Mattias Skarin

Continue reading: Real World SAFe – Leapfrogging a successful waterfall company into Scaled Agile

Real World SAFe – Leapfrogging a successful waterfall company into Scaled Agile

How do you leapfrog a successful waterfall company into Scaled Agile? How do you transition into Agile when you have legacy? When your company is already successful in what it does and when it carries legacy, transitioning into Agile is a more complex challenge than starting off Agile in a green field environment. After all,

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Continue reading: Slides from “Passion for projects 2017”

Slides from “Passion for projects 2017”

Today I met a crowd I do not bump in to all that often; project managers. I decided to share insights from Agile projects, stretching from Hospitals to Digitilization, how they simplified and speeded up their pre-studies. Learning how to do so well, helps avoiding the “we have to speed up implementation, to make up

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Continue reading: What is Agile – easy to grasp material for the non-techie

What is Agile – easy to grasp material for the non-techie

I frequently get the question (often from people outside IT): “how can I quickly understand what Agile is?”.  I’ve collected a suite of links and videos over the years to help people grasp the basics concepts in 10 min or so. I thought I’d share them with you. (pls note: the list is intended to

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Continue reading: Hur Karlstad sjukhus byggdes på tid och budget med Agila kontrakt

Hur Karlstad sjukhus byggdes på tid och budget med Agila kontrakt

Karlstad sjukhus har i flera omgångar byggts om och byggt ut. Samtliga hus har levererats på tid, budget och med en fungerande vårdverksamhet från dag 1. Sjukhuset har sparat 300 miljoner åt Värmlands läns landsting. Lösningen? Effektstyrd upphandling med Agila kontrakt och Partnering. Vad skapade förutsättningarna för att lyckas? Vi intervjuade Lars Nilsson, som ledde upphandlingen av Karlstad sjukhus.

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Continue reading: Stephen Bungay on Agile Strategy

Stephen Bungay on Agile Strategy

Last month, we had the pleasure of bringing Stephen Bungay to Crisp in Stockholm to share with us his wisdom and insights on how to use Strategy under uncertain conditions. I find this topic interesting, since the interative nature of Agile can trick management into believing either that they do not need to have a

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Continue reading: Riding a backwards bicycle – Keynote at Agile Islands 2016

Riding a backwards bicycle – Keynote at Agile Islands 2016

The Agile ambition at Åland (a group of Islands between Sweden and Finland) is quite astonishing.  Besides being home to a bunch of cutting edge tech companies (who have been using Agile at Scale for 8+ years), they are also experimenting with using Agile in their society. Hm, Sweden suddenly feels sooo 90’s.. I had the privilege to keynote at their first Agile conference

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Continue reading: Introducing Lottie Knutson – speaker at Fastfeedback 2016

Introducing Lottie Knutson – speaker at Fastfeedback 2016

During extraordinary situations and crises, some people stand out and shine. One of these was Lottie Knutson. Lottie led the Crisis team at Fritidsresor during the Tsunami disaster in 2004. While governments were struggling to figure out what had happened, Lottie’s team was already hitting the ground running. Lottie will be speaking at Fast Feedback

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Continue reading: 10 kanban boards and their context updated – v1.5

10 kanban boards and their context updated – v1.5

Hi! I’ve updated the  Kanban boards  collection with examples from departements outside IT, Product portfolio and Corporate Legal. Download “10 kanban boards and their context” as pdf

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Continue reading: SAFe @ LEGO – Video from LKCE 2015

SAFe @ LEGO – Video from LKCE 2015

Hi! Here’s the video of our presentation  “Learnings from SAFe @ LEGO” at LKCE 2015.   psst: Meet LEGO f2f at this years Fastfeedback conference 2016 (Stockholm, Sept 21-22:nd). This years focus topic is “Strategy – Turning insight to action”. fastfeedback.se   Cheers Mattias

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Continue reading: Insights from Nordics first Agile contracting conference

Insights from Nordics first Agile contracting conference

OK, technically speaking, it was called a networking day.  But that wouldn’t do justice to the content here. The main thing we got out of the ACPN Agile contracting conference was the three different perspectives from lawyers, customers and providers.  That gave us a unique insight into the challenges and questions from each party. Some cool facts: Founders

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Continue reading: 12 seemingly normal things Agile people do

12 seemingly normal things Agile people do

Last week, I got this great question from Faraz (a manager for an energetic customer support crew) who is experimenting a lot with getting more Agile. “What seemingly normal things do Agile people do?” I realized that we rarely talk about the small things that effective Agile people do. What makes a great difference is rarely the big sweeping change programs, but rather, the small everyday things we do without thinking about it.

So here’s a list of 12 seemingly normal things Agile people do which we don’t pay much attention to that can make a big difference.

Whiteboard problem solving

Agile Behaviours - Whiteboard

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Continue reading: #slowtofast podcast with Nordnet CIO Dennis

#slowtofast podcast with Nordnet CIO Dennis

Hi! I recently did a podcast together with Dennis (CIO Nordnet) on #slowtofast. I walked into the podcast thinking it was going to be about Kanban and Enterprise Agile. Right! 🙂 Dennis hit me with these simple questions.. The essential elements of proper Product Management The management principles of an Agile leader How the Swedish culture is

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Continue reading: Kanban and Scrum – now with Polish translation!

Kanban and Scrum – now with Polish translation!

The Kanban and Scrum minibook is now available with Polish translation. Great thanks to Zbigniew Zemla for the translation! Pobierz tutaj (aka  polish for “get it here” ): http://www.infoq.com/minibooks/kanban-scrum-minibook Cheers Mattias

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Continue reading: 5 ways to find slack when your team is under pressure

5 ways to find slack when your team is under pressure

I recently recorded a webinar where I walk through 5 ways to find slack (to invest in critical improvements),  when a team is under high pressure. Enjoy! http://leankit.com/blog/2015/11/real-world-kanban/  

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Continue reading: Video – Learnings from applying SAFe @ LEGO

Video – Learnings from applying SAFe @ LEGO

Hi! Here’s the video me and Eik’s presentation – “Learnings from SAFe @LEGO”  (presentation at LKCE – Lean Kanban Central Europe, Nov 2015). Best quote: “..this looks exacly like what my 6 year son does in kindergarden” 🙂 Cheers Mattias

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Continue reading: LKCE 2015 Slides – Learnings from applying Safe @ LEGO

LKCE 2015 Slides – Learnings from applying Safe @ LEGO

Just back from Lean Kanban Central Europe 2015. A great conference that keeps pushing the limits. At the conference I gave a talk together with Eik aka “Captain Agile” from LEGO. We walked through how they introduced SAFe, how they involved other departments and most important, how they experimented their way forward.  (Me and Henrik iterated as coaches

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Continue reading: Real World Kanban – interview on InfoQ

Real World Kanban – interview on InfoQ

InfoQ has just released an interview regarding my latest book Real World Kanban. In this we walk through the reasons behind writing the book plus why Kanban needs to be matched by long term thinking to improve over time  (aka behaviours like “don’t pass bad quality forward” matters) Check it out:  http://www.infoq.com/articles/book-review-real-world-kanban ps: For anyone interested in the book, I have

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Continue reading: Slides from Lean Kanban France 2015

Slides from Lean Kanban France 2015

  Just back from Lean Kanban France where I gave a presentation on “Learnings across Kanban case studies, and what happened next” and introduced Skarin’s law: ”The number of improvement initiatives in a kanban system is proportional to the trust members have in that systems purpose” (.. it’s never too late to introduce your own law 🙂

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Continue reading: Kanban tool walkthrough video

Kanban tool walkthrough video

Are you thinking about electronic Kanban tools? Do you need transparency to end-to-end flow? Do you work across multiple sites? Tired of managing work states in Jira? Here’s a short video demonstrating visualisation, analytics and key features in Swift-Kanban & Leankit. Both combine “simple and flexible” with “enterprise ready”. I also mention an interesting runner up – Obeya. Some things I

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Continue reading: How do you develop awesome products?

How do you develop awesome products?

For  this year’s Stop Starting conference, we asked ourselves three questions: How do you develop awesome products? How do you bootstrap a successful mega project using Agile contracts? How do you use Agile and Lean thinking to turn a stagnant company around? We then picked the brains of people from real companies who have been

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Continue reading: Using Agile in Hardware To Develop New Products In One Day

Using Agile in Hardware To Develop New Products In One Day

Team developing new productsCan you develop new products from scratch in one day?

This challenge was taken on by the Medical HW manufacturer Optinova in August. Over the course of two days, we pushed the limits of “what is possible” by applying Agile in a HW environment.

Our hypothesis was that Agile would be a good fit in product development and innovation scenarios. And the result so far from the work that we have been doing with Optinova is promising.

Cross-functional teams, focus, rapid prototyping, close customer feedback and visual overview work just as well in hardware as in software. The training setup we used was as follows:

  • Day 1 – Learn basic Agile practices and principles
  • Day 2 – Applying them – developing three product ideas from scratch in one day, in a rapid prototyping workshop.

The result: All three participating teams managed to take an idea to working prototype in a day. One team went so far as submitting a bid to a real customer the following day based on their prototype. That’s high speed, even in software terms. But the most important thing wasn’t the result, it was the lessons learned. When we asked the participants if they wanted to continue to build products this way, the votes were unanimously in favor. If we can get it to work, this would help build a competitive and innovative company.Continue reading

Continue reading: Hur Wunderkraut håller budget och skapar långvariga relationer med hjälp av Agila kontrakt

Hur Wunderkraut håller budget och skapar långvariga relationer med hjälp av Agila kontrakt

Vi har byggt en sajt där med goda exempel, för att inspirera företag, myndigheter och verksamheter på väg in i en upphandling att ta steget till Agila kontrakt. Check it out – agilakontrakt.se. Eller följ oss på twitter: @agilakontrakt. Turen har kommit till att berätta om Wunderkraut, som använt Agila kontrakt sedan 2010. Det intressanta är hur de i den ombytliga

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Continue reading: Real World Kanban – now on Amazon

Real World Kanban – now on Amazon

My new Kanban case book now ships from Amazon (as hardcover or in Kindle format). Learn how we: Improved the full value chain by using Enterprise Kanban. (Find out how we improved time to market and shifted focus from Sprints to Flow to deliver customer value in a traditional company.) Boosted engagement, teamwork, and flow in

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Continue reading: Slides from Hookedfest

Slides from Hookedfest

Just back from Hookedfest – a conference for product people. It’s refreshing to see and discuss product development from a market and product perspective, in contrast to the “what can we build” perspective we all to often resort to as engineers. It was interesting to see other speakers (for example the Google guy) share similar experiences on

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Continue reading: Book release: Real World Kanban

Book release: Real World Kanban

My new book – “Real World Kanban” is now available. Here’s the plot in a nutshell: What happens when Kanban is used in real projects? Kanban has few rules, but an infinite number of strategies. What seems easy in theory can become tangled in practice. So there’s nothing like learning from real world cases. Learn how

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Continue reading: Learning Lego Serious Play

Learning Lego Serious Play

Three months ago I stumbled upon a question which needed an anwer: Could Lego be used for business strategy development? I just had to go to London to find out the answer.

With a group of 12 I spent the full weekend.. building Lego! When was the last time I did that? (hint: some 30 years ago..). The real interesting part is of course the stories we tell about the models. Each time we do, the team moves closer towards a shared understanding and also generate new insights. That’s cool!

Below: Team members walking through our shared model.

lsp_walkingthroughmodels

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Continue reading: Kickstart workshops with energizing exercises

Kickstart workshops with energizing exercises

Do participants fade away in a long “zzz..”  or the perfect time to update yourself on what your friends are doing on FB? No more! Check out the Energizer bible for nifty tricks for keeping up the energy level during workshops and trainings.

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Continue reading: Agila kontrakt och effektstyrning – Slides från frukostföreläsning för It-chefer

Agila kontrakt och effektstyrning – Slides från frukostföreläsning för It-chefer

I morse höll vi (Mia och Mattias) ett lyckat föredrag för morgonpigga IT-chefer och andra som hade kommit till Crisp för att lära sig lite mer om hur man kan använda Agila kontrakt för att förbättra beställningar, relationer och leverera produkter och tjänster som skapar önskvärda effekter. Föreläsningen var ett smakprov på vad vi kommer

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Continue reading: The impact on quality and predictability of Agile and XP

The impact on quality and predictability of Agile and XP

It’s always nice to look at real data and these two studies are worth their read.

  • “Impact of Agile” from Rally compares the effect of WIP and estimation techniques on productivity and quality.
  • “The State of Developer Productivity” by Rebel labs examines the effect of XP style techniques on quality and predictability.

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Continue reading: Agila kontrakt – slides från Devlin 2014  (swe)

Agila kontrakt – slides från Devlin 2014 (swe)

Här är mina slides om Agila kontrakt från Devlin 2014. Jag hoppas det skall inspirera fler företag och myndigheter att börja använda sig av dem, då de medför väsentligt lägre risk än traditionella kontrakt. (Använder du Agila kontrakt idag – tveka inte att höra av dig!) Vi har i Sverige dåliga practicies för upphandlingar och

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