The document discusses the seven wastes of Lean, software development, and change management. It analyzes how each waste manifests in change management. The key wastes in change management are overplanning, unvalidated changes, too many simultaneous changes, changes created in isolation, and solely following standard processes. The document advocates balancing plan-driven and feedback-driven approaches to change, limiting the number of changes, validating changes, and focusing on outcomes over processes.

1. 7 WA STES O F CHANGE
MANAGEMENT
JASON LITTLE
WWW.L E A N C H A N G E . O RG
@JASONLITTLE

2. 7 WASTES OF LEAN
INVENTORY OVER-PRODUCTION
EXTRA PROCESSING
TRANSPORTATION
WAITING
MOTION
DEFECTS
Raw materials, un-finished work,
stuff not required to deliver
customer orders
Re-work, extra manufacturing
steps, handling as a result of
defects or too much inventory
Queuing, idle downstream
processes which leads to
downstream teams doing non-value
added activities
Continuing with operational
processes when they should
have stopped
Un-necessary movement of
materials that are in progress
(WIP)
Extra steps due to inefficient
process layout, defects, re-work,
over-production or inventory
Products or services that don’t
meet or conform to customer
requirements or specs
http://www.leaninnovations.ca/seven_types.html

3. 7 WASTES OF SOFTWARE
INVENTORY OVER-PRODUCTION
EXTRA PROCESSING
TRANSPORTATION
WAITING
MOTION
Too much work in progress
(WIP), people working on
multiple projects
DEFECTS
PARTIALLY DONE WORK
RELEARNING
DELAYS
EXTRA FEATURES
HANDOFFS
TASK SWITCHING
Un-finished features require
extra processing (code
management etc)
Defining too many requirements
too soon causes relearning
Long feedback cycles, waiting
for teams to be available, too
much work in progress (WIP)
Building stuff the customer
doesn’t want or need
Handing work off between
functional groups
Products or services that don’t
meet or conform to customer
requirements or specs
http://agile.dzone.com/articles/seven-wastes-software

4. 7 WASTES OF CHANGE MANAGEMENT
INVENTORY OVER-PRODUCTION
EXTRA PROCESSING
TRANSPORTATION
WAITING
MOTION
DEFECTS
PARTIALLY DONE WORK
RELEARNING
DELAYS
EXTRA FEATURES
HANDOFFS
TASK SWITCHING
OVERPLANNING
UNVALIDATED CHANGES
HMM? TOUGH ONE!
TOO MANY CHANGES
CHANGES CREATED IN ISOLATION
FOLLOWING STANDARD PROCESS
UN-PREDICTED OUTCOMES?

5. INVENTORY, PARTIALLY DONE WORK
LEAN - INVENTORY
Raw materials, un-finished work,
stuff not required to deliver
customer orders
CHANGE MANAGEMENT - OVER PLANNING
Creating plans too far in advance and over-producing
documentation to adhere to non-value added process
and governance.
!
Symptoms include time spent on updating
documentation that isn’t useful, “analysis paralysis” by
spending too much time thinking about a change.
!
Solutions include producing documentation that is
useful and by planning more frequently, and in smaller
batches. Also consider stopping changes that fall off the
rails instead of “trying to make them stick”.
“The change team can become
exhausted by too much
change too!”
SOFTWARE - PARTIALLY DONE WORK
Un-finished features requires
extra processing (code
management etc)

6. OVER PRODUCTION, EXTRA FEATURES
LEAN - oVER PRODUCTION
Continuing with operational
processes when they should
have stopped
CHANGE MANAGEMENT - TOO MANY CHANGES
Creating, and executing, too many changes
simultaneously leads to thrashing, chaos and change
fatigue.
!
Symptoms include planning too far in advance,
possibly to satisfy stakeholders’ needs for the illusion
feeling of certainty.
!
Solutions include visualizing changes on a big-visible
board which leads to the realization that too many
changes are in progress. Also include more frequent
feedback loops and leaving the ‘plans’ for changes that
are further away lighter on detail.
“Sometimes executing change
is a ‘wait and see’ process”
SOFTWARE - EXTRA FEATURES
Building stuff the customer
doesn’t want or need

7. EXTRA PROCESSING, RELEARNING
LEAN - EXTRA PROCESSING
Re-work, extra manufacturing
steps, handling as a result of
defects or too much inventory
CHANGE MANAGEMENT - UNVALIDATED CHANGES
Assuming the changes being executed are the right
ones because of ‘best practice’ thinking.
!
Symptoms include focus on ‘change resistance’,
working on big changes that are risky and have
extremely uncertain outcomes.
!
Solutions include co-creating change by involving the
people affected by the change in the design of change.
Visualizing changes on a big visible wall and using
change canvases to build and communicate changes.
“People resist change when they
don’t feel they have a choice”
SOFTWARE - RELEARNING
Defining too many requirements
too soon causes relearning

8. TRANSPORTATION, HANDOFFS
LEAN - TRANSPORTATION
Un-necessary movement of
materials that are in progress
(WIP)
CHANGE MANAGEMENT - CHANGES CREATED IN ISOLATION
Creating changes in isolation without any feedback
from the people affected.
!
Symptoms include spinning on which changes to do as
a result of no feedback. Falling into the “expert trap”
results in constant redesign of changes when there is no
feedback to validate their the right ones.
!
Solutions include making changes that are being
designed visible to the people affected by the change.
“The plan” doesn’t always have to be perfect, some
outcomes of change are unknowable unknowns.
“If you’re doing change
management in the office with the
door closed, you’re doing it wrong!”
- Heather Stagl
SOFTWARE - HANDOFFS
Handing work off between
functional groups

9. WAITING, DELAYS?
LEAN - WAITING
Queuing, idle downstream
processes which leads to
downstream teams doing non-value
added activities
CHANGE MANAGEMENT - THIS IS GOOD THING!
Not waiting for changes to show an outcome is the
problem!
!
Symptoms include knee jerk reactions to not getting
results soon enough. That leads to the desire to pile on
more changes. Another symptom is the desire to keep
the change team busy because idleness is perceived to
be inefficient and costly.
!
Solutions include understanding the natural pace of
change by using the outcomes of previous changes as
input to new changes. Also, use hypotheses and
experimentation thinking. Time-box experiments…and
make that visible!
“Change fatigue happens when the
change team feels they need to
‘keep busy’”
SOFTWARE - DELAYS
Long feedback cycles, waiting
for teams to be available, too
much work in progress (WIP)

10. MOTION
LEAN - MOTION
Extra steps due to inefficient
process layout, defects, re-work,
over-production or inventory
CHANGE MANAGEMENT - FOLLOWING STANDARD PROCESSES
Best practice thinking leads to the change team
following a process and doing ‘busy work’ such as over-producing
documents and updating Sharepoint sites to
satisfy non-value added governance processes.
!
Symptoms include talking about following processes
(“but the process is…!”) instead of focusing on change
outcomes. Not measuring the effectiveness of
communication programs leads to doing low-value work
such as sending out newsletters no one reads.
!
Solutions include creating your own change
management process based on picking practices that
make more sense for your organization.
“Following process causes change
teams to stop focusing on
outcomes”
SOFTWARE - TASK SWITCHING
Too much work in progress
(WIP), people working on
multiple projects

11. DEFECTS?
LEAN - DEFECTS
Products or services that don’t
meet or conform to customer
requirements or specs.
CHANGE MANAGEMENT - UNPREDICTED OUTCOMES
Solely focusing on numerical measurements that don’t
tell the whole story.
!
Symptoms include updating the business case ROI
when the change project is done to match what actually
happened or blaming people affected by the change
because they resisted the change.
!
Solutions include mixing qualitative, quantitative,
leading and lagging indicators as well as diagnostics
that accept the uncertainty of organizational change.
“Organizational change is extremely
difficult to predict, mix measures
with diagnostics”
SOFTWARE - DEFECTS
Products or services that don’t
meet or conform to customer
requirements or specs.

12. 7 5 WASTES OF CHANGE MANAGEMENT
OVERPLANNING
UNVALIDATED CHANGES
WAITING IS GOOD!
TOO MANY CHANGES
CHANGES CREATED IN ISOLATION
FOLLOWING STANDARD PROCESS
CRYSTAL BALL?
Balance plan-driven and feedback-driven
approaches. Challenge your governance process.
Avoid change fatigue by limited the number of
simultaneous changes and break down big
changes into smaller chunks.
Avoid assuming the change you want to
implement is the right one based on “best
practice” thinking.
Avoid the ‘expert trap’ and talk to the people
affected by the change before implementing it.
Following “best practice” processes leads to focus
on process, not meaningful change.
Outcomes will take a while. Relax! This
isn’t waste, this is a good thing! Avoid
keeping ‘busy’ for optics purposes.
Gut feel based on experience will help
you “know” the change you’re working
on is the right one. But! Try as you may,
you cannot predict the outcome to a
reasonable degree of certainty and
more importantly you can’t get
predictable results every time.

13. lIKE WHAT YOU SEE?
"This is a key piece of work for further advancing
agile, lean and change management. It's a must read
for anyone starting a transformation" - Jamie
Longmuir, Agile Practitioner
!
Lean Change Management is a collection of innovative
practices for managing organizational change. It
combines ideas from Lean Startup, Agile, Neuroscience
and traditional change management to create a
feedback-driven approach to change that can be
adapted to any organization.
Get the Book

14. WANT TO SEE MORE?
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FRAMEWORK
(SLIDESHARE)
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(SLIDESHARE)
TOOLS FOR NAVIGATING COMPLEX
CHANGE
(SLIDESHARE)
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AGILE PRACTICES
(SLIDESHARE)

15. WWW.L EANCHANGE.ORG