written, illustrated and performed by
Claudio Perrone agilesensei.com a3thinker.com Evolve or die Popcorn Flow Thinking and A3 in Action @agilesensei

Today I’m going to change
the world … (a little).

“A few years ago, I
made a world of difference to one client”

“Except… I didn’t.” 28 months
later...

Hello?

“I saw good people swallowed
by an enemy they could not defeat”

“innovation and growth being crushed
by status-quo, fire-fighting and conformity.”

“the company went through many
reorganizations, only to stay the same” Organization chart Blame flow Victims Rule makers Controllers Enforcers God Losers

organizations can’t be “agile” if
only the development teams are doing Agile Typical “Agile” Enterprise SMs

“all was left was a
desolate, lifeless place, with seemingly little to offer humans.”

But What if an “alien”
technology could change it?

LEAN
MANAGEMENT
1
@agilesensei

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

“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?

W. Edwards deming believed that…
“ 95% of variation in worker’s performance is governed by the systems. ---W. Edwards Deming

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

in lean, we co-design and
continuously improve processes and tools… …TO BETTER SERVE INDIVIDUALS AND INTERACTIONS.

“learning to see” involves bringing
to the surface what we learn Value Stream (from concept to cash) Learning Stream(s) (from question to knowledge base)

With method and guidance, managers
grow to become problem solvers, critical thinkers and mentors

(YOU MAY ALSO CONSIDER THAT…)
“ Management is too important to leave to the managers. Management is everyone’s job. -­‐-­‐-­‐ Jurgen Appelo

@agilesensei
A3 THINKING 2

I had terrible experiences with
problem solving meetings

in Lean, a "problem" is
the gap between the "current situation" and the "standard/ expectation" Gap = Problem Standard Current Situation

Following that definition, there are
3 classes of problems: Kaizen Standard (or Shared Expectation) Preventive Maintenance

A3 Thinkers are like investigators
at a crime scene…

They capture a shared understanding
of a problem - often with just pencil and paper. Why are we talking about it? Where do things stand today? What should be happening? What would be a step in the right direction? What causes prevent us from reaching our target condition?

To find causes, they use
simple analysis tools Such as fishbone diagrams…

Problem: got a Speeding ticket
Late for work Got up late Alarm clock didn’t work Batteries were flat Why? Why? Why? Why? Therefore Therefore Therefore Therefore … And 5-whys

Once the nature of the
problem is clear, they take steps to move towards the target condition systematically. What countermeasures should neutralize the causes? What steps are required to implement the selected countermeasures? How will you know if the countermeasures work? Based on the results, what’s next?

filling a report as quickly
as possible would bring you fast nowhere.

A3 is about the thinking,
not the report. “ -- Claudio Perrone It’s not what you do but rather what you learn by doing it that matters.

I learned to develop each
section thoroughly…

… and validate my current
understanding with others before moving to the next SECTION

Traditionally, a mentor would challenge
a problem solver’s line of thought with quick coaching cycles What do you mean by it? (Clarity) Is it always the case? (Assumptions) How do you know? (Evidence) What are you implying by that? (Implications) Would that necessarily happen? (consequences) Do anyone see it another way? (Alternative Point of views)

A3 thinking is not about
problem solving… … it’s about creating problem solvers.

I saw situations like this…
Why did the site go down? Ehm… someone made a mistake. WHO? I want his f$g# Head!!

… Turning into this Hi
all, Here’s a quick summary of the root cause analysis we did this morning. Problem: The Website was offline from 15:31 to 15:40 because: -Website couldn't establish a connection to the database. - Because MySql service crashed. - Because MySql storage engine reached the default configuration memory limit. - Because Apache web server configuration allows threads to request more physical memory than available to MySql. - Because Apache and MySql default configuration settings are not optimised for the RAM currently available on the new virtual server. We failed to detect it because: - New relic didn't notify us that the site was not responsive - We don't know yet, needs further investigation. It might not be configured properly (cont..)

… We took adaptive actions
and the site is now up an running. However these are the further actions to take: Preventive: (future/cause) [now] Expand RAM on new virtual server [now] Review Apache & MySql configuration [later] Investigate moving to nginx Contingent (future/effect): [now] Configure New Relic's monitoring properly (alerts on site down, response time, n of processes, memory) [later] Investigate using New Relic for app profiling

Without guidance It’s all too
easy to develop shallow A3 reports. … and Good mentors are rarer than plutonium.

So, with the motto: “Toyota
supplier in 2 years or less”…

… I released a family
of thinking tools… www.a3thinker.com

to help you change the
world. one problem at a time. www.a3thinker.com/deck

Arguably, an A3 report “surfaces”
a learning stream around a problem

What other Learning streams can
we seek to surface?

POPCORN
FLOW
3
@agilesensei

A while ago, I worked
with a team who had not deployed in months

We worked together and evolved
using the kanban method

But the real “secret” was
our ability to SYSTEMATICALLY DEFINE AND negotiate explicit change experiments…

… a powerful learning stream
that I defined and captured on a parallel “Popcorn board” Problems & observations Options Possible experiments Committed Ongoing Review Next

It starts with Problems &
Observations...

...which I use to elicit
options.

Promising options lead to a
backlog of possible experiments.

experiments that we Commit to
pursue have an action, reason, expectation and Review date.

At Each retrospective, I ask
exactly these questions:

Some people fear “failure”… Gap
= Frustration Expectation Reality

…but we only really “fail”
when we limit our opportunities to learn Gap = Frustration Expectation Reality Learning

It’s Not “fail fast, fail
often”... … It’s “Learn fast, learn often”.

Right from the beginning, I
knew this was different.

... Because the team COULD
easily handle 5-10 change experiments each week, rapidly enabling it to DELIVER multiple times a day

…and then it spread. Popcorn
boards started to appear to other parts of the organization.

Imagine a continous flow of
experiments to dramatically accelerate the rate of change in every corner of your organization... ... How far would you go?

Final Thoughts

“ -- Winston Churchill To
improve is to change. To be perfect is to change often.

Claudio Perrone Next is Now
claudio@agilesensei.com www.agilesensei.com @agilesensei www.a3thinker.com