written, illustrated and performed by

Claudio Perrone

agilesensei.com a3thinker.com

Evolve or die

A3 Thinking and Popcorn Flow

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”

28 months later...

“Except… I didn’t.”

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

Rule makers

Controllers

Enforcers

Victims Organization chart God

Losers

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

SMs

Typical “Agile” Enterprise

“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

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.

“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

“ 95% of variation in worker’s performance is governed by the systems.

W. Edwards deming believed that…

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

Perhaps…

…TO BETTER SERVE INDIVIDUALS AND INTERACTIONS.

in lean, we co-design and continuously improve processes and tools…

“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

-­‐-­‐-­‐  Jurgen  Appelo  

“ Management is too important to leave to the managers. Management is everyone’s job.

(YOU MAY ALSO CONSIDER THAT…)

A3 THINKING 2

@agilesensei

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

Current Situation

Standard

Following that definition, there are 3 classes of problems:

Standard (or Shared Expectation)

Preventive

Maintenance

Kaizen

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.

“ -- Claudio Perrone

It’s not what you do but rather what you learn by doing it that matters.

A3 is about the thinking, not the report.

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?

WHO? I want his f$g#

Head!!

Ehm… someone made a mistake.

… 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…

Problems & observations Options Possible experiments Committed Ongoing Review Next

… a powerful learning stream that I defined and captured on a parallel “Popcorn board”

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

Reality

Expectation

…but we only really “fail” when we limit our opportunities to learn

Gap = Frustration

Reality

Expectation

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  

claudio@agilesensei.com  www.agilesensei.com  

@agilesensei  www.a3thinker.com  

Next is Now