATICALLY DEFINE AND negotiate explicit change experiments

Observations & insights Options

Possible Experiments This Week Week + 1 Week + 2 Week + 3 Archive

That was a (powerful) learning stream!

BUT… HOW DO WE KNOW THAT

WE ARE actually CREATING VALUE?

“… complexity and uncertainty are natural to social systems and knowledge work.”

It’s hard. We accept that…

http://leansystemssociety.org/

“ --Jeff Patton

If you get good at delivering shit faster, you just get a lot of shit.

Are we doomed?

VALIDATED LEARNING

(A lean startup story) 3

Some time ago, I decided to write a book on A3 thinking

But I didn’t want to write a book that nobody reads…

So, I Documented my initial assumptions on a Lean canvas

Customer Segments

Early adopters

Unfair Advantage

Channels

Revenue streams Cost structure

Unique Value Proposition

Solution

Key metrics

Top 3 Problems

Existing alternatives

Build

Measure

Learn idea

Product data

(Turn ideas into product)

(How customers respond)

(whether to pivot or persevere)

(often a series of MVPs)

I shaped my thinking around the the build/measure/learn loop through an experiment board

…Which, today, consists of observations/insights, open questions, and ideas…

targets, analysis and hypotheses…

Experiments (identify, define metric, build)

Validation (qualitative & quantitative)

…& knowledge base.

“ -- Claudio Perrone

I execute tasks To develop features That are part of experiments That I run to validate hypotheses That I formulate thanks to observations about the world that surrounds us.

In other words…

My mindset shifted: “From concept to cash” to “From question to knowledge base”

Ironically, I never wrote that book

people needed something to help them when and where it mattered most

So I tested an idea with a low fidelity MVP

… captured enthusiastic earlyvangelists with a glimpse of what would come next…

And released a family of thinking tools…

www.a3thinker.com  

Final Thoughts

“ -- Claudio Perrone

It’s not what you do but rather what you learn by doing it that matters.

“ -- Claudio Perrone

It’s not what you do but rather what you learn by doing it that matters. But then...

“ -- Claudio Perrone

It’s not what you do but rather what you learn by doing it that matters. But then... it’s not what you learn, but rather what you do with it that matters.

Claudio  Perrone  

claudio@agilesensei.com  www.agilesensei.com  

www.twi@er.com/agilesensei  www.a3thinker.com  

Thank You!

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