Format: Hands-on workshop with introduction, use case presentations and practical exercises based on the participants own experiences.
Duration: 120 minutes
Participant requirement: >6 for a min of 2 groups <30 for a max of 6 groups

Abstract

As the knowledge of Lean increases in the software development community we start to learn about some of the most powerful, yet often forgotten techniques that help make Lean one of the most powerful approaches to software development.

Have you ever tried to resolve a problem in your project only to see it reappear in a similar or different form later on? Most of us have, this is a consequence of superficial problem solving and inadequate knowledge sharing practices. At the end of this workshop you will have knowledge of one of the simplest yet most powerful tools of Lean, the "A3 report" - a process for problem solving that helps identifying the root causes, coming up with the in-depth solutions and wrapping them up in an simple and easily sharable form.

During this workshop we will also briefly introduce several techniques that are used within the A3 report process. The participants are encouraged to bring the real life problem and work through it during the workshop. At the end of the workshop the participant will have hands-on experience on how to lead such a problem solving process and understanding of what the fundamentals are that make it work.

Description

The goal of the workshop is to make participants familiar with the "A3 report"-problem solving process.

During the workshop the participants will be made familiar with the philosophy and steps of the process as well as techniques. Presenters will introduce the "A3 report" process and will walk the participants through each step, its purpose, reasons and examples. Presenters will illustrate the process application using examples. The participants will apply the process to real world problem that they are encouraged to bring from their daily work.

The session starts with a short introduction to the rationale behind using a defined process for problem solving. We all have faced problems that we were able to solve, but there are some problems that seem too sneaky to be solved, once you think you found a solution you are surprised by some unexpected results. In this section of the
workshop we present the rationale for using the "A3 report" process with the help of some examples.

After the introduction the participants will have some time to define what problem they will tackle during the presentation. This will then be followed by a hands-on session for each of the process steps.

The last part of the workshop is used to reflect on the use of the process and collect the most important findings to be presented as an output of this session. The output of this session will be collected by presenters in PPT format to be made available in the conference web-site.

Draft agenda
15 min - Intro and process steps in short
5 min - problem selection
60-75 min - 10-15 min for each of the 6 steps in the report process
5 min - break
20 min - each group presents results and reflects on the learning from
using the process
5 min - final words and wrap-up

Bios

Vasco Duarte
Currently an Agile Coach in Nokia, Vasco Duarte is an experienced product and project manager, having worked in the software industry since 1997. Vasco has also been an Agile practicioner since 2004, he is one of the leaders and a catalyst in the adoption of Agile methods and an Agile culture at Nokia and previously at F-Secure.
Vasco's humble contributions to the improvement of the software development profession can be read in his blog: http://softwaredevelopmenttoday.blogspot.com.

Artem Marchenko
Currently a Product Manager in Nokia Artem Marchenko has over a decade of software development under the belt. Artem was working for a number of Ukrainian and Finnish companies, experienced various methodologies, processes and leadership styles. He got acquainted with Agile in 2005, liked the ideas and immediately started applying them in his projects within Nokia.

Artem's main interests are Scrum and the ways of establishing productive communication between the customer and development sides. Artem pursues both practice and theory. He was a practicing Scrum Master, now as a Product Manager he is playing a Product Owner role for a vastly distributed team. He is doing his PhD studies on Agile Project Management and consults and coaches various organizations on the topics of effective software development. Artem also maintains and regularly writes to the http://AgileSoftwareDevelopment.com web site.