Keynote, presented at Agile Practitioners 2015

1. written, illustrated
and performed by
Claudio Perrone
agilesensei.com
a3thinker.com
@agilesensei
EV OLV e
UPT
&

2. This…

3. … Is jim

4. He wants to get
things done

5. Grow

6. Be part of an high-performance team

7. He dreams of
changing the world

8. BUT
IT’S Just
A dream

9. His company went through many
reorganizations, only to stay the same
Organization chart
Blame flow
Rule makers
Controllers
Enforcers
VictimsOrganization chart
God
Losers

10. ORGANIZATIONs CAN’t BE AGILE IF ONLY THE
DEVELOPMENT TEAMS ARE DOING AGILE
SMs

11. JIM IS THE victim of
A system HE cannot
defeat

12. LIKE MANY OTHERS, HE learns nothing that
matters, and nothing changes.

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

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

15. LEAN
MANAGEMENT
1
@agilesensei

16. And we are reducing that timeline by
removing the non-value-added
wastes.
-­‐-­‐-­‐
Taiichi
Ohno,
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.

17. “but that’s only part of the story…”

18. In lean, managers are servant leaders.
Value Stream (from concept to cash)

19. “ -- Claudio Perrone
It’s not what you do but rather what
you learn by doing it that matters.

20. My (validated) Hypothesis: By bringing
learning streams to the surface,
companies reward the real heroes
Value Stream (from concept to cash)
Learning
Stream(s)
(from
question
to
knowledge
base)

21. WITH GUIDANCE AND METHOD, MANAGERS
grow to become problem solverS, critical
thinkers and mentorS

22. -­‐-­‐-­‐
Jurgen
Appelo
“Management is too important
to leave to the managers.
Management is everyone’s job.
(YOU MAY ALSO CONSIDER THAT…)

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

24. Lean Thinkers capture their understanding of a
problem (typically) ON A (A3-format) sheet OF 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?

25. 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?

26. Lean Problem solvers act like AN investigator at a
crime scene…

27. 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)

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

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

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

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

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

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

34. What other
Learning streams
can we seek to
surface?

35. POPCORN
FLOW
2
@agilesensei

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

37. We worked together and evolved using
the kanban method

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

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

40. It starts with Problems & Observations...

41. ...which I use to elicit options.

42. Promising options lead to a backlog of
possible experiments.

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

44. At Each retrospective, we ask exactly these
questions:

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

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

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

48. Right from the beginning, I knew this was
different.

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

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

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

52. One more thing…

53. Dublin, November 16th 2014.
a popcorn board enters our sitting room…

54. ... At kid’s level.

55. Popcornflow for families
is born.

56. JOBS TO BE DONE3
@agilesensei

57. “How do you create customer value?”
Through the
development
of people
Attend to
folks’ needs
Listen to the
“Voice of the
Customer”
Get out of
the building
Just
do it
Growth
hack it

58. Operational excellence is not enough
Customer
12 min
16.5 min
73%
5.5 min 0.5 min 1.0 min 5.0 min
2.0 min 0.5 min 2.0 min
Value Adding Time (VAT)
Non VAT
Proc. Lead Time::
Total Cycle Time:
Proc. Efficiency:

59. No matter how hard we try,
We are still wide open to disruption
faster
cheaper
better quality
(incrementally)
innovative
Customer
“Different”
Competition

60. the Traditional approaches are not that
effective

61. we have one fundamental assumption
Customers don’t know
what they want!

62. What causes people to buy?

63. They “hire” a product or service
to get the job done.
Prof
Clayton
Christensen
People encounter situations that
drive the need to accomplish a job.
The job – not the customer – is
the fundamental unit of analysis.

64. Pull of the new solution
4 forces affect purchasing decisions
Push of the situation
Drive FORWARD
New
way
Habit of the present
Anxiety of the new choice
Hold back
Business
as usual
Based on the work
Of the re-wired group
(jobstobedone.org)
#JTBD

65. Forces evolve over time
Based on the work
Of the re-wired group
(jobstobedone.org)
#JTBD
First Thought
Passive
Looking
Active
Looking
Deciding
Consuming
Satisfaction
“Finished” or
Experienced
Event #1
Event #2
Buying
Or

66. Bob
Moesta
The
Re-­‐Wired
Group
We only talk to people who have
bought because embedded in
their choice set is the value code
of what they are willing to
switch from and to.

67. How do we capture it?
First
Thought
Active
Looking Deciding
Buying
Consuming
Event #1 Event #2 “Finished” or
Experienced
Satisfaction
Passive
Looking
Climax
(and Hook)
Moment of
struggle
Time
bombInciting
incident
Resolution Documentary:
“The Switch”

68. Anthony
Ulwick
Strategyn
Before you can determine what
solutions they’ll want, figure out:
• What jobs customers want to get
done
• What metrics they use to define
the successful execution of a job
Can we go even further?

69. Anatomy of a story
As a mobile user,
I want a longer antenna
so that I can have
a better reception
I want to minimise
the likelihood that
the conversation drops
Context, situation,
job, or job step
Outcome, need,
or measure of
improvement
Warning:
early assumptions
V.S.
When I’m calling a friend
User story
Job story/outcome

70. Job Stories Selected Options Product Backlog
(User stories)2
Once you have jobs stories (problem
space), you can easily get to user
stories (solution space)

71. Are you competing like any other
product in a pharmacy shelf?

72. Disrupt or die

73. Final Thoughts

74. Claudio
Perrone
claudio@agilesensei.com
www.agilesensei.com
@agilesensei
www.a3thinker.com
Next is now