Leader's Workshop

Software is the heart and soul of a vast number of products and business processes; every year the ability to develop robust software systems quickly and reliably becomes more critical to the world economy. And yet, most companies use software development processes that were born when systems were coded in assembly language and computer hardware was more expensive than programmers' salaries.

Today we have pervasive internet, omnipresent social media, big data, and massively scalable hardware. These advances have flourished largely outside the realm of traditional software development practices, and they call into question the conventional wisdom of what it means to develop, scale, and maintain excellent software-intensive systems.

It's time to re-think our approach to software development processes, our perception of the people who create software, and our governance systems. This two day workshop presents an alternate framework for thinking about developing software-intensive systems - one based on Lean principles and the thinking of W. Edwards Deming.

You will learn:

• How to discover what customers really want.
• How to look at your process from a customer's point of view and identify waste.
• What's wrong with software testing and what you have to do to fix it.
• How to engage people and stimulate focused innovation.
• How to rethink scheduling to permit confident promise-dating and reliable delivery.
• Tools for solving problems that everyone in the organization can use.
• Leadership roles that work - from the perspective of followers.
• Why traditional governance systems suboptimize and what to do instead.

You will develop skills:

By reading short, effective articles on each topic prior to the workshop, participants will be able to internalize the ideas though discussion and interaction. Group exercises will providel practice the six basic skills of innovators: Associating, Questioning, Observing, Networking, Experimenting, and Framing.

Learn from the experts:

Learn first-hand from thought-leaders Mary and Tom Poppendieck how to reframe your software development process from the perspective of lean principles. Mary and Tom have pioneered the application of Lean Thinking to software development and documented their principles in three books (below).

Further information:

This workshop is offered either privately through partners who sponsor a public workshop.
For additional information on the Leader's Workshop please contact us at info@poppendieck.com.