Lean IT Leadership: Problem Solving Workshop
Lean IT Leadership: Problem Solving Workshop
Course Information:October 25, 2011 – 8:45am – 4:30pm Participants gain free entrance into the invite only Hear Steve Bell explain Lean thinking and what to expect from this workshop in this 8-minute interview: Listen | 
InstructorSteve Bell |
Overview
The marching orders for today’s IT leaders are clear: provide run-the-business projects and services better, faster and cheaper, in order to free up time and money to focus on initiatives that will drive business growth and innovation. Many Lean IT initiatives, such as Agile software development, and the ITIL service management framework, intend to do just that. But often something is missing – the basic discipline for teams to find and fix problems once and for all. At the heart of Lean Thinking is the Plan-Do-Check-Act problem solving process popularized by Dr. Deming over fifty years ago. This problem solving discipline is still vital today, and it’s the very core of what it means to be a “learning organization.”
This workshop provides hands-on, experiential learning by applying this discipline to a problem that is meaningful to you:
- First comes a little advance homework – choose a problem you and your team face, gather some data and artifacts, and speak to your stakeholders to understand their perspectives and needs (click here)
- Then attend the workshop for a six-hour interactive walkthrough of the problem solving process, during which we will tackle the problem you and your team have brought to class
- Take what you’ve learned back to your workplace and share with your associates
- Then participate in a conference call with the course instructor to discuss what you’ve learned, and how you and your team are addressing in a way that it stays solved
Prerequisites
There are no prerequisites for this course.
Intended Audience
This course is appropriate for Senior Executives, Managers and Directors from all industries -including but not limited to financial services, healthcare, government, transportation, high tech, and non-profit organizations.
Course Outline
Preparation:
Prior to the workshop event, participants will receive written preparation instructions, including:
- Criteria for selecting a problem to solve in the workshop setting – this may be a general business problem, or one related specifically to an IT setting
- A list of the appropriate data and artifacts needed to support the problem solving process
- Questions for customers and stakeholders to further inform the problem solving process; participants are encouraged to conduct these interviews prior to the workshop.
Workshop event:
- In this six hour workshop the class will walk through the entire “A3” problem solving cycle: problem definition, boundaries, current state analysis, future vision, future target state, root cause analysis, countermeasure, target state measures, action plan, and sustaining behaviors and management systems
Post workshop followup:
- We suggest that you hold a brownbag session with your associates and share what you learned about the problem solving process, and share your approach to your selected problem
- A list of the appropriate data and artifacts needed to support the problem solving process
- The workshop instructor is available for an optional thirty-minute debrief conference call with each participating company, to review lessons learned and the action plan for solving the problem and sustaining the gains.
Take Aways
You’ll return to your organization with:
- Hands-on experience with Lean tools, and techniques that enable problem solving and process improvement
- The understanding needed to begin finding and fixing problems each and every day – this is the foundation of the long-sought “learning organization”
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