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The Lean Mindset
Living with Paradox
mary@poppendieck.com

Mary Poppendieck

www.poppendieck.com

Our Two Minds

System 1:
Fast
Reflexive
Responsive
Expertise
Intuition
Habit
Tacit Knowledge
Autopilot
Makes Most Decisions
Overrides System 2
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System 2:
Slow
Deliberate
Rational
Analysis
Evidence
Plans
Explicit Knowledge
Manual Mode
Checks up on System 1
Basically Lazy

Copyright2013 Poppendieck.LLC

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Daniel Kahneman Thinking Fast and Slow
Working with Amos Tversky

Learning to Surf
Tacit Knowledge
Responsive
Reflexive
Expertise
Autopilot
Intuition
Habit
Fast

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Instead of learning to surf, conventional organizations try to

Copyright2013
June 13 the waves!
control
This Poppendieck.LLC
almost never works. --- Allen Ward

Cognitive Biases
Confirmation Bias
Tendency to seek out or interpret
information in a way that will
confirm preexisting viewpoints.

Anchoring
Tendency to anchor or rely heavily
on the first trait or piece of
information that was observed.

Loss Aversion
Tendency to strongly prefer avoiding
losses to acquiring gains.
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Copyright2013 Poppendieck.LLC

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Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky

Dealing With Cognitive Biases

Options
Teenage Decision-making*
Weather-or-Not
Either-Or

Widen the Perspective

Both And
None of the Above

Develop Multiple Options

Learn as Much as Possible
Decide as Late as Possible

Look for Patterns

Invite Disagreement
Look at the Adoption Chain

Zoom in Zoom out

Step Back
Get Close

Look at Base Rates

Find the Bright Spots

Look for Analogies
June 13

The Wisdom of Crowds

Multi-discipline Team
Aggregate Private Judgments

Widen the Frame

Opinions

Go to the
Gemba

What are the odds?

What makes you different?

Copyright2013 Poppendieck.LLC

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* Decisive by Chip and Dan Heath

Both Speed
And Quality
Source
Code & Tests

Self-Service
Deployments

Testers

Acceptance Stage

Capacity Stage

BINARIS

Metadata

Reports

Configure Environment
Deploy Binaries
Testers
Smoke Test
Run Acceptance Tests

BINARIS

Metadata

Reports

BINARIS

Compile
Commit Tests
Assembly
Code Analysis

Metadata

Commit Stage

Design
Code & Script
Unit Test
Refactor

Reports

Develop Stage

UAT Stage
Configure Environment
Deploy Binaries
Smoke Test
Manual Testing

Operations
Push-Button
Releases

Configure Environment
Deploy Binaries
Smoke Test
Run Capacity Tests

Production
Configure Environment
Deploy Binaries
Smoke Test

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ARTIFACT REPOSITORY
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Copyright2013 Poppendieck.LLC

Metadata

Model
Hypothesis
SBE
Wireframes

Environment
& Application
Configuration
Scripts

VERSION CONTROL

Reports

Design Stage

Can Big Companies Surf?

$33 Billion
110k+ Employees
Sells ~ 40% of mobile
network equipment.
It supplies software
and operations, and
manages infrastructure
build-out projects.
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Copyright2013 Poppendieck.LLC

Will supply much of the

equipment and software,
installation and operation.

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Faster Time to Market

Ericsson Networks
1.
2.
3.

5.

Twice as fast
Higher hit rate

Product and technical leadership.

Autonomy and responsibility.

Component specialists were consultants

Central planning coordinates features
a)
b)
c)

Results:

Manage features, not projects.

Decouple releases from development.
Small, multi-discipline feature teams.
a)
b)

4.

The past was not good

enough for the future.

One feature (~3 weeks) at a time

Set date and allow content to vary
Team worked with customer engineer
to determine detailed scope
June 13

Copyright2013 Poppendieck.LLC

Significantly

higher quality
More engaged

engineers

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Mats Lindn

Reliable Promises
Ericsson Networks

1.
2.
3.

The past was not good

enough for the future.

Manage features, not projects.

Decouple releases from development.
Small, multi-discipline feature teams.
a) Product and technical leadership.
b) Autonomy and responsibility.

4.
5.

Reorganized management jobs

Central planning coordinates features
a) Sets content and allow date to vary

Accept uncertainty and

learn how to live with it.
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Copyright2013 Poppendieck.LLC

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Hendrik Esser

Both Autonomy
And Predictability
Managing
Complexity

Achieving
Predictability

1.

Probe

1.

Flow

2.

Observe

2.

Obstacle

3.

Adjust

3.

Adjustment

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Copyright2013 Poppendieck.LLC

l e a n

Dealing With Cognitive Biases

Options
Teenage Decision-making*
Weather-or-Not
Either-Or

Widen the Perspective

Both And
None of the Above

Develop Multiple Options

Learn as Much as Possible
Decide as Late as Possible

Look for Patterns

Invite Disagreement
Look at the Adoption Chain

Zoom in Zoom out

Step Back
Get Close

Look at Base Rates

Find the Bright Spots

Look for Analogies
June 13

The Wisdom of Crowds

Multi-discipline Team
Aggregate Private Judgments

Widen the Frame

11

Opinions

Go to the
Gemba

What are the odds?

What makes you different?

Copyright2013 Poppendieck.LLC

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* Decisive by Chip and Dan Heath

The Optimization Paradox

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Copyright2013 Poppendieck.LLC

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Long Term Thinking

Handelsbanken
1970: Jan Wallander became CEO
Focus on profitability, not growth.
Decisions devolved to branch managers:
independent agents who make
all decisions for their branch.
Small central staff that must sell
services to branch managers.
Measurements:
Cost-to-income ratio
Income per employee
Company-wide profit sharing.
Result: Top European bank that easily
weathers economic storms.
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Copyright2013 Poppendieck.LLC

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The Growth Mindset

Fixed Mindset

Talent is fixed

Growth Mindset

You are born with it

You are either good at

something or you arent

Avoid Challenges
Dont do anything that might

make you look bad.

Those who have to work hard at
something are not very talented.

Example: Hockey

Skills can be learned

and improved
Genetics are only a starting point

Welcome Challenges
Failure is a learning opportunity
Hard work generates improvement
Success comes to those with Grit:

persistence, resilience to failure

Example: Martial Arts

In any elite group of Canadian hockey players

40% were born between January and March
30% were born between April and June
20% were born between July and September
10% between October and December
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Copyright2012 Poppendieck.LLC* Carol Dweck Mindset: the new Psychology of Success

The Perfection Paradox

Five
9s

Resiliency Learning to Fail

Resilience Engineering: Learning to Embrace Failure

A discussion with Jesse Robbins (Amazon), Kripa Krishnan (Google),
John Allspaw (Esty), and Tom Limoncelli (Interviewer from Google)
Nov. 2012 Communications of ACM
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Copyright2013 Poppendieck.LLC

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Gary Klein Streetlights and Shadows

Where Does Expertise Come From?

10 Years or 10,000 Hours of Deliberate Practice
1. Coach
2.

Challenge
3.

Feedback
4.

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Progress

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Copyright2013 Poppendieck.LLC K. Anders Ericsson The Making of an Expert (HBR)

When do People Perform Best?

Remember times when:
You are deeply engaged
Distractions disappear
Time evaporates

Anxiety

Challenges

This is called FLOW.

People are Energized by

A Challenge to Reach
Their Full Potential
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Copyright2013 Poppendieck.LLC

Boredom

Skills

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
(me-high chick-sent-me-high-ee)

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Energized Workers
Challenge
Feedback
Progress
Persistence

Keep Trying!

Autonomy

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Satisfaction in a Job Well Done

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Copyright2013 Poppendieck.LLC

Lean Mindset:
Balancing Our Two Minds
Thoughtful
vs.
Fast

Focus
vs.
Exploration

Perfection
vs.
Challenge

The Speed Paradox

The Optimization Paradox

The Perfection Paradox

Urgency

Adaptability

Mastery

Analytical
vs.
Intuitive

Self Interest
vs.
Community Interest

The Design Paradox

The Rational Paradox

Insight
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Copyright2013 Poppendieck.LLC

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Cooperation

lsoftware
e development
a n
Thank You!
The Lean Mindset
Book Available Fall, 2013
mary@poppendieck.com

Mary Poppendieck

www.poppendieck.com