#LeanDayWestthe 2013 conferenceand what it taught me about leanand our team

Taylor J. Meek

“A high school student’s brain goes dead

in lecture mode.

In the professional world, lectures ==

meetings.” Greg Petroff GE

14 speakers sharing

stories about how they

used Lean to innovate

within their business

Bill Scott & Cody Evol PayPalDane Petersen GEKarel Barnoski GEGreg Petroff GELionel Mohri IntuitFarrah Bostic The Difference EngineAaron Sanders The Weather ChannelJeff Hutkoff The Weather ChannelEmily Holmes HobsonsBen Burton, Jono Mallanyk neo

Lean Day: West was 3 things

an opportunity to

meet with others who

face the same

problems we face

Karel Barnoski GELean User Experience Leader

and practice the

Lean approach to

solving

engineering

problems

why did these companies employ lean?

to keep from being

disrupted by a market

that would have beat

them to it“Refactor your way out of technical debt. If you have crappy stuff out there, eventually it catches up with you and you get disrupted by someone doing it better.” Bill Scott PayPal

be more innovative.stop wasting people's time.be more successful.

why did these companies employ lean?it’s a way to deal with growth it’s a way to deal with technical

debtwhen companies grow, they

specialize

specialization leads to deep silos

deep silos leads to lack of

understanding

results in no strong

ownership

rapid growth can lead to technology

outpaced by the current

need

ratio of work to improvement out of

whack

“There’s too much to do!”

it’s a way to deal with uncertaintywithout measuring:

how do you know where you are?

how do you know when you’re

done?

how did these companies employ lean?

found a catalyst for change

a leader

from inside or out

who took personal

responsibility

for the lean transformation

and empowered a team

with a vision

“Start with vision. Ideas are cheap.”“To spur innovation, leaders need to shift from judges to coaches.”“Don’t be a distractor, be an empowerer.”Lionel Mohri Intuit

how did these companies employ lean?

seized upon a crisis, or forced one• PayPal couldn’t create a product in less than 6

months

• GE couldn’t give its 300,000 person team tools to

communicate

• The Weather Channel was facing the collapse of

Cable TV

how did these companies employ lean?

adopted the principles of lean1. entrepreneurs are everywhere and they are the

catalysts

2. entrepreneurship is management

3. validate learning because learning is why

business starts

4. measure the boring stuff

5. employ the feedback loop build – measure – learn

how did these companies employ lean?

BUILD

MEASURELEARN

got to work building aMinimalViableProduct

what did these companies do?

• Colocation was essential• Included engineers, QA, and the product's manager

from the outset• Allowed free access to customers

Put a team in one room to work on one product

Gave them paper, a whiteboard, and laptops

Their goal: Make a hypothesis and develop a rapid prototype to test it

They met every day on this, but it wasn’t a meeting, it was on-the-fly engineering

Once every (short period), they bring customers in to see it and test the hypothesis

The prototype becomes the production product

the ancillary benefit

the more shared understanding,

shared vocabulary,

shared ownership,

the less design documentation is

required

resulting in a living specification

the working prototype

a team that “gets” it

and less politics

we’re already doing some lean

CENSORED CENSOREDCENSORED CENSORED

customer collaboration

pair programming

rapid iterations

test to build

customer collaboration

agile planning

rapid iterations

prototype as a spec

rapid development

KISS

easily iterated

customer collaboration

rapid iterations

test to build

seven themes @ Lean Day: West

lean can scaleGE, PayPal

be objective:just because

we love it doesn’t mean

it’s good“Test your

hypothesis.”

lean can cross industriesjet engines educational

softwarefinancial services

perception of roles must

change“The hanging-on of expectations and duties because of

business cards

stymies innovation.”

empower everyone

to participate in the product

process

don’t be afraid to throw

things away“Just because

you’re building it (or on it) doesn’t mean it’s good.”

cultures must shift

“This is a different way of working and addressing the problems of our business”

one more thing…

the last word – on change

“Trying to change culture? Expect to come back with scars.”

Stephane Kasriel, former PayPal VP of Mobile Development