Dates For Your Diary

I’ve just updated my Calendar page with a couple of conferences coming up, as well as a new date for my Kanban Thinking course. LeanUX15, New York, April 15-19 This is going to be a great event, with a fantastic line-up of speakers, covering a wide range of topics. I’m going to be talking about my current ideas on Strategy …

Kanban Thinking Workshop in London

I have another public Kanban Thinking workshop coming up in London (March 5-6), in collaboration with Agil8, and to fill the last few places, I can offer a discount! Book now, using the code KS25 to get 25% off the standard price, and get 2 days of fun, discover how to design a kanban system by populating a kanban canvas, and …

A Kanban Thinking Pixar Pitch

I’ve been using the Pixar Pitch as a fun way for teams to discuss and explore the problem they are trying to solve by telling a story about what has been happening that led to the need for a kanban system. I thought it might be useful to use the formula to tell a dramatised story of what led me …

Looking back on 2014

This is a little later than I would have liked, but 2015 seems to have had a busy start! As I look back on last year, the main thing that stands out for me was my decision to go solo. As a result, the second half of the year was an interesting learning curve for me, and as I look forward …

Insights from a Kanban Board

I was working with a team this week, part of which involved reviewing their kanban board and discussing how it was evolving and what they were learning. There was one aspect in particular which generated a number of insights, and is a good example of how visualising work can help make discoveries that you might not otherwise unearth. The board had …

A Kanban Canvas Example

I’ve been doing the rounds of conferences and meet-ups recently, introducing the Kanban Canvas as a way of becoming a learning organisation. One of the more common requests and pieces of feedback is that an example would be useful. I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, giving an example feels like a slippery slope to giving a …

Strategy Deployment, the X-Matrix and Kanban Thinking

Strategy Deployemnt Kanban Systems are an enabler of evolutionary change. And so is Strategy Deployment. Strategy can be defined as how you will make a positive impact, and this implies change. As the saying goes, “hope is not a strategy”, and neither is doing nothing. Deploying that strategy, as opposed to defining and imposing a tactical plan, enables the evolution …

Heuristics for Becoming a Learning Organisation at Spark the Change

InfoQ have just published the talk I gave at this year’s Spark the Change conference on “Heuristics for Becoming a Learning Organisation“. This was the first time I introduced the Kanban Canvas, and gives some background to the questions it asks. Please follow the link to watch, as I can’t embed it here.

Making System Interventions with Kanban Thinking

This post pulls together a number of ideas on interventions into a single place, and will become the content for a page on Interventions on the Kanban Thinking site. What is an intervention? An intervention is an act of becoming involved in something in order to have an influence on what happens. It is an active and participatory action, as opposed to …

Making an Impact with Kanban Thinking

This post pulls together a number of ideas  on impact into a single place, and will become the content for a page in Impact on the Kanban Thinking site. What is Impact Outputs creates Outcomes which have Impact. Designing a Kanban System involves the evolution and discovery of a good design. It cannot be pre-determined in advance. Thus instead of defining …