The Difficult Life of a Lean Team Leader

November 2, 2011

by Zsolt Fabók

http://zsoltfabok.com @ZsoltFabok

Nowadays, being a team leader means:• Implementing, testing, deploying, so the usual• Plus leading a team and working with people

Nowadays, being a team leader means:• Implementing, testing, deploying, so the usual• Plus leading a team and working with people

Part I:Working with teams

It is proven that empowerment works;set the boundaries and mentor your team

http://brenireland.blogspot.com/2011/05/archaeology-field-trip-and-first-irish.html

Sit with the team, and always be available

Get your hands dirty

http://brenireland.blogspot.com/2011/05/archaeology-field-trip-and-first-irish.html

Don’t be a superhero

Commit activities of two superhero team leaders:

0

23

45

68

90

Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun

num

ber

of c

omm

its

Team leader 1Team Leader 2Average team member

Know your team membershttp://bit.ly/vARz90

Improving yourself, andthe team will respect you even more

Get rid of poisonous andincompetent team members

Finally, the vacation test

http://thehandcraftedlife.blogspot.com/2011/08/vacation-itinerary-planning-belize.html

Queue3

Development3

Development1

Verification1

Verification2

Deployment Live Queue3

Development3

Development1

Verification1

Verification2

Deployment Live

Before your vacation After your vacation

D BF

H

G

C A

E

B

A

CD

E

F

G

H

Find at least five differences

Part II:Lean thinking won’t happen by itself

Queue3

Development Ongoing Done

3Development

Ongoing Done

1Verification

Ongoing Done

1Verification

Ongoing Done

2Deployment

Live

The first pull is easy as pie...

Queue3

Development Ongoing Done

3Development

Ongoing Done

1Verification

Ongoing Done

1Verification

Ongoing Done

2Deployment

Live

The second pull is awfully difficult...

Queue3

Development Ongoing Done

3Development

Ongoing Done

1Verification

Ongoing Done

1Verification

Ongoing Done

2Deployment

Live

WIP limit is easy to break, unless you block it

In real life...

courtesy of Digital Natives, http://digitalnatives.hu

Part III:Self-management

“Five minutes Turkish”

(It is a polite way of saying ‘No’)

source: http://bit.ly/vmgKd1

Limit your TODO list to an A4 paper

Visit other teams and learn from them

gemba walk: http://thecriticalpath.info/2011/09/15/the-gemba-walk/

Thank you very much for your attention!

http://zsoltfabok.com @ZsoltFabok