The LSS Reactor Conference – Tell Us Your Stories

Lean Systems Society Reactor Conference

The Lean Systems Society is hosting a conference in Boulder in September, and as part of the event we are capturing stories about people’s experiences with Lean-Systems. This post is to give some more details on what its all about.

First, who are the Lean Systems Society?

Essentially we are a non-profit organisation trying to bring diverse Lean-Systems thinkers together, be a catalyst for new ideas, and then promote those ideas. A phrase we’ve been using recently to describe when we mean by Lean-Systems is “value first, people-based systems”. A key part of the Society is the Fellowship, a group of people we recognise as having done great work in this area.

Next, what is the Reactor Conference?

The idea is that this will not be a traditional “talking heads” conference but an opportunity for people to actively participate in working with the Fellows and other leaders in exploring or creating something new. The name Reactor comes form the idea that we want to create a container within which a reaction will happen to create new energy. Think “Nuclear Reactor” (but without any negative connotations!). We hope it will be a pretty unique event.

Finally, why the story capture?

One of the ways we are facilitating this is through Cognitive Edge’s SenseMaker technology, using it to capture stories of peoples experiences with Lean-Systems, and then explore the patterns from those stories. Thus, the stories will guide the conversations and work at the conference. The more we have, the better the conference will be, and the more likely we are to generate valuable outcomes.

Please register for the conference if you can, and tell us your stories even if you can’t attend the conference.

Agile.FM Podcast: Agile Day NYC and Kanban Thinking

Podcast in Retro

Photo Credit: themaccraic-david

I recently met up with Joe Krebs in London and recorded a podcast with him. Joe is organising the Agile Day NYC conference which I will be speaking at in September (straight after RallyON). As well as the conference, we talked about Kanban Thinking, the subject of my talk there, and the Lean Systems Society Reactor Conference, which is also coming up in September.

Listen to the podcast, and hopefully I’ll see you at one of the event next month.

3 Reasons Not To Miss RallyON Europe

RallyON Europe 2013

In September I’m going to be involved in the second RallyON Europe conference which we are running in London again. This year’s theme is “Scaling an Agile Organisation”, and I expect that it will be another great event. Here are 3 reasons I’m particularly looking forward to it.

Bjarte Bogsnes Keynote. I’ve known Bjarte for a few years now, and he’s a fellow LSS Fellow. Its a real coup to get him as our keynote. I’ve always found him to be an informative and entertaining speaker and I’m sure he’ll deliver once again. Beyond Budgeting, the topic of his talk, is an approach to management which is incredibly compatible with Lean and Agile approaches, and absolutely necessary to successfully scale an agile organisation.

A Guide to Achieving Flow. I’m going to be co-presenting this brand new session with Sallyann Freudenberg. This will be the first public airing of a new game we have co-created. Sal has taken a game I created years ago and spiced it up with Lego. Why would you not want to come and play with Lego while learning about flow?

People, Practice and Technology. Its a real pleasure at the moment to be part of an organisation which is focussing on helping to build agile businesses. The agenda is full of sessions which go beyond team agility to how the combination of people, practice and technology combine to scale an agile organisation. Come and find out more about topics such as the Agile Portfolio Management, the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), Devops, Metrics and Agile Leadership.

There are also a number of training courses scheduled to follow the conference, with the some great prices that include the conference registration. And if you want to attend as a group there are also discounts available. And if you use the code SPEAKER50 you can get $50 off. Register today, and I hope to see you there.