I co-presented three sessions at Agile 2010. The materials for these sessions are now available:
I hope you enjoyed the session or get some useful ideas from the session materials. Let us know how you’ve applied these tools.
I’ll present “Lean out your product backlog with lean product development and business analysis techniques” at the Lean & Kanban Europe 2010 conference.
The session will show how using business analysis and kanban techniques we can create a flow from business goals to implementable user stories with acceptance test, focus on value-delivering capabilities and involve the whole team in product development.

I’ll co-present a session with Christophe Thibaut about the “A3 process” at the Université du SI conference on July 1-2 in Paris.
The “A3 report” is a standardized report format used within Toyota and other companies to make proposals and report. The standardized and constrained format helps the writer and readers to come to the point quickly, concentrate on the essentials and get the important information without wasting time.
However, when applying this technique we often only implement the superficial elements, the fact that the documents are limited in size and have a standardized format. Sometimes, the exact format of the Toyota reports is copied. And then we’re disappointed because this “cargo cult” application only delivers limited benefits.
In this session we’ll look at and let participants experiment with the social aspects of the A3 report:
- How we define the standardized format to support our goals
- How leaders and managers use A3 report writing by their team members are structured one-to-one coaching
- How to build in iteration and feedback from peers to improve the proposals
- How to use the review process as a consensus building tool
- How to present reports in such a way that they’re heard, understood and accepted
Come and play with us if you want to learn more about this powerful continuous improvement and learning tool.
If you want to know more…

I’ll co-present three sessions at this year’s Agile 2010 conference on August 9-13 in Orlando, Florida:
- In “Pinocchio, On Becoming a Lean Leader” (Tuesday August 10, 13:30-15:00) Portia Tung and I help participants along the dangerous journey from toy boy to real boy. You’ll meet all your favourite characters from this Agile Fairytale and come away with some concrete actions to become a better leader.
- “Agreeing on Business Value using Systems Thinking” (Wednesday August 11, 09:00-10:30) is a workshop where Portia Tung and I help participants come up with a “Business Value Model” for their current project. You’ll be able to use the Business Value Model to identify the high value solutions that satisfy your customers. The number of places for this workshop will be strictly limited to 20.
- “Estimation Games” (Thursday August 12, 13:30-15:00) gives participants some rules of thumb to create reliable estimates with little effort. During the session we’ll play some small estimation games to put the lessons into practice. You need never be afraid again of estimating.
If you want to know more…

Je présenterai deux sessions à la conférence Journée Agile 2010 à Gosselies (près de Charleroi), Belgique ce 16 juin.
C’est la première édition de cette conférence et aussi la première conférence francophone sur l’agilité en Belgique.
“Les Boucles XP” est une introduction à la méthode Extreme Programming. Vera Peeters et moi avons créé cette présentation il y a longtemps pour donner un goût de la façon de travailler d’une équipe vraiment agile. A travers les pratiques et les exemples d’équipes avec qui nous avons travaillé depuis 1999, la présentation explique pourquoi cette méthode marche et comment procéder pour définir une méthode qui convient à votre équipe. Pour cela, il faut voir les choses comme un système où la valeur du tout est bien plus que la somme des valeurs des éléments.
“Agile + Business Analysis = Lean Projects” explique comment on peut combiner les techniques de Business Analysis avec ceux des méthodes Agiles pour “construire la bonne chose” et “construire de la bonne façon”. Le résultat: des projets vraiment “Lean”, de la demande du client jusqu’à la livraison. L’expérience nous a montré que cette combinaison nous a permis de livrer des projets en beaucoup moins de temps qu’auparavant et en même temps livrer un produit qui avait plus de valeur que prévu. Vous verrez quelques techniques que vous pourrez appliquer dès demain et des pistes pour en savoir plus.
A bientôt!
