creating resilient, robust, & antifragile organizations

Copyright Lean Kanban Inc.Email: [email protected] Twitter: @lki_dja

Creating Robust, Resilient & Antifragile OrganizationsWhat does it take to be…

…“built to last”?

Presenter:David J. Anderson

Lean Kanban BeneluxHeeze, NL

November 2016


Built to Last - 1994

3M – the Minnesota Mutation Machine

An Example of a Resilient, Robust &

Antifragile organization


Emotional Motivation for Change


Nobody wants to lead the next Nokia!

From $56 to $2!


Motivation for adoption? Kanban has agendas


What are they afraid of?


Taleb’s Model for Organizations


A new way to look at organizations


Fragile


Resilient


Robust


Antifragile


Fragile


Fragile lead time distribution

Weibull, k=0.8


More Robust Lead Time


Examples of Lead Time Distributions


Kanban mitigates risk of fragility


Examples of fragile entities


the Greenland Norse were fragile


Monopoly skischool franchises didn’t survive deregulation in the 1990s


Squeezes


Volatility & Turbulence

Risk is manageable in conditions of stable volatility, i.e. where there is no/very little turbulence. Turbulence implies unmanageable risk Ergo, turbulent systems are fragile systems


Deadlines create squeezes


Dealing with squeezes


A better way to deal with squeezes


Resilient


Resilient organizations avoid catastrophic failure


Impact function matter more than likelihood


Resilient organizations avoid catastrophic failure


Blocker Clustering helps with resilience

http://www.klausleopold.com/2013/09/blocker-clusters-problems-are-not.html


Resilient organizations use classes of service


Resilient organizations use experiments


Resilience requires a reason to pick yourself up and try again


Purpose or values weigh more strongly than identity with resilient organizations


Feedback loops for tactical concerns


Robust


Robust organizations…


Feedback loops for operational concerns


Entropy


Entropy in a housing neighborhood


Diversity of housing makes a robust neighborhood


Without restriction entropy will continue


Left unchecked a new monoculture develops


Eventually maximum entropy occurs


Robustness is fragile – a philosophical dilemma


Singapore is Robust


Antifragile


3M – Minnesota Mutation Machine*

* Collins & Porras, Built to Last


IBM has a long history of identity change


John Menzies founded in 1833 as a newsagent in Edinburgh. Identity change in 1998 to distribution &

airport baggage handler


Microsoft is robust rather than antifragile

Cooperative effort to strengthen the tribePersonal SacrificeSymbols are more importantCommon enemyRituals practiced

“Be Paranoid”


Microsoft is robust rather than antifragile


Identities that are looser, wider, broader umbrellas are robust and enable antifragility


Virgin are robust and may be antifragile so long as they survive the transition from Sir Richard

Branson as their leader


What is Virgin Group’s Identity ?


Virgin’s brand


Feedback loops for strategy


The Organizational Dilemma


Organizational Dilemma


Kanban & Resilience, Robustness & Antifragility


Capability

OptionalityAdaptability

Agility

Survivability

Out-maneuvered

Unfit for purpose

Kanban enables Antifragility

Antifragility


The Kanban Method

General Practices

1. Visualize (with a kanban board 看板 )

2. Limit work-in-progress (with kanban かんばん )

3. Manage flow4. Make policies explicit5. Implement feedback loops6. Improve collaboratively, evolve experimentally

(using models & the scientific method)


StrategyReview

RiskReview

Monthly

ServiceDeliveryReview

Bi-WeeklyQuarterly

KanbanMeeting

Daily

OperationsReview

Monthly

Replenishment &Commitment

Meeting

Weekly

DeliveryPlanningMeeting

Per delivery cadence

change change

change

change

change

change

change change

change

info

info

info

info

info

infoinfo

info

info

change info

Kanban Cadences


ChangeRequest

s3

1

Prod.Defects

Maintenance

UsabilityImproveme

nt

2

1

Kanban helps with “einheit” (unity & alignment)

Teams

F

HE

C A

Engin-eeringReady

G

D

GY

PBDE

MN

2

P1

AB

Ongoing

Analysis Testing

Done VerificationAcceptance3 3Ongoing

DevelopmentDone3

Joe

Peter

Steven

Joann

David

Rhonda

Brian

Ashok


Kanban enables resilience, robustness & antifragility


Thank you!


About

David Anderson is an innovator in management of 21st Century businesses that employ creative people who “think for a living” . He leads a training, consulting, publishing and event planning business dedicated to developing, promoting and implementing new management thinking & methods…He has 30+ years experience in the high technology industry starting with computer games in the early 1980’s. He has led software organizations delivering superior productivity and quality using innovative methods at large companies such as Sprint and Motorola.David defined Enterprise Services Planning and originated Kanban Method an adaptive approach to improved service delivery. His latest book, published in June 2012, is, Lessons in Agile Management – On the Road to Kanban.David is Chairman & CEO of Lean Kanban Inc., a business operating globally, dedicated to providing quality training & events to bring Kanban and Enterprise Services Planning to businesses who employ those who must “think for a living.”


This presentation was inspired by the work of Nassim Taleb on Fragility, Resilience, Robustness & Antifragility in Risk Management and by his 5-day Real World Risk class in New York City, February 2016. None of the content of this talk is taken directly from Taleb nor is it meant to represent (or misrepresent) his work in shape or fashion.

Cover images courtesy of John Menzies PLC, the Scotsman newspaper and the BBC.

Lead time distribution courtesy Andreas Bartel

Volatility & Turbulence data courtesy of Digite, Raymond Keating / CME Group, Andreas Bartel

Acknowledgements


Appendices


Books


2010 – Kanban “blue book”


2012 Lessons in Agile Management

The heavily under-rated book that underpins the Kanban Coaching Masterclass and most of the theory behind the Kanban Method


2014 Kanban from the Inside

creating resilient, robust, & antifragile organizations

Leadership & Management