Lean Transformation: Agile Transformation Cadence Model Session 1: Change Agent Standup

In a large Transformation you will most likely be employing a team of change agents.

A standup is a good way to keep change agents aware of each others activities and accomplishments. This standup can take place in front of your Validated Change Kanban. This Kanban can show the state of all Minimum Viable Changes across the Validated Change Lifecycle.

You may also elect to use an additional swim lane to track a consolidated view of all Improvement Experiments that are in progress. Improvement Experiments are typically placed at the bottom of the Change Canvas that represents the Minimum Viable Change being validated by the experiment.

Placing active Improvement Experiments on the Validated Change Kanban makes it easier for change agents to discuss them as a team, but requires some synchronization. Weigh the need for communication with the overhead of having to keep Improvement Experiments synchronized in more than one place.

Here is a photograph of how one group of change agents tracked active improvement experiments for each MVC in play.

For our stand ups we had change agents rotate who ran the meeting, running it as a Kanban style standup. Using this approach, the standup is a quick 10- 15 minute meeting where each Minimum Viable Change, and potentially each Improvement Experiment, is quickly traversed and discussed; with a focus on problems made obvious by the Kanban system.

Problems typically take the form of:
· Blockers

· Bottlenecks

· to much activity going on at once

· a MVC or Improvement Experiment stalls at any particular state

Blockers typically are expressed as a hot colored ticket that is placed on the MVC or Improvement Experiment.

Once an issue is identified, the issue is assigned to one or more change agents, who usually discuss a resolution after the stand up is over. In this way the standup can be conducted quickly.