|
KU News
Kanban University, Mauvius Group Leadership Changes
Following the announcements of our new brand, Kanban University and the renaming of our parent company to Mauvius Group Inc, today we announce some changes and additions to our leadership team.
Following 2 years as CEO, Todd Little moves to Chairman, Mauvius Group and will take on a portfolio that includes analyst and media relations, our Kanban Conferences business unit, the Kanban University train-the-trainer program and technical support for our business network including continued development of our new kanban.university web site.
Following 15 months of sabbatical and almost a year establishing our new European headquarters in Bilbao, David J Anderson returns and takes over as CEO of Mauvius Group Inc. David will split his time between Bilbao and Seattle.
After four and a half years with the firm, Inga Lenz returns from maternity leave in September and is promoted to General Manager, Mauvius Group Inc, based in Seattle.
Steve McGee arrived 3 months ago to take the role of CEO of the David J Anderson School of Management. The schools are our physical training centers based in Seattle and Bilbao and exclusively offer our newest and our most advanced classes. Steve will sit in our Seattle office but expects to make frequent visits to Bilbao.
Carlos Calleja continues in his role as General Manager, David J Anderson School of Management Europe, based in Bilbao.
John Kennedy joined the firm in March and continues in his position as Head of Marketing, David J Anderson School of Management. John is also based in our Bilbao office.
The business expects to fill a number of staff positions in both Seattle and Bilbao in September and these will be announced in due course.
Announcing the new KCP Credential
Today, we are announcing our new intermediate level professional management credential, the Kanban Coaching Professional (KCP).
At Kanban University, we are dedicated to improving the way modern 21st Century businesses are managed. We believe that modern, professional services, knowledge worker businesses dealing in intangible goods, can dramatically improve their effectiveness and agility by adopting the Kanban Method for evolutionary change and improved service delivery.
We believe that the most effective means to improve the performance of modern businesses is to educate managers to make better decisions and take appropriate actions in an informed manner, based on pragmatic, actionable, evidence-based guidance. Our primary means of enabling these improvements is management training. We deliver our guidance through our hierarchical curricula of ever-increasing depth and breath. The higher the level of training, the more powerful and effective, the techniques transferred to the student.
Our entry level management credential has been the Kanban Management Professional (KMP). Today, we are introducing the next level, the Kanban Coaching Professional (KCP) credential. The KCP credential will be awarded to existing KMPs who complete the Kanban Maturity Model and our new 2-day Kanban Coaching Practices training classes.
Kanban Maturity Model
In May 2019, we introduced the Kanban Maturity Model 1.0, after a 2-year community preview, beta test and second beta test period. The Kanban Maturity Model codifies 12 years of experience of coaching the adoption and rollout of the Kanban Method is medium and large-scale enterprises. It codifies over 150 practices against 7 levels of organizational maturity. The Kanban Maturity Model is the primary coaching tool designed to eliminate the two popular failure modes in pursuit of business agility using kanban: the over-reaching problem – too much, too soon, leads to resistance and the corporate antibodies spit it out; and, the false summit plateau problem where there is the belief that “we’ve done Kanban, and it helped, so what is next?” The Kanban Maturity Model greatly improves the chances of large-scale success using the Kanban Method to pursue business agility. The Kanban Maturity Model democratizes elite Kanban coaching knowledge into a playbook that can be used at scale.
Kanban Coaching Practices
The Kanban Maturity Model Extension for Coaching Practices (known as “KMMX Coaching Practices”) is a collection of popular and effective methods adopted, adapted, and evolved by the Accredited Kanban Consulting (AKC) community over the past decade. These have now been codified and mapped for appropriateness of application across organizational maturity levels. This knowledge is now available neatly packaged into a 2-day training class that augments the Kanban Maturity Model (3-day) class. Together the KMM and KMMX Coaching Practices provides a powerful set of tools, practices and pragmatic, actionable, evidence-based guidance intended to make the practitioner fully competent to implement Kanban at scale.
Large Scale Business Agility
Our goal is to take organizations to a full Kanban implementation with end-to-end pull. We do this because we see the huge improvements in service delivery, customer satisfaction and service delivery that result from achieving this depth of Kanban: typically, organizations that implement the method fully, with a pull system and work-in-progress limits, see lead times drop by 90%, productivity rise by 200-300% and customer satisfaction jump to close to 100%. At this level a professional services organization is truly fit-for-purpose. In the Kanban Maturity Model, we describe this as Maturity Level 3. For large-scale business agility firms must aspire to at least Maturity Level 3.
Our goal with the Kanban Coaching Professional credential is to indicate those who have achieved a level of education and knowledge that enables them to coach an organization of 150-600 people to achieving Maturity Level 3, and a full, end-to-end pull, implementation of Kanban across an entire network of services that make up several product units aggregating into a single business unit.
The Kanban Coaching Professional credential is your indication that its holder has the knowledge and capability to enable truly large-scale business agility and outstanding economic improvements that come from 200-300% increases in productivity and 90% reductions in delivery times.
Another Step Forward on our Mission
Kanban University is dedicated to improving the performance of modern 21st Century businesses, and the effectiveness of managers in professional services, knowledge worker organizations. The democratization of our coaching practices and implementation knowledge in the Kanban Maturity Model moves us another step forward on our mission to bring our pragmatic, actionable, evidence-based guidance, to a broad audience world-wide. Since 2007, the Kanban Method has offered, “the alternative path to agility.” With the arrival of the Kanban Maturity Model, and our Kanban Coaching Practices codification, we’ve made following that path to agility more predictable and less risky. Our new Kanban Coaching Professional (KCP) credential is your guarantee that you have the skills, knowledge and expertise to achieve your business agility aspirations and your organizational goals and objectives.
About Kanban University
Kanban University is a management training company based in Seattle, United States. Led by David J. Anderson, the originator of the Kanban Method, it is the authority on training and professional development using Kanban. Kanban University offers certified training classes through a global network of accredited trainers (AKTs).
For more information visit https://kanban.university/ or email kcp@kanban.university
For a current list of Kanban Maturity Model (KMM) and Kanban Coaching Practices (KCP) training classes visit the David J Anderson School of Management http://djaa.com/
Introducing the New AKC Credential
We are making changes at Kanban University in order to make our training path and our credentials more easily understood both by those who might take training and obtain a credential and for those who might employ people with these credentials. As part of this program we’re announcing a significant change to our highest level of achievement, our elite consulting credential for experts in the Kanban Method. Since 2012, the most proficient exponents of the Kanban Method, have been known as Kanban Coaching Professionals (KCPs). At the same time, trainers have been known as Accredited Kanban Trainers (AKTs). Today, we are acting to correct the confusion with the names. From today, existing KCPs will be know as Accredited Kanban Consultants (AKCs) and we are launching our new AKC program and associated training class.
Accredited Kanban Professionals
Since 2012, Kanban University has had two programs to develop trainers and consultants. While the path to accreditation has been different, the common theme, is that both credentials have been marked by peer review and approval. Accredited Kanban Trainers must audition before their peers and fellow trainees as well as at least two AKT-trainers. Over a 5-day period, their knowledge of the Kanban Method and our training curriculum is examined and critiqued. They are auditioned for their ability to teach the material, their ability to tell stories, and their ability to illustrate the effectiveness of the method using case study evidence. Consultants have had a different path: Having completed the KCP Masterclass, 5 days of intensive training, in advanced Kanban practices, change leadership and sociology, they must complete at least 6 months field experience leading an Agile transition using the Kanban Method, write up their experience in an essay; apply to the program; undergo a period of mentoring from an existing accredited professional; and then appear before a panel interview of at least 3 existing accredited consultants. Once accredited the successful applicant is awarded the white Kanban University lanyard. This is an indication of their status in our community and their professional qualification. When attending our events globally, you can be assured that those wearing a white lanyard have progressed through a peer-review process and that Kanban University vouches for their level of knowledge and experience. It only made sense that we simplify the naming of these credentials. And hence, from today, we have
- Accredited Kanban Trainer (AKT) – with a license to teach one or more of our certified training classes
- Accredited Kanban Consultant (AKC) with the skills and experience to lead large scale Agile transitions using the Kanban Method
The AKC becomes our highest-level credential with the hardest path to achievement
Change Leadership Masterclass
The educational requirement for AKC is that they have completed the intensive 5-day Change Leadership Masterclass. This class replaces the KCP Masterclass. The oldest class in our catalog, the KCP Masterclass was first offered in October 2009. It is retired after almost 10 years. The replacement class is based on the 6th generation of the existing curriculum. Effectively the 7th generation of the class, all of the Kanban content has been removed. This is now offered though the KMP, KMM and Kanban Coaching Practices classes. Instead the Change Leadership class focuses more time on case study review, interactive classroom workgroup sessions, and illustrative movies demonstrating the collection of models and frameworks that help us understand why people resist change, and how to motivate them to get on-board your Agile transition initiative.
The focus is very much on sociology and social psychology and the adaptation of evolutionary theory, and advanced physics such as the laws of thermodynamics and quantum mechanics to social situations. The outcome is that participants learn to see the world around them differently. They see people and workplace situations differently. They learn how to predict where resistance will appear and the forms it will take. They learn to act to enable change in ways that don’t invoke resistance and when it does, they learn an escalating set of techniques to move people to supporting the changes. The Masterclass is the “queen” of our training catalog. It is the ultimate curriculum. It changes people forever. It is rightly the class required for those aspiring to the highest level of professional credential offered by Kanban University.
The KCP credential isn’t going away
The Kanban Coaching Professional (KCP) credential will not disappear. Instead, it will become much more common. By codifying our community’s coaching practices knowledge into the Kanban Maturity Model, we are democratizing adoption of the Kanban Method and successful implementation. The bar for awarding a KCP credential was always the question: is this candidate capable of leading an organization of at least 150 people to a full Kanban implementation with end-to-end pull? It is now possible to achieve this with the Kanban Maturity Model (KMM) and the Kanban Maturity Model Extension for Coaching Practices (KMMX Coaching Practices). Look out for a full announcement about the new KCP credential tomorrow, August 2nd.
What will continue to differentiate the Accredited Kanban Consultants (AKCs) is their ability to work off-the-script and beyond the playbook. They will continue to be the consultants to tackle the difficult challenges, and the domains we haven’t yet seen before, to explore the bleeding edge of Kanbanland, to settle new territories and extend the state-of-the-art. The existing AKC community have collectively helped to define what makes the Kanban Method and the KMM what they are today. For this reason, the white lanyard, is rightly a indicator of the highest achievement, most experience, greatest knowledge, and most energetic contribution to our movement and our mission of improving management in 21st Century organizations.
Another Step Forward on our Mission
Kanban University is dedicated to improving the performance of modern 21st Century businesses, and the effectiveness of managers in professional services, knowledge worker organizations. By clarifying our professional credential program and making it easier to understand, we move another step forward. It is now easier to understand the value of working with a Kanban University Accredited Professional, an AKT or an AKC. When you need the best Kanban training available, your hire an AKT. When you need the best Agile consultants conversant in achieving large-scale business agility through the alternative path offered by the Kanban Method, then you hire an AKC.
About Kanban University
Kanban University is a management training company based in Seattle, United States. Led by David J. Anderson, the originator of the Kanban Method, it is the authority on training and professional development using Kanban. Kanban University offers certified training classes through a global network of accredited trainers (AKTs). For more information visit https://kanban.university/ or email akc@kanban.university
For a current list of Change Leadership masterclasses visit the David J Anderson School of Management https://djaa.com
Lean Kanban Inc is collaborating with Digité
Lean Kanban, Inc, operator of Lean Kanban University (LKU) certified Kanban training programs and the global Lean Kanban conference series, has formed a strategic alliance with Digité, the creator of the SwiftKanban software management tool.
As part of the agreement, Lean Kanban will distribute SwiftKanban software through its global channel of licensed training organizations and its certified Lean Kanban University training programs. SwiftKanban software will be integrated into Lean Kanban certified training. “SwiftKanban is the only established Kanban software product that supports the metrics and techniques we teach in our training classes. It’s the logical choice for our customers to implement what they learn in class,” stated Janice Linden-Reed, CEO of Lean Kanban, Inc. “SwiftKanban was developed in consultation with David J Anderson, Chairman of Lean Kanban Inc, and the pioneer of Kanban in professional services. Digité is dedicated to the Kanban community and providing the features to deliver significant improvements to our customers’ business effectiveness.”
In turn, Digité will develop the SwiftKanban ESP edition to fully support Enterprise Services Planning (ESP). Enterprise Services Planning is David J. Anderson’s new management framework designed for modern high technology intensive, professional, creative, and knowledge worker service businesses. ESP is the natural evolution from MRP & ERP developed and applied to modern 21st Century. ESP leverages Kanban and a service-oriented approach to organizational design to improve predictability and delivery times in professional services businesses. ESP enables an entire enterprise to coordinate strategy, customer demand, and expectations with delivery, improving the ability to shift direction rapidly based on market conditions and internal corporate factors.
SwiftKanban ESP edition will specifically support elements of the Kanban Method such as the 7 Cadences meetings. Users will find direct support for Kanban Replenishment, Delivery Planning Meetings, Risk Reviews, Service Delivery Reviews, Operations Reviews, and Strategy Reviews. “Enterprise Services Planning is a natural extension to Digité’s products and solutions that cover Lean/ Agile Project Portfolio Management, Resource Demand and Capacity Management and Application Lifecycle Management”, said Digité President & CEO, Mr. AV Sridhar. “We see the ESP capability, combined with SwiftKanban, as a leading-edge, comprehensive solution for organizations interested in scaling Lean and Agile at the enterprise level, and improving their overall services delivery capability in a cohesive manner.”
Lean Kanban will provide a free trial version of the SwiftKanban software to all the students who take LKU certified Kanban training classes. Over 5000 students have taken Lean Kanban training classes from the network of authorized LKU providers worldwide.
As another part of the new alliance, Digité will offer a catalog of Lean Kanban Services for consulting and training. This will expand Digité’s offering to include training programs.
“We’ve come to respect Digité’s focus on customer support and product innovation through working with them in collaborations such as their Kanban webinar series,” said David J Anderson, Chairman of Lean Kanban, Inc and creator of the Kanban Method. “This new alliance is an opportunity to join forces more closely and provide stronger support for the businesses adopting Kanban and Enterprise Services Planning around the world.”
Lean Kanban, Inc. and Digité will be unveiling SwiftKanban ESP and running demos for attendees of the Lean Kanban conferences and the Enterprise Services Planning Executive Summit events.
leankanban.com/esp/ for more information about the Enterprise Services Planning management system.
swiftkanban.com/enterprise-services-planning-with-kanban/ for more information about SwiftKanban ESP software.
About Lean Kanban, Inc.
Lean Kanban, Inc. is a management training, event planning, and publishing business operating globally through its network of licensed partners and franchisees. It offers a suite of management training classes through its network of accredited trainers under the Lean Kanban University brand, together with a collection of professional credential programs for Kanban coaches, trainers, managers and team members. Lean Kanban Conferences hosts and licenses a wide range of Kanban events and Leadership Retreats throughout the world. The CEO of Lean Kanban, Inc. is David J Anderson, author of the widely known book “Kanban – Successful Evolutionary Change for your Technology Business,” and the originator of the Kanban Method. Lean Kanban, Inc. is based in Seattle, Washington.
About Digité
Digité is a leading provider of collaborative enterprise software and solutions for Lean/ Agile Application Lifecycle Management and Visual Project Management. Digité’s products SwiftALM, SwiftKanban and SwiftSync are targeted towards technology organizations – such as Corporate IT, ISVs, IT services/Outsourcing and IT-Consulting companies, as well as general business functions like Marketing, Recruitment, HR, Procurement, Legal and many others. Available on SaaS and on-premise licenses, these products provide the most comprehensive solutions Collaborative Services Delivery in the Global Delivery Model. Digité is based in Cupertino, California, and has offices in the US and India.
