Lean Kanban North America is coming to San Francisco but when will I have time to enjoy the city?

Lean Kanban North America a.k.a Modern Management Methods conference for 2014 is coming up. This year it will take place in beautiful San Francisco.  I love San Francisco and the conference hotel is smack in the area I love most - the waterfront… But I’m not sure how much time I will have to wander outside…

I’m expecting quite a busy week - As one of the two winners of last year’s Brickell Key award I’m on the selection committee this year. Legends tell of long nights deliberating the merits of the different candidates until white smoke rises. Looking at the strong candidates nominated for this year I don’t see how it will be any different this time… :-)

Beyond that I have two sessions I’m involved in this year. One is the Amdocs Case Study. Conference series veterans will recall an Amdocs case study Erez Katzav and I presented back in LSSC2010 in Atlanta. Wow, that was a long time ago… Anyhow this year a fine team from another division in Amdocs is coming to talk about how they are using Kanban to improve the agility of a business group encompassing thousands of people. For those of you keeping track of my work and talks - The initiative is based on a lot of the things I talked about in the last years and has been a source for a lot of talks/write-ups as well. It is a very interesting story with ups, downs and new interesting challenges every week or so. For anyone interesting in change management in a large scale global enterprise as well as how to run a large scale operation using kanban flow approaches, don’t miss this session.

And finally, on thursday, I’m running an interactive workshop about Crossing the Chasm and pull-based change. This workshop will be an opportunity to elaborate and go deeper on some of the themes in the Amdocs case study and other talks like Kanban - a SANE way to go agile from LKUK13. I’m still obviously working on the structure for the workshop but am excited to have a more interactive intimate opportunity to talk about these topics, answer questions, hear feedback and ideas as well as stories/experiences from others who are facing similar situations. The Amdocs team will obviously also participate in this workshop so it is a great opportunity to dive deeper into questions that arise from the track session.

And on top of that there’s a very interesting schedule of sessions, keynotes and other interactive workshops I’ll want to see… (Here is my current plan…)

Busy week. Where is the time to go to the wharf and enjoy some clam chowder bread bowl? To catch up with everyone? Oh well.

Having said that, if you are at the conference and want to talk, I’m sure we can find the time… best way would be to contact me on twitter.

See you there!

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