The Lean IT Field Guide

A Roadmap for Your Transformation

Michael A. Orzen, Thomas A. Paider

• Publisher: Productivity Press
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351105842
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Workplace Culture
• Index: Business

How many IT books have you read that are long on theory and short on practical application? They are interesting, but not very impactful. They provide a framework from which to think and understand, but lack a process from which to act. Addressing this urgent need for the IT community, The Lean IT Field Guide explains how to initiate, execute, and sustain a lean IT transformation.Illuminating a clear path to lean IT, the authors integrate more than two decades of combined experience to provide you with a proven method for creating and sustaining a true lean IT workplace. This field guide not only highlights the organizational techniques of more agile and lean processes, but also the leadership work required to help management adopt these new approaches.Based on proven methods from different industries, including banking, manufacturing, insurance, food and beverage, and logistics, the book details a clear model that covers all the components you need to achieve and sustain a favorable work environment and culture in support of lean IT.Filled with anecdotes and case studies from actual businesses, the book includes pictures, templates, and examples that illustrate the application of the lean methods discussed.

Contents

Foreword

Acknowledgment

Authors

Introduction

1 Lean Primer for IT Professionals

Introduction

The Lean IT Cosmos

Agile/Lean Software Development

Kanban

Continuous Delivery

Lean Startup

DevOps

Lean Project Management

Control versus Discovery

Agile Project Management

Lean IT Frontier

Notes

2 The Transformation Framework

Introduction

The Lean IT House

Foundation

Align Purpose

Improve Process

Respect People

Problem Solving

Culture of Accountability

The First Pillar: Associates—Where Value Is Created

Behavior 1—Create Value

Behavior 2—Identify Problems and Opportunities

Behavior 3—Improve Work Processes (through Daily Kaizen)

The Second Pillar: Leadership—Where Alignment Is Cultivated

Behavior 1—Set Direction

Behavior 2—Model Ideal Behaviors

Behavior 3—Coach and Develop People

Visual Management

Metrics

Reflection

Let’s Get Started! Your Roadmap

Notes

3 The Importance of Purpose

Introduction

True North

True North for the IT Enterprise

Alignment—Using Purpose as a Plumb Line

Practice at Defining Purpose

Direction

Notes

4 Day Zero

Introduction

Practice Makes Perfect

Management’s First Steps

Visual Management and Standups

Visual Management System

Standup Meetings

Frontline Associates’ First Steps

Getting Started

Visual Management System

Standup Meetings

Building a Purpose-Driven System

Day Zero Wrap-Up

Notes

5 The Paradox of Process

Introduction

People and Process

Standard Work

Standard Work for Associates

Collaboratively Create Standard Work

Standard Work for Leaders

Leader Standard Work in Practice

People-Centric Process

Notes

6 Problem-Solving Scientists

Introduction

What Is a Problem?

People Focus

Who Wants to Be a Scientist?

Plan–Do–Check–Adjust (PDCA)

Plan

Do

Check

Adjust

Your Brain on A3

The A3 Template

Background/Problem Statement

Current Condition/Current State

Analysis and Understanding

Target/Objectives/Goals

Proposed Countermeasures

Implementation Plan

Sustaining Measures and Follow-Up

The A3 in Action

Solving Problems

Updates to Standard Work

Kata

Why Thinking Is Less Important Than Behavior!

Notes

7 Everything Is Visible

Introduction

Making the Invisible Visible

The Visual Journey

Lean Visual Management

Creating a Common Understanding

Drawing Leadership to the Gemba

Driving Accountability and Continuous Improvement

Expanding the Model Line Visual Management System

Walk before You Run

“Uncommon” Visual Management

Additional Visual Elements for the Model Line

Standard Work for Visual Management

Distributed Teams and Visual Management

Visual Management Wrap-Up

Notes

8 Why Management (Still) Matters

Introduction

Lost in Translation

You’re Only as Good as the People around You

Your Managers Are the Key

Being an Effective Coach

Listening

Communicating

Observation

Support

Patience

Empowerment

Respectful Leadership

Leading with Respect

Go and See

Challenge

Listen

Teach Problem-Solving Skills

Support

Enable Teamwork

Learn

The Coach in You—A Reflective Journey

Notes

9 Sustain Your Progress

Building for the Long Term

The Five-Part Sustainability System

Accountability

Linking the Systems Together

Adding Visual Accountability

Interlocking Leader Standard Work

Cadenced Gemba Walks

Assessment and Reflection

Personal Reflection

Lean System Assessment

Continuous Learning

Sustainability Wrap-Up

Notes

10 The Importance of Strategic Alignment

Introduction

Purpose-Driven Alignment

What Is Strategy Deployment?

A Path to Implementation

Step 1—Develop the Plan/Create the Challenge

Step 2—Deploy the Plan: Nested Cycles of PDCA

Step 3—Monitor the Plan: Managing by Means

Step 4—Improve the System: Nested Subcycles of PDCA

This Isn’t Easy!

So What Does It Look Like in Practice?

Develop the Plan

Deploy the Plan

Monitor the Plan

Improve the System

Why Not Talk about Strategy Sooner?

What about Major Strategic Breakthroughs?

Central Nervous System—The Power of Alignment

Notes

11 Engineering Excellence

Excellence Everywhere

Antidogma

Engineering Excellence in the Model Line

Moving at Tech Speed

Technology Vision

A3 Tech

Keeping Our Skills Sharp

Visual Skills Matrix

Standard Work for Learning

A3 Redux

Making the Commitment to Excellence

Notes

12 Continue the Journey

Index

Foreword

From iPhones to electric cars, better, smarter products are the key to revolutionizing society while continuing to give greater autonomy and enjoyment to each individual person. IT is now a critical component of the (hardware, software, service) system that makes a twenty-first century great product; therefore, a leaner IT is vital to developing better products. This field guide hits upon many of the most impactful questions in running a business and provides a clear path to finding your own answers.

Lean is often misunderstood as a toolbox of organizational techniques when it is, in fact, as the authors explain well, both a learning system and a respect system. For instance, a key idea of lean is that batches are bad and flow is good, but, more deeply, lean thinking is really about understanding what management decisions lead to batching, why this introduces un-levelness in the process (mura), and how it creates unreasonable burdens on either people or systems (muri) and results in what waste (muda). Lean is the discovery process to understand the reasoning that led to batching in the first place and recognizing the wasteful consequences this has for customers, employees, and shareholders.

Many IT approaches have built upon the insight that batches are bad and continuous flow is good: agile, scrum, kanban. Although development teams love them, they have so far failed, as a whole, to convince senior management. Like most innovations, having—or even proving—a new idea is not enough: The organization must also develop the capability to work with it to deliver consistently. In effect, this is what kaizen is about: continuously training teams and their managers to improve and change so that they can accept, embrace, and create innovation more easily and, indeed, fight harder to make it work.

With this field guide, Mike and Tom address directly the know-why and know-how needed at the leadership and management levels to support a sustaining transformation within IT and, indeed, the entire enterprise. In this, the guide is absolutely critical to any success with lean in IT because it highlights not just the organizational techniques of more agile and lean processes, but also the leadership work required to help management adopt these new approaches. Lean IT and agile heroes often display an antimanagement feeling that does little to support their cause. Here, Mike and Tom thoughtfully show that management’s role is essential to train people daily and support team-level improvement work. Without management involvement, lean IT team victories remain just that—local wins that are rarely spread throughout the IT value chain to effect a true end-to-end transformation.

By clarifying the main definitions; specifying, step by step, the foundational management skills; and providing many examples distinguishing success from setback, Mike and Tom have written a savvy, smart, and mindful guide to your own lean IT transformation. As Mike taught me, “It takes 40 days to make it and another 40 days to own it.” This field guide provides a wonderfully written, lucid, succinct guide to what you need to know to succeed.

Michael Ballé

Co-founder, Institut Lean France, Paris

Acknowledgment

In reflecting on the creation of this book, we are awestruck by the generous contribution of so many individuals and organizations. Perhaps the defining feature of the lean community is the willingness to share ideas and help others to learn and understand. Imagine the progress that could be made across the world if everyone was a lean thinker! If when something went wrong we didn’t point fingers, we didn’t think there is a vast conspiracy out to get us or that the world is rigged, but rather viewed it as an opportunity to investigate, learn, and improve. Instead of assuming the worst in people, we would assume the best; instead of looking from afar and making judgments, we would go and see for ourselves. And while this vision may be far from reality, our experiences and the people we met while writing this book give us hope.

The Lean IT Field Guide is the collective work of many people over many years, only some of whom are named on these pages. To those we have left out inadvertently, the mistake is ours. Any errors in this book are solely those of the authors, not the indi...