[Guest Post - MJ Wivell is the CEO of BTI360 and is known as a thought leader in implementing Kanban systems to manage software teams. MJ holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Lynchburg College and a M.S. in Informations Systems from George Mason University. MJ is a Sun Certified Java Programmer and Certified ScrumMaster] Recently I met Peter Saddington at AgileDC and he asked a simple question:
What if our organization was to take your talents and use them to bless others?
Peter called this LeanSalt/LeanGiving. That question rang in my ears. And then it happened, spontaneously.
Two days later I was working with a software team one of the project managers had a puzzled look on her face. She said, “I think this agile stuff would work great in my husband's automobile company.” Immediately I thought of Peter’s question. Here was my chance.
I learned that she thought there was a lot of waste in the company and if improvements could be made more cars could be worked on which meant more revenue for the shop. The challenge was where to start?
After a lot of conversation we decided to implement 3 changes:
- Visualize the work flow and limit each mechanic’s work
- Have nightly check-ins to plan for the next days work
- Conduct retrospectives at the end each week for continuous improvement
Read the final results at the [LeanSalt blog]
