To decompress from the awesome talks and workshops at Lean Day: West, I built a presentation to share with my colleagues in order to share some of the stories of real-world Lean Engineering and Lean Startup. Apologies for removing some privileged information, and for the font weirdness!

1. #LeanDayWest
the 2013 conference
and what it taught me about lean
and our team
Taylor J. Meek

2. “A high school student’s brain goes dead in
lecture mode.
In the professional world, lectures == meetings.”
Greg Petroff GE

3. 14 speakers sharing stories
about how they used Lean
to innovate within their
b u s i n e s s
Bill Scott & Cody Evol PayPal
Dane Petersen GE
Karel Barnoski GE
Greg Petroff GE
Lionel Mohri Intuit
Farrah Bostic The Difference Engine
Aaron Sanders The Weather Channel
Jeff Hutkoff The Weather Channel
Emily Holmes Hobsons
Ben Burton, Jono Mallanyk neo
Lean Day: West was 3 things
an opportunity to meet
with others who face the
same problems we face
Karel Barnoski GE
Lean User Experience Leader
and practice the
Lean approach to
solving engineering
p r o b l e m s

4. why did these companies employ lean?
to keep from being
disrupted by a market that
would have beat them to it
“Refactor your way out of technical debt. If you have crappy stuff out
there, eventually it catches up with you and you get disrupted by someone doing it
better.” Bill Scott PayPal
be more innovative.
stop wasting people's time.
be more successful.

5. why did these companies employ lean?
it’s a way to deal with growth it’s a way to deal with technical debt
when companies grow, they specialize
specialization leads to deep silos
deep silos leads to lack of understanding
results in no strong ownership
rapid growth can lead to technology
outpaced by the current need
ratio of work to improvement out of
whack
“There’s too much to do!”
it’s a way to deal with uncertainty
without measuring:
how do you know where you are?
how do you know when you’re done?

6. how did these companies employ lean?
found a catalyst for change
a leader
from inside or out
who took personal
responsibility
for the lean transformation
and empowered a team
with a vision
“Start with vision. Ideas are cheap.”
“To spur innovation, leaders need to shift
from judges to coaches.”
“Don’t be a distractor, be an empowerer.”
Lionel Mohri Intuit

7. how did these companies employ lean?
seized upon a crisis, or forced one
• PayPal couldn’t create a product in less than 6 months
• GE couldn’t give its 300,000 person team tools to
communicate
• The Weather Channel was facing the collapse of Cable TV

8. how did these companies employ lean?
adopted the principles of lean
1. entrepreneurs are everywhere and they are the catalysts
2. entrepreneurship is management
3. validate learning because learning is why business
starts
4. measure the boring stuff
5. employ the feedback loop build – measure – learn

9. how did these companies employ lean?
BUILD
MEASURELEARN
got to work building a
Minimal
Viable
Product

10. what did these companies do?
• Colocation was essential
• Included engineers, QA, and the product's manager from the
outset
• Allowed free access to customers
Put a team in one room to work on one product
Gave them paper, a whiteboard, and laptops
Their goal: Make a hypothesis and develop a rapid prototype to test it
They met every day on this, but it wasn’t a meeting, it was on-the-fly engineering
Once every (short period), they bring customers in to see it and test the
hypothesis
The prototype becomes the production product

11. the ancillary benefit
the more shared understanding,
shared vocabulary,
shared ownership,
the less design documentation is required
resulting in a living specification
the working prototype
a team that “gets” it
and less politics

12. we’re already doing some lean
CENSORE
D
CENSORE
D
CENSORE
D
CENSORE
D
customer
collaboration
pair programming
rapid iterations
test to build
customer
collaboration
agile planning
rapid iterations
prototype as a spec
rapid development
KISS
easily iterated
customer
collaboration
rapid iterations
test to build

13. seven themes @ Lean Day: West
lean can scale
GE, PayPal
be objective:
just because we
love it doesn’t
mean it’s good
“Test your
hypothesis.”
lean can cross
industries
jet engines
educational
software
financial services
perception of roles
must change
“The hanging-on of
expectations and duties
because of business
cards
stymies
innovation.”
empower
everyone
to participate in
the product
process
don’t be afraid to
throw things
away
“Just because you’re
building it (or on it)
doesn’t mean it’s
good.”
cultures must
shift
“This is a different
way of working and
addressing the
problems of our
business”

14. one more thing…

15. the last word – on change
“Trying to change culture? Expect to come back with scars.”
Stephane Kasriel, former PayPal VP of Mobile
Development