Sunday, January 20, 2013

Demystifying Kanban talk at Yahoo! headquarters in Sunnyvale California, USA

I had the privilege of giving a talk for the Silicon Valley Agile Leadership Network at Yahoo! headquarters in Sunnyvale California, and at 86 people the fortune of this having been the largest-attendance meeting the SVALN has had so far.

The meeting started with a gentle 10-minute introduction on what Kanban is and isn't (it is for managing improvement and not for managing projects) and some basics of Systems and Lean thinking. Then 65 minutes of fun, workshop style introduction to the Kanban system and method. The audience was divided in 4-people temas (that is 21 teams) doing a series of time-boxed exercises, which with the help of several volunteers Masa managed to pull off successfully. Attendants had a lot of fun and it was a learning experience to all. The last five minutes masa wrapped things up and commented that comparing Kanban with Scrum doesn't make sense because they have different purposes. Scrum is to manage software projects and Kanban is to manage continuous improvement.

Yahoo!'s meeting room was just perfect for the event and the food they provided was great. SVALN did a fantastic job organizing the event and setting up the meeting room. Volunteers were key to the event's success.