Lean IT Summit 2014: what we saw there

In its fourth edition, the Lean IT Summit, held in September in Paris by the Lean Institute of France, confirmed the enormous progress around the world in Lean applied to IT. Speakers from companies such as Toyota, Amazon, Nike, Spotify, LeMonde, Bombardier, Theodo, etc., and some of the world’s leading experts reported their advances to CEOs, CIOs, IT directors and managers from companies in different sectors.

We could see how Lean applied to IT is changing organizations around the world. The specific contributions of the companies featured at the event were:

• Pierre Masai - Toyota Motor Europe: Described the idea of One Piece Flow in IT, where the flow of information must move continuously between the company’s areas. The decision about which User Stories (US) will be developed first is not based only on the importance of the customer’s request, but also takes into account the organization’s Hoshin (where they want to get to with this delivery).


• Benoît Charles-Lavauzelle - Theodo: This startup began to grow when they trained not only the salespeople but the whole team (including the programmers) to take an active part in the business; in other words, everyone became a “salesperson.” Developers are often closer to customers than anyone else in the company, and training them to identify business opportunities was crucial to keeping the company’s workflow going.


• Fred Mathijssen - Nike: Reported that no IT project starts unless an A3 has been defined. They invest considerable time and money in training people. They always work using the Obeya as an area for decision-making and knowledge sharing.


• Ismaël Hery - LeMonde.fr: They learned that when launching a beta system, one must always provide a good and easy way to receive customer feedback; otherwise, the launch will be of no use, because learning will be minimal. They consider that creating the conditions for each employee’s learning is a premise for continuous improvement.


• Angela Crone - Bombardier: They started using a board with kanbans and saw that every hour they had to remove one card and put in another – they divided the board by system in order to reduce the changes. The weekly meetings took a long time to happen and thus delayed decision-making. They cut down the long and unproductive meetings, and also realized that, as a result, the team saw itself as part of the development process, recognizing even more the importance of its work to the company.


• Giuseppe Conigliaro - AlmavivA: Explained how they improved their methods for estimating software development time. They began using checklists to reduce the problems they had day to day.


• Carlos Condé - Amazon Web Services: Cost often kills the possibility of innovation, because there is no way to prove the return. They saved millions over five years when they decided to scale the infrastructure; in other words, they pay more only when they use it. Amazon’s idea is always to create opportunities for failure and to make people learn from it; in other words, “smooth seas do not make skillful sailors.”


• Kristian Lindwall - Spotify: From the internet music streaming company, Kristian explained how the development team was split into “squads,” each responsible for a part of the site, and how this helped people’s motivation. They work a lot with coaching.

In addition to these concrete cases, we had presentations by major influencers in the field of lean IT who pointed out some critical success factors and clarified some of the core ideas:

• Mary Poppendieck, author of several books, including Lean Software Development – From Concept to Cash: A winning team is made by the flow of information that passes through the company and reaches the customer. She stated that jidoka is the foundation for just-in-time and that the more code a piece of software has, the harder it is to manage. “Let the teams understand what they must deliver, do NOT tell them!”


• Jeff Sutherland, inventor of Scrum: Treats Scrum as a way of working and also as a way to motivate the team. More details on this presentation will be shown in an upcoming article.


• Jeff Gothelf, creator of Lean UX: People need to understand that software development is continuous; it does not end. Usually, requirements are taken on by people who will not actually develop the system, and this becomes a big problem later when the customer does not receive what they want in the expected time. The designer is the gateway to any site, and we will find the key to success when the customer starts talking to us, because then we will have better direction.

The expansion of Lean in companies’ IT areas is a way of pursuing continuous improvement in the support processes that are part of the organization’s value stream. Sometimes, for external or internal customers, simple changes to the screens of systems used day to day by the company’s employees can add value directly or indirectly to the end customer, because the information will reach them with greater quality, that is, completely and correctly. Moreover, having a motivated team is essential for changes to be well accepted, and the leader’s role is to provide an environment that makes this possible.

The Lean IT Summit further reinforced the understanding that, to obtain great results, we must provide an environment in which the IT area understands its importance and contributes directly to delivering value to the customer. In other words, we must involve it in the operation. The many success cases show an evolution of knowledge and experience with Lean IT. We hope that more and more companies will be inspired by these pioneering examples and that the lean transformation will occur throughout the company, including in IT.