Agile Kaizen: Continuous Improvement Far Beyond Retrospectives. Reviews principles and practices to improve culture, people, teams, processes and products, all from an Agile perspective

1. Continuous Improvement
Far beyond retrospectives

2. Angel Medinilla
angel.medinilla@proyectalis.com
www.proyectalis.com/en/AngelMedinilla
(Slides, Videos, Newsletter, Books, Blog, LinkedIn, Sketchnotes, Twitter...)
Twitter: @angel_m
(pictures, followers & feedback welcome)
<vanity>
www.improvement21.com
facebook.com/improvement21
@improvement_21
We help people and companies create
continuous improvement habits

4. My
Pleasure!
(All drawings by yours trully)
</vanity>

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Story of a personal journey

6. That’s pretty much what I do...

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Agile + Improvement = Retros!

8. As opposed to...

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But... They are broken!
- Groundhog Day Retro
- Playground retro
- Kumbaya Retro
- Artificial Harmony Retro
- Whining Retro
- Drill Sergeant Retro
- No problem Retro
- No causes Retro

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But... They are broken!
- People do not participate
- Agenda hijack
- No difussion of innovation
- No action after retrospective
- Too many actions
- Not enough time
- Lack of preparation
- People offended /
personally affected
- Too negative

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So I managed to improve them

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So I managed to improve them
http://bit.ly/I21Newsletter

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But then... There’s more!

14. Change!

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How to change?
- Difussion of Innovations
- Change Patterns
- Lean Change / Toyota Kata / Kaizen

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How to change?
- Transformation team /
corner
- Assessment
- Vision Workshops
- Clear impact goals /
Hoshinplan.com
- Kaizen Board
- Communication,
communication,
communication !
- Scripting
- “Guru on your side”
- ...

17. Culture

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How to improve Culture?
- Storytelling !
- Communicate Purpose
- Listen for (real) values
- Honour your (real) values
- Consistent Behavior
- Promote informal leadership

19. How to Improve Culture?
- Internal conference
- Celebration events
- Kudo systems
- Impact Mapping Stories
- Tweak the environment
- Use peer pressure

20. People and Teams

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How to improve people?
- Structured Research, Development, Innovation,
Learning, Experimentation...
- Set common goals (Intel / Google OKR’s)
- Coaching, Mentoring, Training, Pairing
- Teach to give, receive and ask for feedback

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How to improve people?
- ScrumMasters / Coachs!
- Labs (not only technical!)
- Communities of Practice /
Guilds
- Exploration Days
- Pairing
- Free Electrons
- Community Events
- Desk surfing / Job
Switching

23. Bad Processes!

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How to improve processes?
- Lean, Agile, Theory of Constraints...
- Define Value and Waste
- Map & Own the Value Stream
- Optimize flow - remove constraints and
bottlenecks
- Empower teams
- Set system goals - avoid
suboptimization
- Enforce a learning environment
- Make it easy to bring impediments to
surface
- Avoid political decision making

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How to improve processes?
- VSM Workshops / VS “Owners”
- Lead Time, Cycle Time, queue size
and quality metrics
- Kanban Boards
- Jidoka / Autonomation
- Kaizen blitz / Kaizen events
- 5 Why / RCA Analysis Workshops
- Skunk Works / Task Forces
- Team Standards & Performance
metrics (OKR / Hoshin)

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Wrong Products

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Wrong Products

28. Wrong Products

29. Wrong Products

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Wrong Products

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Wrong Products

32. Wrong Products

33. Wrong products?

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“Double the cr*p, double fast”
“McAgile”

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How to improve products?
- Projects -> Products -> Problems
- Design Thinking
- Lean Startup / UX / Analytics
- Customer Centricity
- Assumption / Experiment Driven Product Development

36. A whole vision on improvement

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The Most Important Thing: HABIT!

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The Most Important Thing:
CULTURE!
- Deliberate Practice
- Perpetual discomfort
- Transparency, openness and trust
- Long term thinking
- Learning organization
- More than a structured process:
an improvement structure!

39. Last words...

40. Morihei Ueshiba

41. Lao Tzu

42. Awake the giant!

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And remember:
It's not extra work...
...IT’S YOUR ACTUAL JOB!

44. Thank you and... Share it!
http://www.proyectalis.com/en/AngelMedinilla
www.improvement21.com

45. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
This presentation is based upon the ideas and
work of many people. And while I’ve tried to
recognize copyrights and give credit and
attribution where possible, I cannot possibly
list them all, so if you feel like there’s
something that should be added, changed or
removed from this presentation, please drop
me an e-mail at
angel.medinilla@proyectalis.com
All drawings and materials in this presentation
are CC BY-NC-ND by Angel Medinilla. You are
free to use them in the terms of this license.