Agile 2022 – Lance Knight, ConnectALL

This is texturing TV. What we're doing something extra special here. I'm being joined by last night.

Lance's On Assignment going to quote add a special location. We're going to get into what that's about Lance's president. CEO of connect All Landscape to be talking with you.

How are you doing today? com and thanks wrong you as well. I feel like it's we should have a little bit of Willy Nelson On The Road Again in the background, but you know, yes and on the road so long it is a little different feeling is it well, so we're yeah introduce yourself tell us a little bit about connect all and then we want to get into where you're at.

Well, you know what? I'm Lance Knight, I'm the president CEO of connect all and you know connect all about helping companies adopt value stream management and adopted in a way that's about the humans right and and to get the most out of every piece of your talk to development process by you know, seeing and measuring your soft delivery value streams and I am allowed to give it away now, so I'm here now. There you go.

I'm at the agile 2020 to conference the first one in person for years and I'm just you know, I'm around the conference here and I can see value stream management everywhere here. Everybody's talking about it as well. I yeah every move value options over there the scrum people can to talk to me about value stream management and you know me I'm kind of loud on the topic.

So everybody's coming a little bit of passionate about yeah, so yes. Yeah a little bit. This is a small sliver of it.

And you know, we've got our new value stream designer out. Remember we made that we talked about. Yeah, and we're good.

We're helping companies and people here understand how to look at your value streams. All right here and and how here's interesting thing and I'm working on some articles around this and how does value stream management? Relate to agile.

And his value stream management important to agile. And we did this speaking side on this year ago. It's not very stream management doesn't give to whatever is about agile.

Nice tree management cares about it because it's a process inside your value stream will deliver software. So we want to become efficient at it. But whether it's agile or waterfall value stream management only knows it's a thing that it needs to help.

People do better at by automating it and reducing waste and you know, the whole non-value added value added work thing. I've been talking about for a while. Yeah that discussion right last thing.

Yep, right? Yeah. So, you know we did it isn't locked into agile or devops or waterfall or whatever.

The next thing coming down. The road is right. No.

No, it's it's its own thing and you're looking at and looking for organizations where you know, you can look at your agile process and figure out how to remove waste. And remove waste from even the agile things that you've implemented. from a developer perspective I got another thing I'm working on to where it says that the developers shouldn't even worry about value stream management.

Operational people should be looking at it or Executives in the organization. So how do I mean waste from the process we're doing whether that's agile or whatever. So the developers working on them value-added thing, which is writing code.

So and it's it's a great conference here for me to come and talk about how to think that way and remove waste from your software development delivery and be more efficient and deliver better code and all of those things that are wasteful and I know Engineers love to just program. They don't want to copy things in different tickets or make requests for servers. They want to be able to just get their work done.

Yeah get the job. And that's the value added activity. I'm curious.

So agile. 2022 is in Nashville. Correct?

It's just yeah, I was singing earlier. Did you hear did you hear? No, I was not a good recording boost, you know, you can drive down here song.

Yeah, I can't even hum a tune so The phrase I can't you know, if they put a handle on it I could carry a tune but without it I'm you know, so like that so it's great to be back in person and I'm curious obviously the theme is agile, but I'm curious what a sort of the subtext is you're looking at it from the value stream perspective. You know, what where we end in thinking about agile in the world and all the people coming back together and talking about that topic at all. So, you know, like I said, Agile is important.

It's part of processing methods. It's part of looking at it when you're managing and looking at how you're moving work through your organization. The value added non-value added activities agile has a bunch of value added in non value added activities could be necessary.

And you just want to be able to look at that based upon how you've implemented agile. And you know, I think it's at Next Step where organizations have to start to get. Value out of the methods and processes they put in.

That are agile. And you can use value stream management to help you do that. You can use value stream management to get metrics and analytics and information that you've never had before to make great business decisions on am I putting the right things into my agile process to ensure that I'm going to meet my business outcomes those there's great Synergy between guys streaming management and and agile but live stream management doesn't really care about agile.

One of the things I think is really valuable about that is in the value word is you aren't locked into how you're doing things though as you're moving through going through, you know cycle delivery Cycles whether you're doing devops or agile, right? It's a continuous improvement process, right? Yes, you may find you know, I'm spending too much time on non-value things that need to happen, but maybe I'm doing non value things right don't need to happen or I want to change the trajectory of where we are creating value you can you can alter course and that's I think that's one of the great things about the world.

We're in now versus something that might be more of a battleship to try to move, you know, we could be more flexible but PT Boat if you will to cruise and change direction, Yeah, I mean, absolutely. I mean when you think about looking at how you're developing software one team might be agile strum one team might be combine. And you use the right one to achieve the goal.

So the teams can enter work together to deliver software to the waiting arms of the customer and to it help with your digital transformation. You're just you know, I've been doing value stream stuff for a long time. So you use it, right?

You can really change the way. your organization works together and it doesn't matter if somebody's agile. Somebody's combine.

Somebody's waterfall, right? You understand how those things work together and use systems thinking and then you can automate some of that to make it be better. But it's also continuing movement right Andrew who works for us.

We said the other day find a problem. nap the Valley Streams remove waste start all over and just keep going at that and you become more efficient. Mm-hmm.

is there As your is your conference like this obviously people going are interested in agile. Maybe they're you know steeped in agile. Yeah.

Do you find that? There's As you move into doing something like agile or devops. Is there a is it earlier in the adoption curve is admit or later in the adoption curve that people kind of go.

Okay. Now we need to start thinking about the extreme management. Wish I would have done it sooner or maybe they're they are thinking about it earlier in the process.

What do you find? I think I think that they are thinking about it now, I think. Agile is maturing.

It's matured. Right. I mean the first team-based agile-based project Iran was a 1990.

99 I don't want to go that old yet. But in 1999 I ran a agile team. We developed the whole software shop more system and and we worked in that way.

But now starting to age and it's starting to be honest. It's starting to become complicated because people put things around it and that made it as easy and I don't think we as as an industry of software development delivery and we have companies really gotten the value that was promised out of agile and we're gonna start to see them finally getting that value by looking at it in these other holistic ways like the value streams and and so on over time and we'll see more things coming out and it's really crucial today. As we're pushing into digital Transformations and even as we're looking to be more efficient with what we have based upon the times.

so I think agile is going to become a 30 something soon not a teenager or anything to become 30 something not an old man like me. But you know, it's gonna mature into itself more and become more Mainstay incorporations and start to get the value out of being agile type organizations in the digital transformation goes along with us interesting. Yeah.

I mean certainly it's not a new thing. We've been doing this for a while. You're hopefully we're Perfecting and improving and growing, you know, sometimes we grow a little bit too much and had too much stuff to it.

You know, it's I still somewhere on a bookshelf back here. I still have my was it agile software development with scrum the old the schwabber and Beetle. I think were the authors of that that's sort of Bible for me back when starting to do Agile and how to do scrums and scrum meetings and processes and I think those things are still all there today that you can you can then apply value stream Management on top of that.

We're we're not like wildly swing out of what agile is we're building on that those Core Concepts. And so yeah, you know Valley Stream management will not change your scrums. You shouldn't talk about it and stand up or anything like that.

You know, I was actually talking to Dave West. org. I work with them in the past and it comes up to give me a big hug and I'm like, oh, all right, I'll give you but you know, we're all he was telling me how is Children are getting older and minor teenagers and I remember being part of this agile stuff, you know in the 2000s and then up and Beyond and it's getting old.

It's getting to find and we're gonna see it. Take that next step where I think corporations are gonna start to see why it's important and then using value stream management principles. They'll be able to you know, Truly remove the waste from the organization and it's one point where something delivery is more predictable.

11 in 2011 under some great new metrics and analytics. It's gonna have multiple values streamflows in it. So you have layout multiple value streams for bigger organizations to help deliver that promise of software to help you be more predictable.

Mm-hmm. This ends up amazing. I'm excited to see it especially if you talk about multiple value streams happening and Yeah, and once it's always, you know, whether you're scaling devops or value stream management or whatever.

It might be doing it on a small team. We can really focus learn together apply it do it to a well-defined relatively domain one thing scaling to a couple teams is another taking it, you know analyst let's get the whole organization in phases or whatever but still that's where the top part that's where they're really rubber meets the road. I think well, yes part of that is creating multiple values and letting those roll up to and over overall insights and analytics and corporately you can know where your projects are are they blocked doesn't matter whether you're working on that team that can all roll up these roll up analytics.

He's organization is structures so that you can as a bigger company gives out something you never were able to get before you CEO says, how's that project going? You can just look at right up there and you'll know where you're at What's blocking you in? And then be able to ruin waste from your multiple value streams as well.

So really excited about the value and I'm gonna say I said the word value about 300 times already. And anyway, never mind, so need to write a book called value and that way you're talking about. Okay every time that's right.

That's right. But it really deliver on the promise that we've been talking about. You know having that end end visibility and being able to see so really excited about our new release coming out here and it really near future and that's a release the ghost all current customers, you know, of course, it's not an add-on to it.

It's it's all built into the core product. Yes. You get it with your subscription and you're up to the races with all the new great capabilities.

Excellent. Well, that's very exciting. Congratulations and excited to hear our folks receive that and leverage those new capabilities.

That's fantastic. and you know, we're talking about the evolution of agile and it's growth in maturity and you know variations that might have taken on as you look at Valley Stream management if we want to think that of a Segment of the interest industry or a discipline within the industry. What is value stream management need to do where does it need to go?

Next? Does it matures and develops and grows? It needs to go back to what it was intended to be and leave behind all the marketing and stuff that people have tried to do to make it their own it needs to go back to being.

All the steps and processes both value added and non-value added to bring software the waiting on the customer. It needs to go be that not be all this other. things that Marketers, like myself have made it become once you remove the complexity and then put it back to its Simplicity.

It's great sense. And that's the same with agile. By the way.

Once you remove the complexity of somebody trying to take control and marketing it. It becomes pretty simple working iterations deliver value of whether we right, you know leading agile. You say three things right backlogs teams working software.

And you know getting back to the Simplicity of what it is really meant to be. We'll get value stream management industry. I think moving forward again because it's getting confused between value management and value stream management.

so that's my my thoughts on that is getting to the Simplicity will let us really embrace it easier. Well, that's that's not great. Here.

We have that's wisdom that we have by the way, so that's that's I'm gonna claim that but I I concur with you must have a nice filter. It's looking pretty great. Nice there.

I didn't trim that at all. Oh, they're doing their Nashville, but you're looking good the water whatever the air, whatever you just me. It must be all that singing.

I'm doing the singing. Yeah, that's the recording. you know I was thinking about You know, there's so many things in in you can point to in sports or life or whatever so many times.

They're going back to the I don't know not the basics but the fundamentals right you think about blocking attacking in football or you could pick any any topic, you know, any any hobby any discipline this those things are still true and they still have to be there because if you Co-op to term like value stream management to make it whatever you need to make it to fund your project or to get your product in someone's door when it's not really in there. They're gonna see the the false prophets right? Then I guess see the the product that ain't so that aren't really value stream management products.

You have to see those core components there or you kind of say what well, what is this? Really? Why are we doing this?

Is it real? What am I trying to achieve right? I mean if it's nice your management, it's simple.

I'm trying to remove waste. I'm trying to you know, move remove waste from my license and processes so that I can deliver better value quicker to the customer. Hmm.

And when you when you you start to defer it into something else you lose a Simplicity of just doing that. That's the same with blocking and I played football as a boy and we did that text size every day block me attack like right blocking in tactling and we were you know the vision champions. The coach he would have us locking and tackling all day long.

Right? So defense wins games, right? Well, you know and those kind of things aren't something you do using that analogy.

You don't do that when you're you know in their first or second year JV right you that is true whether you're you know Hall of Fame professional in the team that you're on your your you look more like a scrum than a football team moving down the field, you know, and and pee wee football to overuse that analogy. I'm completely okay. I don't think I play TV football, but you know the the the professionals get out there in Florida every year right they practice all the time Yeah, they're on the ball in and out there timing structure.

It's same with this stuff ranking back to the basics of advisory management is understanding principles are understand systems thinking and the next thing you know, you'll be much more efficient than being able to deliver a better methods and processities to solving problems in your company. Hmm. That's how you Stream Energy.

Yep, and you're you're focusing on the right things too not getting distracted with shiny objects and other problems, right? I've got a bunch of people all around me are distracting me, but yes true. Well, I have to complement you before we go.

I don't know what Wi-Fi detector you have. But you've got dang good walk Wi-Fi working there. Usually that's the hard part is like how do we get it connection that I do a video.

I know. Well, I guess it's the you know, yeah it is it it worked out really well good those people in Nashville know how to put a put together a good Wi-Fi network for the show Almost. Yeah.

Well, great. Well, thanks for checking in with us given a perspective. Of course what's happening at agile?

2022 and what's happening at connect all tell our audience where they can go to learn more about connect all and the new release that's coming out. You know, right it's it's always connect all calm. com if you need anything, and it's always my pleasure talking to you.

It's a great pleasure and enjoyed very much. Well safe travels coming back to glad you got there safely and have a good rest of the time that you're there and I'm sure I know when I'm going to those things now, it's just so good to reconnect people and the the pace at which Communications and kind of furthering things that works in your business just happens. Yeah, you see the value of being in person.

It's And it's all right. Let's look forward to next time. Be sure and visit us visit the connect all site, and we look forward to our next dialogue.

Thank you. Thank you.