Talk given at Lean Kanban Central Europe 2016

1. Servant Leadership
un-neutered
Copyright © 2016 Positive Incline Ltd. All rights reserved.
Mike Burrows
Email: mike@agendashift.com
Twitter: @asplake, @agendashift & @KanbanInside
Home: www.agendashift.com
LinkedIn: Agendashift (group)
Lean Kanban Central Europe,
November 2016

2. Mike Burrows
Email: mike@agendashift.com
Twitter: @asplake, @agendashift, @KanbanInside
Blog: positiveincline.com, blog.agendashift.com
• Consultant, trainer, coach, facilitator
• Founder, Agendashift
Author, Kanban from the Inside
• Brickell Key Community Contribution Award 2014
• Former Executive Director and global development
manager, then IT Director
• Interim delivery manager for two UK government digital
“exemplar” projects
#hello, my name is Mike Burrows

3. Coaching tools Strategy deployment Strategy planning
Values-based
delivery assessment
Debrief / action
workshop
Transformation strategy
framework
Lean-Agile | Kanban | Clean Language | Cynefin | Lean Startup | A3 | Servant Leadership
Home:
www.agendashift.com
Slack:
www.agendashift.com/slack
LinkedIn:
www.agendashift.com/linkedin
Blog:
www.agendashift.com/blog
Agendashift
Transforming Lean-Agile transformation
™

4. What, to you, is
Servant Leadership?

5. “Leadership for nice guys”?

6. “Leading by example,
behaving well”?
Edward D. Hess, Servant leadership: A path to high performance
www.washingtonpost.com, April 28th 2013

7. “Unblocking all the things and
getting out of the way”?

8. “Serving people”?

9. Serving the team

10. Serving the process
Serving the team

11. Serving the team
Pursuing purpose

12. Robert K. Greenleaf (1904-1990)
Three key essays:
• The servant as leader
• The institution as servant
• Trustees as servants
Key thoughts:
• Servant first, then leader
• Legitimacy

13. 1. Help others to be successful
• Removing impediments,
meeting immediate needs
2. Help others find autonomy &
meaning
• Together developing and pursuing
the organisation’s values, mission,
and purpose in society
3. Help develop servant
leadership in others
• Ensuring that this process of
transformation will continue

14. “Serving people, teams, and
the wider organisation in the
purposeful pursuit of what
they need to become”

15. Small acts of [Servant] Leadership, circa 2013
Transparency Balance Collaboration
Customer focus Flow Leadership
Understanding Agreement Respect
• positiveincline.com/index.php/2013/01/introducing-kanban-through-its-values/
• positiveincline.com/index.php/2013/06/small-acts-of-leadership/
• Kanban from the Inside (2014), chapter 6

16. Six strategies for effective Lean-Agile
transformation
Strategies to
address gaps
Strategies to sustain
transformation
1. Skills-first 4. Improvement-driven
2. Needs-first 5. Alignment-driven
3. Team-first 6. Purpose-driven
Servant Leadership
agendashift.com/paper

17. Strategy 1: Skills-first
“Serving people, teams, and
the wider organisation in the
purposeful pursuit of what
they need to become”

20. Strategy 2: Needs-first
“Serving people, teams, and
the wider organisation in the
purposeful pursuit of what
they need to become”

21. Start with
needs*
*user needs not government needs
www.slideshare.net/j_boye/simon-kaplan

22. User story:
As a driver,
I want a list of directions
so that I can review my route
Job story:
When I’m about to leave the
motorway, I want to know
what’s coming next so that I
can choose the correct lane
on the slip road

24. Strategy 3: Team-first
“Serving people, teams, and
the wider organisation in the
purposeful pursuit of what
they need to become”

27. Exclusive, prescriptive, practice-based
Do you:
q Go round the room with the three questions
q Review the board right to left
q Maintain velocity figures and a burndown chart
q Track lead times, maintaining a lead time histogram

28. Inclusive, non-prescriptive, values-based
• We share progress on our work frequently and
are quick to collaborate as the need or
opportunity arises
#transparency #collaboration
• We understand our performance sufficiently to
make timely decisions, to set appropriate
expectations, and to focus our improvement
efforts
#flow #transparency #collaboration

29. Six strategies for effective Lean-Agile
transformation
Strategies to
address gaps
Strategies to sustain
transformation
1. Skills-first 4. Improvement-driven
2. Needs-first 5. Alignment-driven
3. Team-first 6. Purpose-driven
Servant Leadership
agendashift.com/paper

30. Strategy 4: Improvement-driven
“Serving people, teams, and
the wider organisation in the
purposeful pursuit of what
they need to become”

31. Outcome-driven, not niggle-driven
• “What would you like to have happen?”
• “Then what happens?”
• “What needs to happen for that to happen?”
#cleanlanguage

32. Frame actions as hypotheses (when appropriate)
We believe that
(actionable change)
____________________________
will result in
(meaningful impact)
____________________________.
We might expect to see
(observable outcomes)
____________________________
____________________________#leanstartup

33. Change:
Owner: Mentor:
Context / scope: Aligned to objective:
(owner)
Copyright © 2016 Agendashift (a trading name of Positive Incline Ltd)
This A3 template by Mike Burrows of Agendashift (a trading name of Positive Incline Ltd) is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0
International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en_US.
We believe that
will result in
We might expect to see
Hypothesis Risks
Downside (to be invalidated/mitigated) Upside (to be nurtured)
Pilot experiments (new A3s)
Directly impacted Other stakeholders & influencers
Assumptions & dependencies
People Insights
To be validated To be resolved
Agendashift
Transforming Lean-Agile transformation
™

34. Organise for follow-through
Agree
Urgency
Nego,ate
Change
Validate
Adop,on
Verify
Performance
Complete
Next Adopted
Reverted
Soon
Rejected
New
Abandoned
Adapted from Jeff Anderson’s The Lean Change Method; see also Ash Maurya’s Running Lean
#leanstartup

35. Strategy 5: Alignment-driven
“Serving people, teams, and
the wider organisation in the
purposeful pursuit of what
they need to become”

36. Feedback loops as alignment mechanisms
Strategy
Review
Risk
Review
Service
Delivery
Review
Standup
Meeting
Replenishment/
Commitment
Meeting
Delivery
Planning
Meeting
Operations
Review
Source: David J. Anderson, ESP compared to Kanban Method
http://djaa.com/esp-compared-kanban-method

37. #cynefin

38. #cynefin

39. Strategy 6: Purpose-driven
“Serving people, teams, and
the wider organisation in the
purposeful pursuit of what
they need to become”

40. “Know what you’re delivering,
to whom,
and why it matters”
Reflection: Are people connected to purpose?

41. “Serving people, teams, and
the wider organisation in the
purposeful pursuit of what
they need to become”
1. Skills-first 4. Improvement-driven
2. Needs-first 5. Alignment-driven
3. Team-first 6. Purpose-driven

42. Thank you! Over to you…
• Rediscover Greenleaf
– Servant Leadership (book)
– The Servant as Leader (essay, pdf)
• Read the white paper, try a mini assessment
– agendashift.com/paper
6+1 Essential strategies for successful
Lean-Agile transformation
– agendashift.com/2016 – this year’s survey
• Stay in touch:
– Email: mike@agendashift.com
– LinkedIn: Agendashift (group), also Slack
– Twitter: @asplake @agendashift @KanbanInside

43. Coaching tools Strategy deployment Strategy planning
Values-based
delivery assessment
Debrief / action
workshop
Transformation strategy
framework
Lean-Agile | Kanban | Clean Language | Cynefin | Lean Startup | A3 | Servant Leadership
Home:
www.agendashift.com
Slack:
www.agendashift.com/slack
LinkedIn:
www.agendashift.com/linkedin
Blog:
www.agendashift.com/blog
Agendashift
Transforming Lean-Agile transformation
™