Kanban Week 2018: Lean Kanban North America / Kanban Leadership Retreat

Open to those already in the Lean Kanban University program or those who are interested in possibly joining.  This is an update on recent developments in LKU certified kanban programs including professional credentials.

Lean Kanban Accredited Kanban Trainer Brendan Wovchko leads this workshop on how to set up and run a successful Kanban training business.

The Kanban Policy Game is a fun way to experience how policies affect performance.

In the game you are hired as a coach to lead an Agile transformation. To achieve success, you have to improve the performance of the teams in the client organization in terms of lead time and throughput.
As Kanban method practitioner you decide to introduce and apply the six Kanban practices, namely:

CP1: Visualize
CP2: Limit work-in-progress (WIP)
CP3: Manage flow
CP4: Make policies explicit
CP5: Implement feedback loops
CP6: Improve collaboratively, evolve experimentally (using models and the scientific method)

Your work with the client organization goes through three periods:

1) In the first period you start by applying CP1, CP4, CP5 for a limited period of 10 days. Your goal is to understand and measure what is the current state of the system. Hence you ask the organization to make explicit the “Collaboration Policy”, “Pull Policy” and “WIP Policy”. You find out that they measure the individual productivity of the team members, want their resources to be fully utilized and have no WIP limits.
2) In the second period you apply CP2 and CP3 by asking the organization to change only the “WIP Policy” and limit the work in process for 10 days.
3) In the third period you apply CP6 by asking the organization to change the “Collaboration Policy”. From now on the organization will not measure individual productivity but the performance of a team as a whole.

Learning outcomes:

•“Collaboration Policy”, “Performance Evaluation Policy” and “WIP Policy” have huge impact on productivity.
•The J-curve effect can be experienced if we implement CP2 in an organization where collaboration level is low.
•Limiting WIP when we measure individual performance has a negative effect on the productivity of the team as a whole.
•Limiting WIP when we don't measure individual performance has a positive effect on the productivity of the team as a whole.
•Because of the above it is advised to implement CP6 before or along with CP2.
•The collaboration level in a team can be measured.

This is a half-day version of Okaloa FlowLab
 
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

• how flow thinking 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 their organization.
• the importance of flow thinking in creating an agile mindset and a shared deeper understanding in their organization and how this reinforces their existing agile practice.

While playing the simulations you will also discover new techniques to handle change and adaptation. You will learn:

• reflective observations (OODA)
  • active experimentation (defining experiments and hypotheses)

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.

Kanban flight levels mini workshop

Talking little´s law - how to not talk about it (Alexei Zheglow)
*45 min

Capacity Allocation - it´s not just a WIP limit (Janice Linden- Reed)
*45 min

Class of Service Capacity Allocation Schemes: Realistic, Dynamic (Dave Hughes)
*30 min

Introducing Kanban for Non-Work (leaders) Teams - Adam Hsu
*60 min

Using KMM as a Sales Tool: Promising results on a large scale (engagements, proposals, value proposition, etc.) - Steve McGee
*30 min

Kanban Policy Game - Dimitar
* 90 min

KMM Beta Program - Teodora
* 90 min

Learning from fake charts (Alexei)
*60 min

The concept of Priorization Matrix applied to Upstream Kanban (Boris)
*30 min or more

Extending Coaching Network (Gwen & Scott)
*60 min

How should the cadence diagram look like in the class materials (Susanne)
*30-45 min

X-Pollinate Key Trainings - Frank Vega

• Flight Levels
• Upstream
• Troy's Tools
• US-EURO