Kanban University

Management Training, Consulting, Conferences, Publishing & Software

Enterprise Services Planning

LKNA15 Miami – Enterprise Services Planning – the Future of Kanban

by

Lean Kanban North America takes place in Miami, Florida 8-10 June 2015 at the Eden Roc Hotel on Miami Beach. This year we are both going “back to our roots” while “looking to the future” with a very specific Kanban practitioner event. If you are already doing Kanban and want to know how to take your practice to the next level, or you are curious how to scale the benefits to your entire organization or a business unit, or you just want to know how to apply Kanban outside of IT and software development, then this is the event for you!

In 2015 we launched Enterprise Services Planning, a management system for creative and knowledge worker industries that encourages improved service delivery, better customer satisfaction and a business that is “fit for purpose.” Are you curious about Enterprise Services Planning and how it leverages Kanban to improve your business? Are you curious to see the latest Enterprise Services Planning software solutions? You need to be in Miami this June at Lean Kanban North America. We’re back to our roots in the same city as our first conference in 2009, while we look to the future with the enterprise-wide management solution, Enterprise Services Planning (ESP). We’ll have a full pavilion of vendors offering ESP solutions – come and see the latest software and learn about our new modular 5-day training program in ESP.

wp_20150325_15_25_59_pro_1

Your business is an ecosystem of interdependent services. You can learn to manage these better with Enterprise Services Planning. ESP is about scheduling and sequencing work, forecasting delivery dates and outcomes, allocating capacity and managing dependencies, understanding risk and learning how to hedge it and embrace it for opportunity and economic benefit. Learn to run an effective, risk managed, business, that produces superior customer service and both “fit for purpose” and robust & resilient to a rapidly changing external environment, using ESP. Enterprise Services Planning is the new way to manage your complex, modern 21st Century business. ESP software solutions make it easy to translate what you learn into action. Come to Miami and experience how the future of work will be managed.

Register now! http://lkna15.leankanban.com/

The Meaning of Kanban From the Inside

by

Kanban from the inside! What does that mean?

Perhaps it’s about practicing Kanban and it is written by a practitioner? And that would be true!

Perhaps it’s about understanding Kanban and its community of followers from a community insider? And that would be true too!

Or perhaps it is about something deeper, something truly “from the inside”, from inside the author? Kanban from the heart? Kanban from the soul? Kanban expressed by a deeply spiritual person with a strong sense of self and a deeply held set of values?

Mike Burrows was an early adopter of Kanban and an early member of our online community. It helped him do his job. It helped his organization get work done, manage risk better and improve their performance. It was a solid and effective management technique. It was a useful professional tool for a middle manager with operational responsibilities.

In 2010, Mike Burrows attended the Kanban coaching masterclass and like others before him and who’ve come since he described it as “life changing.” He left with the ephinany that the Kanban guidance he’d been following was rooted in a set of values – values that I wasn’t communicating explicitly. They were values that resonated with someone who quietly follows his religious beliefs. In many ways a private person, Kanban had touched him in a way he didn’t expect.

Since then Mike has dedicated his professional career to the development of Kanban and significantly to makinge its underlying values explicit. Mike has helped to expand the “Why” of Kanban. He’s helped to humanize it and to explain how it represents “change that is humane.” He’s become a highly respected leader in our community. I’m proud to know him and proud to call him a colleague. It gives me great pleasure that we could publish his book, Kanban from the Inside. I know how much it all means to him.

Kanban from the Inside will help you understand why you should care about Kanban and how Kanban and its community care about you. It is also packed with much of the latest guidance, teaching tools, explanations and experience that otherwise you can only access through training classes.

Yes, Kanban is a useful management method for delivering creative and knowledge work services. Yes, Kanban is an effective way to drive improvement in an evolutionary way. Yes, the techniques in this book will help improve the operational performance of your business. Kanban is all of those things and Mike shows you how to make it happen. But let Mike take you further. Discover the soul of Kanban. Discover what is inside! Get Kanban from the Inside! It’s a great read and well worth your investment. Discover a new deeper way to connect with the concepts in the Kanban Method.

LeanKanban Training Roadmap 2015 Edition

by

We’ve updated the LeanKanban Training Roadmap for 2015 following the introduction of the modular 5-day Enterprise Services Planning class.

edu.kanban.com_training_roadmap

2015 Edition LeanKanban Training Roadmap

The new training roadmap includes the new Enterprise Services Planning classes but also introduces a new intermediate training class called “The Kanban Method.” People completing the Foundation Level “Getting Started with Kanban – Improving your Service Delivery” class together with the Advanced Practitioner Level “The Kanban Method – Success Evolutionary Change for Your Technology Business” will receive the Kanban Management Professional (KMP) credential.

As has been the case for the past 3 years, Accredited Kanban Trainers (AKTs) are free to offer a 1-day informational class tailored to specific audiences. These introductory classes are designed to deliver Kanban awareness. There is no set curriculum for these classes. AKTs are free to construct a curriculum that in their opinion is best tailored to their audience and delivers the right level of Kanban awareness based on the job function of the attendees. Certificates of attendance are issued.

The “Getting Started with Kanban” Foundation Level class is now standardized for all new AKTs. The curriculum is defined and trainers use the standard training materials issued from LeanKanban University. Trainers are permitted to customize the training by localizing it into their own language and by adding their own case study. This 2-day class is designed to teach the basic mechanics of Kanban and let participants experience Kanban in action through the getKanban game simulation and the STATIK (Systems Thinking Approach to Implementing Kanban) Method exercises for analysis, design and implementation of a kanban system and visual boards. Certificates of attendance are issued to all attendees who complete this 2-day class.

The new “The Kanban Method – Successful Evolutionary Change for Your Technology Business” class at the Advanced Practitioner Level is designed for people with basic knowledge and experience using Kanban. This class focuses on the 7 Kanban Cadences: Replenishment; Delivery Planning; Standup; Service Delivery Review; Operations Review; Risk Review; and Strategy Review. The objective of this class is to teach the full method and encourage deeper implementations. Candidates will learn how the Kanban Method provides an anti-fragile solution through its feedback mechanisms that are designed to respond to stressors by catalyzing improvements.

“The Kanban Method” class has a standardized curriculum and standard training materials. Trainers are permitted to localize the training materials into their local language. All AKTs can offer this advanced practitioner class.

Certificates of attendance are issued for each candidate completing the 2-day “The Kanban Method” class.

For those who complete both 2-day classes, “Getting Started with Kanban” and “The Kanban Method” they will be awarded the Kanban Management Professional (KMP) credential.

Three parallel tracks are then offered: Enterprise Services Planning; Kanban Coaching Masterclass; Kanban Train-the-trainer.

Enterprise Services Planning is designed for managers from line level to senior decision makers who must worry about enterprise scale concerns, customer satisfaction and fitness for purpose. Enterprise Services Planning is designed to delivery practical solutions for pragmatic practitioners.

The Kanban Coaching Masterclass is a step towards receiving the Kanban Coaching Professional (KCP) credential. KCPs must complete the masterclass, demonstrate at least 6 months Kanban coaching experience through a case study essay and a panel interview. The KCP track is designed for people who wish to lead or coach Kanban and Enterprise Services Planning initiatives with their employer or clients.

The Kanban Train-the-trainer is a class that teaches trainers how to deliver the Kanban training classes, “Getting Started with Kanban” and “The Kanban Method”. Attendees completing the train-the-trainer are awarded the Accredited Kanban Trainer (AKT) credential. Only AKTs are licensed to deliver official LeanKanban training.

Enterprise Services Planning: Module 1 – Portfolio Management

by

Enterprise Services Planning is a new modular 5-day training curriculum for managing modern businesses involving lots of knowledge work and creative services. If your organization contains people who must think and make decisions for their living then Enterprise Services Planning is the management training framework that will transform your business. While ideally taken together as 5 days of intensive emersion, ESP training is offered in 4 modules.

esp_map_large

Map of the Enterprise Services Planning Framework

Enterprise Services Planning: Module 1: Portfolio Management

Training class for up to 24 attendees

Duration: 2 days

Pre-requisites: Informational level knowledge of kanban systems and their application to knowledge work and creative services workflows

Target Audience

“I am a business leader who needs to understand the dynamics of our environment in order to make better decisions about what to start, when to start them and the likelihood of a successful and desirable outcome for our business and our customers”

“I am a portfolio manager who needs to make decisions about risk and capacity allocation, decide when to start projects and initiatives and manage our portfolio of concurrent projects, initiatives and activities.”

“My job is to manage risk for our organization and advise our leaders and the management team in our PMO”

“I work in the PMO and I want to be more effective in my job. I’m overwhelmed and overburdened and I’m looking for simpler, more powerful ways to make decisions, take actions and work with project stakeholders.”

Curriculum

Day 1 – Fitness for Purpose & Cost of Delay

  • Blizzard Skis case study
  • Defining Fitness for Purpose
  • Defining Fitness Criteria Metrics (KPIs)
  • Classes of Service and alignment with market segments and fitness criteria
  • Qualitative assessment of Cost of Delay
    • Market payoff function
    • Defining cost of delay
    • Cost of Delay function shapes
    • Cost of Delay impact assessment
    • Shelf life

Day 2 – Scheduling, Sequencing, Risk & Strategic Alignment

  • Scheduling work
    • optimal start time
    • window of opportunity
  • Sequencing
  • Portfolio Risk
  • Hedging Risk
  • Risk Profiling
  • Pragmatic Philosophy for Risk Management
  • Aligning Strategy with Capability
  • Implementing a regular Strategy Review

Learning objectives

Understanding evolutionary improvement of service delivery by applying evolutionary theory to development of fitness criteria metrics (or, key performance indicators (KPIs)) by understanding what creates “fit for purpose” service delivery based on customer needs and expectations.

Understanding use of classes of services to serve specific market segments and sources of demand to enable delivery within expectations and against the defined fitness criteria metrtics

Understanding cost of delay as a concept and knowing how to classify it in a qualitative and pragmatic fashion using taxonomies

Understanding how to apply cost of delay and lead time capability sensitivity analysis for scheduling. Learning how to determine earliest start, latest start and optimal start dates for requested work

Understanding how to use market role risk assessment to sequence work in large batch commitments (such as projects)

Understanding how to assess portfolio risk based on strategic contribution and market lifecycle stage

Understanding how to hedge portfolio risk using capacity allocation in kanban systems

Understanding how to develop a multi-dimensional risk profile for portfolio or project level use and how to visualize it and use the visualization to inform scheduling and option selection/discard decisions

Learn the 12 point pragmatic approach to risk assessment

Understand appropriate alignment of service delivery capability with strategy and risk hedging allocation

Understand the purpose of a regular Strategy Review to assess market segments, fitness criteria, risk hedging policies and alignment of strategy, risk management policy and service delivery capability

As an entire outcome attendees will have learned how to select work for a portfolio, how to align a portfolio of work with company strategy, how to insure that strategy is aligned with capability, how to schedule and sequence work within the portfolio, and how to hedge risk across the portfolio

Who should attend?

Portfolio and program managers, project managers, service delivery managers, risk managers, those responsible for corporate governance, product managers, marketing managers and strategic planners, senior executives and those responsible for strategy, risk policies and strategic decision making, management trainers, management and executive coaches, anyone interested in resilience and survivability of their business and those responsible for service delivery to customers.

Applicability

This class is ideally suited to a single corporate for private delivery on premises. Typical scope should be a medium-sized entity or a product or business unit of a larger entity. The class is most suitable for the private sector but is adaptable to public sector environments.

Sales

Enterprise Services Planning classes are currently offered exclusively through David J. Anderson & Associates, Inc.

For open registration classes please consult our training listings If you don’t see a class listing near you please contact our sales department via the link at the bottom of the page

For private classes please contact sales.

Download the module curriculum 

Enterprise Services Planning: Module 2 – Enterprise Services

by

Enterprise Services Planning is a new modular 5-day training curriculum for managing modern businesses involving lots of knowledge work and creative services. If your organization contains people who must think and make decisions for their living then Enterprise Services Planning is the management training framework that will transform your business. While ideally taken together as 5 days of intensive emersion, ESP training is offered in 4 modules.

esp_map_large

Map of the Enterprise Services Planning Framework

Enterprise Services Planning Module 2: Enterprise Services

Training class for up to 24 attendees

Duration: 1 day

Pre-requisites: Recommended KMP (Kanban Management Professional) or knowledge and experience of using kanban systems for services delivery. Basic understanding of market payoff from Cost of Delay section of Module 1

Foundation level understanding of Kanban systems is included as revision for attendees who don’t meet the pre-requisites

Target Audience

“I am a product manager. I’d wonder if we can use Kanban to manage development of ideas and requirements.”

“I am a product manager and I’d like to work more effectively with our delivery partners.”

“I am a service delivery manager and I’d like to know how to facilitate commitment meetings and replenish our kanban system.”

“I am a project manager and I want to know how to make and communicate plans when we are using Kanban to manage our delivery”

“I am a function manager and I want to understand how we can improve our delivery performance, shorten lead times and improve predictability”

“I am a process engineer and coach and I want to know how to advise our delivery organization on process improvement”

Curriculum

Day 3 – Options, Commitment & Delivery

  • Posit Science case study – a bit of everything in this one, we also use it in coaching masterclasses
  • Seeing Services – examples of how to put the Kanban Lens into action
  • Understanding Kanban Systems
    • mostly revision from Foundation training
    • understanding commitment
    • Little’s Law
    • definition of Service Delivery Agility
  • Options
    • understanding real options
    • understanding the value of options under various forms of uncertainty
    • understanding how to balance option development with committed delivery based on uncertainty and risk
  • Upstream Kanban
    • embedded options
    • governance framework for option development versus committed delivery
    • minimum & maximum WIP limits
    • discard rates in relation to uncertainty in the business domain
    • defining organizational boundaries & commitment points
  • Replenishment & Commitment
    • replenishment meetings
    • synchronous vs asynchronous commitment
  • Understanding Lead Time
    • histograms and distribution curves
    • flow efficiency and its implications
    • identifying sources of delay
  • Chance versus Assignable Cause variation
    • recognizing the type of variation
    • understanding how to cope with chance cause variation by redefining the system in operation through policy changes
    • understanding assignable cause variation and its relationship with event-driven risk
    • learning the dynamics that left or right shift a lead time distribution or trim the tail on the distribution

Learning objectives

Observing STATIK (Systems Thinking Approach to Implementing Kanban) in action with Posit Science. Understanding risk profiling, asynchronous commitment and evolutionary change at Posit Science

Learning how to see services in an existing organization that can be improved with Kanban. Understanding that several services can be aggregated onto one kanban board and serviced by one team, or department.

Understanding fundamentals of kanban system mechanics at an advanced level including symmetrical versus asymmetrical commitment, Little’s Law, and how to define service delivery agility

Understand real option theory and learn to recognize the value of options under different conditions of uncertainty

Understand upstream Kanban, embedded options, minimum & maximum WIP limits, and the relationship to real option theory

Learn how to define a commitment point and organizational boundary based on uncertainty and risk assessment of the business domain

Learn to read and use lead time histograms and distribution curves. Understand the relationship of lead time distribution to Little’s Law

Understand the definition of flow efficiency and the implications of low flow efficiency environments and the system dynamics that affect lead time

Learn to identify typical sources of delay

Learn the difference between chance and assignable cause variation and how to manage them appropriately

Learn the management levers that can be pulled to left or right shift a lead time distribution curve or trim the tail from the curve

Understand how to use lead time distribution curves to communicate probability of delivery times and indicate predictability of delivery.

Who should attend?

Portfolio and program managers, project managers, service delivery managers, risk managers, those responsible for corporate governance, product managers, function/line managers or team leads, management trainers, management coaches, individual contributors working in creative or knowledge work service delivery or project environment, anyone responsible for service delivery to customers, anyone wishing to learn how to scale Kanban implementations beyond a single team or a single service workflow.

Applicability

This class is ideally suited to a single corporate for private delivery on premises. Typical scope should be a medium-sized entity or a product or business unit of a larger entity. The class is most suitable for the private sector but is adaptable to public sector environments.

Sales

Enterprise Services Planning classes are currently offered exclusively through David J. Anderson & Associates, Inc.

For open registration classes please consult our training listings http://anderson.leankanban.com/events If you don’t see a class listing near you please contact us sales@kanban.university

For private classes please email sales@kanban.university

Download the module curriculum

Enterprise Services Planning Module 4 – Portfolios, Program & Dependencies

by

Enterprise Services Planning is a new modular 5-day training curriculum for managing modern businesses involving lots of knowledge work and creative services. If your organization contains people who must think and make decisions for their living then Enterprise Services Planning is the management training framework that will transform your business. While ideally taken together as 5 days of intensive emersion, ESP training is offered in 4 modules.

esp_map_large

Map of the Enterprise Services Planning Framework

Enterprise Services Planning Module 4: Portfolios, Programs & Dependencies

Training class for up to 24 attendees

Duration: 1 day

Pre-requisites: KMPs (Kanban Management Professional) will find that about 50% of this class repeats Day 2 of “The Kanban Method” class.

Minimum pre-requisites would be “Getting Started with Kanban” (Foundation Level) or completion of ESP Module 2: Enterprise Services. ESP Module 1: Portfolio Management is recommended to be taken together with this module as there is considerable synergy.

Target Audience

“I am a portfolio manager and I want to how we can use Kanban to better manage our portfolio”

“I am a process coach and I want to know how to scale Kanban throughout our business”

“I am a project manager and I want to understand how to do retrospectives with Kanban”

“I am a program manager and I want to understand how to manage dependencies when we are using Kanban in our delivery organization”

Curriculum

Day 5 – Portfolios, Programs & Dependencies

  • Scaling Kanban
    • approaches to scaling
    • bounding unbounded queues
  • Dependencies
    • between services
    • integration dependencies
      • peer-to-peer dependencies
      • parent-child dependencies
  • Visualizing Dependencies
  • Portfolio Kanban
  • Scaling out across an organization
  • Feedback Loops to Improve Service Delivery
  • Conducting Standup Meetings
    • lower maturity, walk-the-board right to left
    • higher maturity, larger scale, focus on exceptions
  • Conducting Service Delivery Reviews
  • Conducting Operations Reviews

Learning objectives

The primary objective of this class is to learn how to implement Kanban at scale.

Understand advanced visualization for dependencies, programs & portfolios

Understand the feedback mechanisms that allow Kanban to scale and kanban systems to adjust and evolve in response to interdependent demand

Learn how to conduct the important meetings that make Kanban work as an evolutionary approach to creating service delivery that is “fit for purpose”

Who should attend?

Portfolio and program managers, project managers, service delivery managers, risk managers, those responsible for corporate governance, product managers, function/line managers or team leads, management trainers, management coaches, individual contributors working in creative or knowledge work service delivery or project environment, anyone responsible for service delivery to customers, anyone wishing to learn how to scale Kanban implementations beyond a single team or a single service workflow.

Applicability

This class is ideally suited to a single corporate for private delivery on premises. Typical scope should be a medium-sized entity or a product or business unit of a larger entity. The class is most suitable for the private sector but is adaptable to public sector environments.

Sales

Enterprise Services Planning classes are currently offered exclusively through David J. Anderson & Associates, Inc.

For open registration classes please consult our training listings http://anderson.leankanban.com/events/ If you don’t see a class listing near you please contact us sales@kanban.university

For private classes please email sales@kanban.university

Download the module curriculim