Feb 25, 2011

The Lean Software and Systems Consortium (LeanSSC) and the Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute (SEI) formally announce their technical cooperation for the upcoming Lean Software & Systems Conference 2011 (LSSC11) May 3-6, 2011, in Long Beach, CA. Dr. Paul Nielsen, Director and CEO of the SEI, and . Anita Carleton, Director, Software Engineering Process Management Program, will deliver keynote addresses at LSSC11. Dr. Nielsen and Ms. Carleton join other leading industry experts including Chet Richards, and David Snowden who will also deliver keynote presentations.

The final day of LSSC11, May 6, will be presented in cooperation with the SEI, and all content that day will be relevant to areas of active research by the SEI. The track topics for this day include risk, CMMI®, and system design. The entire conference will include sessions on topics of interest to the SEI community such as systems engineering, Lean product development, and process improvement. On May 3, pre-conference tutorials will be offered by speakers such as Dave Snowden and Chet Richards presenting models like Cynefin and OODA loop and maneuver warfare.

David J. Anderson, conference chair and Vice President of the LeanSSC said, “I’m thrilled to be working with the SEI. We’re building a new community in our industry under the umbrella topic of Lean. This new community is broad-based, open-minded, innovative, and yet respectful of the many contributions others have made. The theme of this year’s conference is synthesis of other models, going beyond Lean, to include emergence and complexity science, theory of constraints, maneuver warfare and the many contributions the SEI has made such as CMMI and the understanding of organizational maturity and quality.”

Paul Nielsen, Director and CEO of the SEI, said, “I am very excited about the opportunity to present a keynote at the LSSC 2011 conference.  I am well aware of Lean principles and the powerful results Lean thinking can bring to software and system development.  I am especially excited about how Lean can work with other process improvement methodologies to tame the growing complexity we see in software intensive systems.”

“Lean and Agile methods are among the most popular software development methods today,” said Anita Carleton, Director, SEI Software Engineering Process Management Program. “While we are seeing a pro-Lean subculture emerging in the community, some of the issues to consider include how to balance agility and discipline in large complex system development settings. I look forward to the opportunity of participating in this year’s Lean Software & Systems Conference to discuss these ideas.”

About the Lean Software & Systems Conference

The Lean Software and Systems Conference emphasizes Lean concepts representing the next wave of ideas in methods, process and organization for software and systems engineering. It brings together an international community of practitioners, consultants, thought leaders and authors to cross-pollinate ideas and foster a sense of community for those promoting better economic and sociological outcomes in their workplace.

Conference chairman David J. Anderson is an expert on business agility and promotes a synergy of the SEI’s CMMI model with Agile and Lean methods as outlined in his writings including an SEI Technical Note.

About the Software Engineering Institute

The Software Engineering Institute (SEI) is a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense and operated by Carnegie Mellon University. The SEI helps organizations make measurable improvements in their software engineering capabilities by providing technical leadership to advance the practice of software engineering. For more information, visit the SEI website at http://www.sei.cmu.edu.

About the Lean Software and Systems Consortium

The Lean Software and Systems Consortium (LeanSSC) is a non-profit organization of corporate members, academic institutions, and industry leaders who share the belief that the science of lean offers benefits to software intensive industries. LeanSSC’s mission is to promote professionalism and create awareness of lean science and associated competencies through community, communication and education. The LeanSSC is based in Washington, USA.

Contact:
Kelly M. Wilson
Software Engineering Professionals
Four Center Green – Suite 400, Carmel, IN 46032
317.843.1640 Ext. 2050
kelly@sep.com

® – CMMI is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office by Carnegie Mellon University.
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Many conferences have an agile or lean track that you could choose to attend in 2011. LSSC11 is an entire conference dedicated to Lean and Kanban knowledge sharing. Few other conferences can boast this concentration. If you are not already registered, I suggest you seriously consider registering for LSSC11 in the next two weeks (early bird pricing ends Feb 28, 2011).

I was thinking about “Why LSSC11?” and realized at least 10 compelling reasons to attend:

Top 10 Reasons to Attend LSSC11

(Especially if you can only attend one Lean/Kanban/Agile conference this year):

1. The LSSC11 lineup of speakers is unprecedented with speaker and open space presenters that include experts from the Software Engineering Institute (featuring both SEI’s CEO Paul Nielsen AND the Director of the Software Engineering Process Management Program Anita Carleton) and major industry visionaries (such as experts Chet Richards and David Snowden).
2. LSSC11 is truly an international meeting place to talk about Lean, Agile, and Kanban in relation to software and systems development. Confirmed speakers are coming from Israel, Brazil, Sweden, UK, Australia, New Zealand and other countries, with attendees arriving from all corners of the globe.
3. Discount codes available from every speaker (contact any speaker or send me an email to caroldekkers@gmail.com if you do not know a speaker to contact). Using a discount code to register can save you a bundle on your registration pricing! (Register by Feb 28, 2011 for early bird pricing.
4. Past attendees (from 2009 and 2010) are excited about coming back for #LSSC11 – just watch the escalating posts on our #LSSC11 Twitter stream. Check out videos and slides of sessions from last year.
5. Bonus — Conference chair and author of the newly released “Kanban” book David Anderson has been speaking and training worldwide on Kanban and Lean, and just returned from the Agile Manifesto 10 year reunion in Snowbird, UT. David always delivers outstanding presentations (and will at LSSC11). You have to attend LSSC11 to meet David and other highly approachable experts who stay to network and interact with participants.
6. The conference promises (and delivers) a friendly and comprehensive schedule that encourages networking, sharing of best practices and lessons learned. Even the most introverted attendees leave with new friends and great experiences! In addition to 3 days of sessions, the program includes a day of tutorials, a Tools Showcase to learn about electronic Kanban tools, and a Games Room to experience Lean simulations.
7. The venue in Long Beach, California has collaborated with #LSSC11 to give us affordable pricing at an outstanding hotel facing the water. There is simply no better setting for learning than surf, sand, good weather, and great people! Consider extending your conference trip by a couple of days (at conference room rates) to see local sites. Long Beach is a business and tourist destination within proximity of some of the best that California has to offer.
8. Allan Shalloway, CEO of Net Objectives and a speaker at #LSSC11 has issued a money-back guarantee to any attendee at #LSSC11 who does not receive value. Not even one participant from #LSSC10 took him up on it. It is a bold claim to offer this guarantee and shows the level of commitment and professionalism from our supporters!
9. For those traveling from Europe, the Euro to US dollar exchange rate is favorable. Flights are frequent and there are many airports in the vicinity – many featuring shuttles to Long Beach. If anyone needs assistance with travel recommendations, our #LSSC11 leadership team can help.
10. The Technical Advisory Board meeting of the Lean Software and Systems Consortium is open to all attendees on Tuesday, May 3rd. Be part of Lean Software history as the Consortium discusses upcoming strategic initiatives.

I do not know of another conference anywhere in 2011 that will connect you as quickly in 3 days with this combination of speakers, insights, bright attendees, leadership, and willingness to share at a single venue.

LSSC11 is an experience not to be missed and is the most affordable way to “jumpstart” your Lean and Agile experience. Remember two more weeks for early bird registration! http://lssc11.leanssc.org/

I hope to meet you there!
Carol Dekkers
@caroldekkers (Twitter)

Dealing with Technical Debt in Product Development

I uploaded a new presentation to slideshare. This time – some symptoms that tell you there is a lot of Technical Debt, and a bit on how to deal with it.

Abstract

More and more organizations want to become more agile these days. When the theory hits the shores of reality, few organizations can get to an idealistic agile feature team that does all testing within sprints, has no need for release-level processes, and where everything is fully automated continuous deployment style. Usually the testing organization is in the eye of the storm when talking about Big Batches, Wastes, ineffective handoffs and mountains of rework, as well as high transaction costs. I’ve recently been using Lean/Kanban flow based approaches to provide a way to evolve testing organizations to a more effective way of working, so that they can better support earlier feedback and higher flexibility. I will present this work as well as case studies from enterprise-level product development companies that are starting to use these approaches.

We will deal with the following challenges:

• Complex environments when it is not realistic to finish all required work within a sprint
• How to visualize and reduce testing batch sizes within sprints/releases using CFD
• How to deal with the testing bottleneck so common in product development organizations – practical suggestions and how to deal with the mindset issues
• How to run stabilization/hardening periods using Flow-based thinki

Yuval Yeret

Yuval is an Agile Coach helping individuals and organization ease their path to Agility and Engineering excellence, focusing on Kanban, Scrum, Lean, and effective R&D in general. Yuval comes from the R&D management world where he practiced what he now preaches.

Starting 1994, Yuval held various positions in IT and R&D, leading up to VP R&D of several IT technology startups where he introduced agile methodologies, as well as served as Product Owner on various occasions. Today, Yuval is a senior consultant in the Agilesparks team, engaged with several enterprise-scale global R&D organizations.

Yuval is a practicing Certified Scrum Master since 2007, a CSP and CSPO and is actively consulting multiple enterprise organizations. Yuval holds a BA in Math and Computer Sciences from the Tel Aviv Open University.