5 Big Takeaways from Lean Startup Machine Toronto
This past weekend I attended Lean Startup Machine in Toronto. I’ve been using this method for a couple of months where I work and this was a great opportunity to get more experience. I didn’t really know what I was in for but after reading (most of) Eric Ries Lean Startup book, Running Lean and some other online resources I knew I wanted more of whatever this was.
Thursday night after introductions, speeches by the mentors and some exercise to help people to get to know each other, it was pitch time. I wasn’t really planning on pitching anything, but about half-way through pitches I decided to anyway. I’m in no way shape or form a salesguy so I’m sure my pitch was pretty lame but mine made the top 15 based on votes from the crowd. The idea was came from when I was a consultant, I experienced companies that sucked. They had one other thing in common. Good people worked there. My idea was to help figure out how to get exceptional people into companies that didn’t suck using the theory that myself and Don Gray are pitching for Agile 2012. Read more
3 Reasons You “Should Just” Go to PSL
PSL 2012 is coming up in May this year, I had the pleasure of attending last year and it was a life-changing experience. Here’s 3 reasons why you ‘should just’ go.
- You’ll learn to stop saying “should” and “just”: I worked with a company that had a problem with too many bugs. When a doozy would pop-up the usual all-hands-on-deck emergency meeting happened. The output was “we should do X to make Y not happen again”. Everybody nodded and felt great about this new epiphany! Shame nothing actually got done. When you say “we should do X” you remove all sense of responsibility on you and everybody else. It’s an action-less modal verb. I “just” thought this point would be valuable. Did you feel the power of this paragraph dissipate? ”I just through this point…” means I have no confidence in what I “just” said. Stop saying “should” and “just”. PSL will help you figure out how.
- You’ll become more self-aware: Self-awareness leads to improvement. I had many of my patterns reflected back to me during the week and PSL gave me many tools to figure out how to recognize those patterns and more importantly how to work on fixing them. Other people aren’t the problem, understand how you intake and process information and you’ll be much more self-aware.
- You’ll learn how to spot problems: Well duh, it’s called PROBLEM SOLVING LEADERSHIP, what did you expect? Seriously though, I get criticized for being too negative because I do not, nor will I ever, accept the status quo. PSL taught me how to do this, diplomatically and brutally. I usually prefer the brutal truth yet I realize the need for telling the kinder truth sometimes. If you cannot challenge the status quo and treat every problem as it’s own unique set of circumstances, (which they are, but generally humans use that as an excuse to not dig deeper “oh, it was an anomaly…it won’t happen again”), you’ll struggle with developing a problem solving attitude in your organization and you’ll be doomed to mediocrity.
- You’ll Have Fun!!! PSL was a blast! Intense learning, strong relationships were formed with people I never met before and it was extremely fun! I do have another problem though. The title of this post says ’3 Reasons’, yet I have listed 4. How can I solve this problem? ;-)
PSL will sell out fast, go sign-up now!
How Much Do Little Things Add Up To?
I’ve been told I’m a bit of nut with some of my observations. I don’t think this one is so nutty. The other day I had to go to both of my banks and deposit some cheques through their bank machines. I noticed when I deposited into Bank #1′s machine a receipt was generated and spit out automatically (even though I didn’t ask for one) and the little roller thingy that grabs your money started operating as soon as I finished typing in the amount.
Then I went to Bank #2 and their bank machine prompted me if I wanted a receipt (which I said no) and they had a notification that prompted me to press continue when I had my deposits in the envelop and was ready. The roller thingys started when I pressed continue.
So my observation is, how much operating cost does Bank #2 save in receipt paper as well as the process for refilling it? Being a bank I will assume the process is heavy and costly to refill the receipt paper container in the machine. I wonder how much Bank #2 saves over Bank #1 every year by saving paper and process in re-filling the machine. How much extra power do those little roller thingys use on a yearly basis for Bank #1?
Many companies I’ve worked with as a consultant and regular ol’ employee have a hard time grasping the concept of constant improvement in small increments. I’m usually met with “It’s useless to not do the whole thing…” type of mentality. Companies that really get it know how to have Kaizen events and understand taking on small and incremental improvements yields great results over time. The flip side is the perception of progress instead of actual progress because so many (and usually large) improvements are talked about which makes people feel good.
How do you approach improvements in your organization?
