I've been making some changes at AgileManagement.Net to make it easier for readers to find information and follow new posts. I've created separate blog pages with separate RSS feeds for Lean, specifically Kanban, and Agile+CMMI.

For now the existing Agile Management blog will continue to aggregate all the content. Later I will reduce it to Management topics only. However, I will maintain the existing RSS feed for both the home page and the Agile Management blog. The RSS feed will continue to aggregate everything that is posted to this site. The new RSS feeds should enable aggregators to be more focused. Kanban sites can pull the Channel Kanban RSS feed while CMMI sites can pull the Channel CMMI RSS feed.

As a result of these changes, some content in the site has disappeared the navigation or the archive search. The articles specifically about the Agile Management book are no longer available through the site navigation. However, they are still in the content management system and still available on the Internet via direct links. Older news articles that do not appear on the front page will also not be navigable but again they have not been deleted and are still accessible via direct links.

I hope that these changes provide a genuine improvement in utility for users of the site and those who value its content. There are yet more changes to come as I prepare my web presence for the next decade and modify it to accommodate my newer interests in Kanban, CMMI, and other newer areas like Real Option Theory, Management, Decision Making, Decision Bias, Neuro-psychology and Risk Management.

Rob Hathaway announced the program for the UK Lean Conference that naturally has a heavy Kanban flavor. The line up on the first day - the Sunday afternoon is amazing. Karl Scotland and Rob Hathaway are offing a Kanban 101 - Introducting Kanban for the uninitiated. While for those of us who know Kanban already we can feast on a series of case studies from Matt Wynne (BBC), Mathias Skarin (Crisp, Sweden), Allan Kelly, Benjamin Mitchell (BNP Parisbas), Reni Elisabeth Pihl Friis (Implement, Denmark, case study from Danish Defence Department), and the always adorable Chris Matts (who might share stories from Calyon and RBS.) In my opinion the first afternoon is worth the ticket price on its own. Oh and some guy called David J. Anderson is giving the key note after dinner speech. Hmmm. Wonder if he'll be any good?

Day two opens with Mary Poppendieck followed by Corey Ladas then Jeff Patton who will both be talking about Kanban. The day rounds off with the amazing John Seddon. Some people want him appointed to the government to run public services. If they do that, maybe I'll move to the UK. I wouldn't mind paying taxes for a Lean public service.

Day three has Don Reinertsen who has a wonderful new book out. Next up is Kenji Hiranabe who will doubtless be talking about his views on Kanban. Then we have Lean (construction) Project Management expert Hal Macomber and rounding out the event Alan Shalloway.

IndigoBlue have put together an amazing event. I'm really excited about it.

Technorati tag: Lean, Kanban, David+Anderson, Software+Engineering, Agile, Project+Management

Technorati tag: Agile, CMMI, Management, Leadership, Heptagon, Liveware

I'll be giving three sessions at SEPG North America in San Jose in March. One on agile metrics for quantitative management (i.e. model level 4) another the other on building a culture for high maturity (model levels 4 & 5) with kanban and teaming up with Mike Konrad and the gang to talk about the new Technical Note, CMMI and Agile: Why not embrace both! The program also includes a key note from Alistair Cockburn and a considerable amount of Agile+CMMI material from folks like Nelson Perez, Corey Ladas, Christian Hertneck, Hillel Glazer, Jeff Dalton. This is the year of Agile and CMMI and the two camps coming together. I would really like to see a significant turn out of agile folks at the SEPG in 2009. Open your mind to the idea that organizational maturity matters and that the SEI has a contribution to make that can help us all succeed. Take a look at the program for the event. Hope to see some of you there.

Technorati tag: Agile, CMMI, SEPG, SEI, Carnegie+Mellon, Software+Engineering+Institute

I'll be repeating my one-day Zen of Agile Management workshop from QCon in London this past March, at Agile Practices in Orlando Florida on November 10th and again the following week at QCon in San Francisco on Tuesday November 18th.

In both locations the class is in the well tried and tested one-day format. This class has been universally well received since I first introduced it at VS Live in Orlando in March 2006. I've updated the material only slightly since London this past March to include my new prioritization approach. Here is the abstract for the class...

The Zen of Agile Management

What is the essence of agile management? How do you create a culture of continuous improvement? With light touch, empowerment, delegation, high levels of trust, and focus on the correct leverage point to drive maximum advantage. Learn the Zen of agile management! This popular 1-day tutorial will give you an overview of the techniques developed by David J. Anderson in the last 8 years through his experience managing teams at Fortune 100 companies such as Motorola and Sprint using Feature Driven Development, Microsoft Solutions Framework (and Team Foundation Server) and his latest work at Corbis using Lean ideas such as Kanban and Theory of Constraints. This full-day workshop dives into the heart of how to manage with queues using kanban boards, identify and eliminate bottlenecks and reduce variability using cumulative flow diagrams and other metrics, measures, and indicators to provide line, middle and upper management reporting. David's will pass on his experience as senior director of software engineering at Bill Gates' private company, Corbis, detailing how to build a kaizen culture and institutionalized enterprise scale agile change.

There are 8 exercises:

1. How to create or destroy trust?
2. Value Stream mapping and Measuring, Tracking and Reporting Progress
3. Constraint Management and Bottlenecks
4. Waste Identification and elimination
5. Iteration Planning
6. Advanced Higher Maturity Iteration Planning
7. Product Mix Selection and Prioritization
8. How will you Manage?

I'm bringing my Zen of Agile Management workshop/class to Sao Paulo Brazil this October. This class has been universally popular since I first introduced it at VSLive in Orlando, February 2006. It's in a 2-day format so the pace will be easier and we can get in to more depth than I normally do in the half day or one day format. Apart from Orlando in 2006 I've given this workshop Singapore, Hanoi, Antwerp and London (QCon 2008). I change it around depending on the format and audience but the main content is based on my book and my writings on Lean Project Management (much of which was encapsulated into MSF for CMMI Process Improvement). I'm also giving this class in one day format at QCon in San Francisco and Agile Practices in Orlando in November.

This is a chance for a Brazilian audience to learn my approach to managing agile teams, and creating an agile transition in an organization. I've always taken a high maturity approach that eventually leads to predictability, low variability and an objective, quantitatively managed organization. The class in Brazil will include a portugese translator and hence two days for material that would normally take me about 8 classroom hours to cover should be perfect. I've updated the class to include new material I've been blogging about this year: my latest thinking on prioritization; some basics of kanban and pull systems; combining Agile and CMMI; and some coverage of real option theory for decision making.

Attendees will learn...

1. How to create or destroy trust?
2. My Recipe for Success
3. Metrics, Meaurement, Tracking and Indicators for Agile Management
4. Identifying Bottlenecks and Constraint Management
5. Waste Identification
6. Issue and Risk Management
7. Simplistic Iteration Planning
8. Advanced Predictable Iteration Planning based on low variability processes
9. Pull Systems and Kanban
10. Product Mix Selection and Prioritization
11. Real Option Theory and Decision Framing
12. Combing Agile and CMMI
13. Achieving a High Maturity ("Kaizen" culture) Agile Organization

The class will include case studies using Feature Driven Development at Motorola (2004), a pull-system at Microsoft (2004-2005), and a fully developed kaizen culture and kanban system at Corbis (2006-2007).

Zen of Agile Management with David J. Anderson, 21-22 October 2008, Sao Paulo, Brazil
Sign up now! More details (in Portuguese) can be found here.

This workshop is delivered in connection with "Speaking of Agile" conference on the following days, where I'll deliver the opening key note.

I am looking forward to making many new friends in Brazil. I hope it is the first of many visits. :-D

That's right it's not cricket! Valtech UK are holding a 1-day Agile Edge conference in a similar format to the US events I've been attending this year. The event will be held at Lords cricket ground in London on 28th October. I'll be giving the key note speech and a breakout session on Agile and CMMI. I'm not giving the full kanban breakout - they didn't ask me to. I'll be presenting material you haven't seen me discuss in London. So I hope to see some of my agile community friends from London at the event. It's great value at just 195 pounds.

My Chief Process Scientist designation with Valtech is for US only. I'm not contracted to Valtech UK. They invited me to do this event indpendently and I accepted. The program lists me as an "industry luminary." Sounds important, huh!

To show I'm not playing favorites I did a Thoughtworks event in London in the summer. It was a private event for employees so I didn't advertise it on my blog. Technorati tag: Agile, Valtech, Lean, Management, Leadership

Recently I've been working on a series of white papers that outline how I see the agile evolving to solve enterprise scale problems through the development of what I call a high maturity agile organization. I'm really happy with these first two short white papers that I've chosen to publish through my role as Chief Process Scientist at Valtech. Valtech are pioneering a new outsource development model that they call Software On-Demand. It's a Lean value chain optimization play which I believe is a prototype for the software supply chains I believe will emerge over the next decade. Through this series of white papers I hope to outline how I see software supply chains emerge and how I believe they will change the industry. [The Valtech site mentions that these are the first of a series of 4 papers, actually I envisage a larger number - at least 6. Watch out for the others being published over the summer and fall seasons.]

Read the new Advancing Agile: Looking over the Edge papers

Here is the full press release for those who are interested...

Valtech's David Anderson Publishes White Papers on Agile Paradigms and Lean Thinking

Valtech, Inc. (www.valtech.us) an international software transformation provider of OnDemand solutions and Agile and Lean coaching and training, released two white papers authored by industry luminary and author David Anderson.

The white papers, the first of two in a series titled "Advancing Agile: Looking over the Edge," explore the origins of Agile software development and contrast how its paradigms should evolve into current appropriate software product and project practices and processes, and how Lean and Agile complement each other for richer business - as well as software - success. The white papers update Agile thinking from a decade ago and introduce the concept of software as a continuously evolving and improving business process. Anderson will produce four white papers in the series, available for free from the www.valtech.us website.

Anderson is Chief Process Scientist for Valtech North America and a principal at management consultancy Modus Cooperandi (www.moduscooperandi.com).He is internationally recognized for creating cultural change for institutionalized, long-lasting implementation of Lean and Agile software development teams. Anderson is the author of "Agile Management for Software Engineering" and the Agile Management blog. He has helped Microsoft, Sprint, Motorola and Corbis adopt and embrace Agile and Lean disciplines for notable measurable results. He is also a co-founder and board member of the Agile Project Leadership Network.

Anderson will provide the keynote address and present several topics atValtech's Agile Edge conference series in New York on July 22, Austin, August 19th and Chicago, September 10. Registration information for the Agile Edge conference may be found at: http://www.valtech.us/us/index/hot/agile_edge.html or call 800-249-0123.

About Valtech

Valtech is a global provider of high performance enterprise software development, outsourcing, and organizational transformation services. Valtech offers strategic software consulting, agile-focused software engineering, skills training and coaching. The company partners with customers as no development company dares to, by sharing the risk and return of development. Valtech's OnDemand services are focused on one single outcome: Delivering business agility. Serving customers across a variety of industries, including finance, travel, energy, media, high-tech and online, Valtech OnDemand offerings result in priority business ideas and products converted to working, tested and deployable software every two weeks. Headquartered in Dallas, Valtech North America is a leading member of the Agile Alliance and Agile Project Leadership Network. For more information, please visit www.valtech.us.

###

CONTACT: Tom Crosby (919) 370-3269

Register now and get the early bird special price of $300 until June 17th.

We have a fantastic program lined up and a uniquely collaborative
conference format. [Download the flyer in PDF.] Or check out the Facebook page. Are you interested in sponsoring the event, [download our sponsorship package document in PDF].

Key note speeches from

Lisa Haneberg,
author of several books including "High Impact Middle Management",
"Focus Like a Laser Beam" and "Two Weeks to a Breakthrough",

and John Yuzdepski,
Chief Marketing Officer at TestQuest, former VP & GM at Openwave and
prior to that VP & GM of Sprintpcs.com

a CIO/Leadership panel - featuring leaders from firms around Seattle,
including Dale Christian, CIO of Avanade, and Erik Arnold, VP of IT Services, At Corbis.

Think Tank / Open Space Sessions led by recognized leaders in the
agile field, including...

Luke Hohmann with Allan Shalloway, Collaboration Games
David Anderson & Corey Ladas, Kanban
Brent Barton & Lance Young (of Solutions IQ), Scrum
Mitch Lacey & Julie Chickering, Getting Started with Agile
Bruce Eckfeldt & Jim Benson, Writing Agile Contracts
Mike Griffiths and Mike Cottmeyer, Agile Program Management
Chris Matts & Olav Maassen, Real Option Theory
Arlen Bankston & Jeff Patton, Agile User Experience

On Day 1 each Think Tank facilitator will lead an open space group to
develop new material, thinking and ideas. Participants are free to
choose a single session or wonder freely from session to session
learning and contributing to each.

On Day 2 each session facilitator will present a 20-30 summary of the
findings from the previous day. The output from all 8 sessions will be
made available to participants.

Please come and join us. Enjoy the beautiful venue. Enjoy the Seattle
summer weather. Enjoy mixing and networking with leaders in the agile
and board members of the APLN.

It's a mini-Agile Conference in the Northwest.

Enjoy the great food at the luxury Edgewater Hotel. Join us for the
cocktail reception in the evening of the 17th. Technorati tag: Agile, APLN, Lean, Seattle, Edgewater+Hotel, Luke+Hohmann, Jeff+Patton, David=Anderson, Lisa+Haneberg

Well actually, it's in McLean, Virginia ;-) but from where I sit in the chilly Northwest, that is close enough to the nation's capital.

I'm going to be giving the key note at the first of a series of seminars sponsored by Valtech - Agile Edge - at the Hilton Hotel McLean - Tyson's Corner on May 22nd.

I'll be delivering a revised version of the key note I gave at Lean and Agile Sweden back in February where I examine the underlying paradigms behind agile and Lean identify the overlap. I help to set a healthier definition around what it truly means to be agile or not. It's not about examining what practices are present. It is about evaluating whether or not a chosen practice in a specific situation delivers on the underlying paradigms of agile, or continues to reinforce the old paradigms that got us in to the mess in the first place. Hopefully, I can stimulate a healthier relationship with our past and a healthier less divisive community around agile for the future.

Check out the flyer for the event [in PDF] and the entire agenda [also in PDF]

Register now! Technorati Tags: Valtech, Kanban, Lean, David+Anderson, Agile, Software+Engineering, Management+Science

Register now, using code 'd400', to see me present kanban in San Francisco May 5th 2008 before March 19th and get a $400 discount.

I've never spoken about Agile Management in the San Francisco Bay Area with the exception of my visit to Yahoo! to talk about kanban last year. So, I'm really excited to have the chance to do so in San Francisco this year. It's been so long since I've spent any time in city of San Francisco - one of my top 5 favorite places in North America. I believe it was 5 years ago that I last attended JavaOne as a Motorola employee.

If you live in the Bay Area and would like to learn more about kanban and have a chance to meet me and talk directly about agile and lean ideas for managing software engineering teams, then come along to the JAOO event on May 5th. Accelinnova and TriFork are jointly presenting an Agile Leadership Summit. The line-up is basically the same folks who turned out for the APLN Leadership Summit in Dallas. However, the San Francisco event is commercial and does not benefit the APLN. Technorati Tags: Kanban, Lean, David+Anderson, Agile, Software+Engineering, Management+Science

The next APLN (Agile Project Leadership Network) Seattle meeting is on Monday, April 7.

Who:      Mitch Lacey with Ascentium Corporation in Bellevue, WA
What:     When Working Software is Not Enough: A Story of Project Failure
When:    Monday April 7, 5:30pm - 7:30pm
Where:   Avanade Inc. ( 2211 Elliott Avenue, Seattle, WA)

More information is at http://apln-seattle.pbwiki.com/.

Bio:

I'll be in London presenting at QCon on March 11th and 12th. I'm giving a 1 day Zen of Agile Management workshop on the 11th. This is the class that normally costs $750 per participant if you have Modus Cooperandi deliver it. So it's a great opportunity to get some really useful, different and fun agile management training for a super discounted price. On Wednesday 12th, I'm presenting my kanban material in the main conference.

These sessions are essentially repeats of the material I presented in Belgium at Javapolis last December. However, the Zen of Agile Management class is a proper full day rather than the somewhat curtailed 3 hour session I gave in Belgium.

I'm looking forward to being back in London for the first time in about 5 years. But I'm not looking forward to the prices and the exchange rate ;-)

Update: Some blog comments from an Italian attendee at my 1 day tutorial... QCon (parte 1)
Update: Adam Shimali votes me Best Talk of QCon London 2008
Update: QCon Summary on InfoQ Takeaway Points and Lessons Learned

David Anderson, thought leader on managing highly effective software engineering teams, author of Agile Management for Software Engineering, and former Senior Director for Software Engineering at Corbis, today announces the launch of Modus Cooperandi, a consulting firm dedicated to new collaborative methods of leadership and management for 21st Century knowledge worker industries. David has teamed up with Jim Benson, Corey Ladas and Daniel Vacanti to create a team of experienced thinkers and innovators in management and leadership that will offer their coaching and training throughout the World.

Modus Cooperandi will be working with a network of global partners to deliver training and consulting services aimed initially at making software engineering teams more effective, productive and efficient.

Learn more... ModusCooperandi.com

Don't miss the upcoming APLN Dallas Leadership Summit!
"Agile Leadership: What is it? How do we do it?"
February 21-22, 2008 Radisson Hotel Central, Dallas, TX

Connect with world-class Agile Leaders at the APLN Dallas Leadership Summit. 
Meet, talk and listen to leaders who have applied agile principles to their business enterprise. 
Discover how to lead agile in your organization and scale agile development practices. 
Be a part of one of the fastest growing trends in the technology industry.

The APLN Dallas Leadership Summit educates attendees with dynamic presenters 
such as David Anderson, Chris Matts, Pollyanna Pixton, Todd Little and more. 
Hear panel discussions with agile leaders from Fortune 500 companies 
and participate in think tank breakout sessions. 
Network with agile leaders at breaks and social events.  

For more information about the APLN Dallas Leadership Summit, sponsorship opportunities, and to register now visit: http://apln.org/summits.html

The next APLN (Agile Project Leadership Network) Seattle meeting is this coming Monday, February 4. Arlo Belshee from Portland will be presenting a talk on the fascinating work he is doing. A full description is below.  If you attend, you probably will leave with a few more questions about how software projects could be done...

Who:      Arlo Belshee
What:     Naked Planning – Taking the Open Kimono Principle to one Extreme
When:    Monday February 4, 5:30pm - 7:30pm
Where:   Avanade Inc. ( 2211 Elliott Avenue, Seattle, WA)

More information is at http://apln-seattle.pbwiki.com/.

Bio:

The APLN Seattle Chapter meets every first Monday of the month at Avanade, 2211 Elliott Ave, Seattle WA 98121.

Learn more about what is happening at each meeting from the APLN Seattle wiki. If you are interested in coming along please drop an email to dragosd at avanade.com.  Technorati tag: APLN, Project+Management

I won't be at TOCICO in Miami this year. I've accepted the opportunity to speak at a much bigger conference on the same week, Project World in Orlando Florida, November 6-9.

I'll be giving two talks. Here are the abstracts...

Who's Managing Lunch and other prarables of Lean Project Management

We manage projects in our everyday lives all the time. We evaluate risks. We balance costs versus benefits. We understand uncertainty and variation and buffer our schedules around it. And we recognize when things aren’t projects and need a different kind of management. Is buying the groceries a project or an inventory management problem? We think of our ability to do all this as common sense. But often we leave that common sense checked in our car when we arrive at the office in the morning. Japanese Lean manufacturing techniques and the agile software development community have been capturing some of the that common sense, codifying it and building in to everyday working practices. David Anderson will discuss with some commonplace everyday examples how to build Lean and Agile ideas in to your project management practices.

W. Edwards Deming taught the Japanese World class manufacturing, how might he have thought about project management?

Traditional project management success is measured as conformance against plan. W. Edwards Deming taught that conformance to process and his System of Profound Knowledge were preferable to conformance to plan or specification. He believed that focusing on process, productivity and variation created a culture of continuous improvement and ultimately led to better economic results, whilst conformance to plan encouraged heroic effort and a lack of repeatability. Deming's work is widely admired and implemented in manufacturing and production processes. How might it be adopted into the project management body of knowledge and how would it affect the way we manage and run projects? David Anderson has adopted Deming's thinking into his work on project management and the Software Engineering Institute’s Capability Maturity Model Integration. This talk will explain how conformance to process is reconciled with iterative project planning, tracking and reporting and how project managers can avoid making what Deming called Mistake #1 (tampering) and Mistake #2 (not intervening when appropriate to do so). Technorati tag: Agile, David+Anderson, TOC, Lean, Project+World

Come see me speaking at the Agile Vancouver group in Vancouver, British Columbia on April 24th. I'm going to present my "Who's Managing Lunch" slides about Lean Project Management for the first 45 minutes followed by by "Feature Driven Development 101" slides after a brief break. It should be a fun 2 hours.

Thanks to Philippe Kruchten for inviting me. Now he owes me one - I'll be inviting him to the Seattle Agile Project Leadership Network (APLN) chapter later this year in exchange.

[Download my FDD 101 slides in PDF].

I'm giving a full day workshop on Agile Management at the VS Live event in Orlando May 14 - 18.

What is the essence of an agile management? Light touch, empowerment, delegation, trust, and focusing on the correct leverage point to drive maximum advantage. Learn the Zen of agile management techniques embedded in to MSF v4.0 and the support offered through the Team Foundation Server work item tracking and reporting systems. This full-day workshop dives into the heart of how to manage with queues using cumulative flow diagrams and how to apply management science ideas to application development management.Technorati tag: Agile, David+Anderson, MSF, VSLive

All CMMI appraisers are cordially invited to a one-day workshop to learn more about the Microsoft Solutions Framework and the MSF for CMMI Process Improvement process template in Visual Studio Team System. Come find out how the market for CMMI appraisals is poised for significant growth with the release of Visual Studio Team System, and how to take advantage of this new business opportunity.

Gaylord Opryland, Nashville, TN, March 10th. Learn more details from the MSF web site.

Session Descriptions

An Introduction to Visual Studio Team System and the Microsoft Solutions Framework (Sam Guckenheimer, Microsoft)
Join Sam Guckenheimer as he walks attendees through the integrated functionality in the new Microsoft Visual Studio Team System. Understand how Team System can support customized process definitions for CMMI ML3 and generate the required SCAMPI evidence.

CMMI: Back to its Roots (David Anderson, Microsoft)
Understand how MSF for CMMI Process Improvement leverages the teachings of Edwards Deming and marries them with the principles of agile software development to deliver a lightweight small footprint CMMI solution

Guest Speaker: Bill Curtis, Chief Process Officer, Borland

MSF for CMMI Process Improvement and SCAMPI (David Anderson, Microsoft)
David Anderson walks through a practical example of how to use the integrated MSF for CMMI Process Improvement process template and guidance. Learn how MSF delivers the SCAMPI evidence for an appraisal.

Panel Discussion (moderated by Erik Gunvaldson, Microsoft)
Join Microsoft’s David Anderson, Sam Guckenheimer, and Clementino Mendonca, and Borland’s Bill Curtis in an informal panel discussion. Use this opportunity to ask these experts questions regarding Visual Studio Team System and the Microsoft Solutions Framework. Technorati Tags: MSF, David+Anderson, Bill+Curtis, CMMI, SEPG