We have a great (and free) Meetup planned for September 10 at 6:30pm.
The DC Lean Startup in the Enterprise Meetup group gathers at our Herndon office to exchange ideas. Join us for a presentation and discussion, or just sit and listen to learn some basics of lean and Agile.
When we recently met R. Scott Bonney and heard a piece of his fascinating story- we knew his tales would resonate with our Meetuppers. Join us on Thursday, September 10th as BizFlow’s Director of Innovation, Scott Bonney, walks us through the three year process of Leaning a software company forward, and accidentally backing into Agile in the process. The methodology may look the same… but it turns out “the CPI Solution Cycle” differs from traditional Agile and Scrum in several critical ways. So which is better? As it turns out, maybe both. Join us on Thursday, grab a beer, enjoy some lively discussion, and decide for yourself!
Check out a preview of his presentation:
Three years ago, the owner of a small, Falls Church-based Business Process Management (BPM) software company took a leap of faith and hired Daniel Myung, a Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt, to be his new CEO.
What happens when you put a Lean Six Sigma guy in charge of a software company? The answer, of course, is that everything changes. But there was a catch. Daniel was NOT a “software guy”. He knew words like Lean and Kaizen, and began using them to transform the way BizFlow did business. Moving from “Department Deployments” to C-suite, end-to-end business transformation, Daniel made his mark not just by shifting BPM back to its rightful place as an enterprise solution suite, but also was determined to break the mold in an expensive, crawling, ERP-heavy world by introducing Lean methods in software development–never realizing that the software world had undergone a Lean revolution of its own.
When did “Lean” become “Agile”, and who re-named “Kaizens” as “Sprints”? With two very different lexicons adding to the confusion, beginning in 2013 BizFlow leadership effectively “invented” Agile software development methodology on their own… and nearly trippled the company’s size and profits in the process. Everything was going great until one of their Fortune 50 clients asked them if they knew how to run projects using “Scrum”.
Scrum? “Of course! We can do Scrum!” (Hey, someone go look up Scrum; they want us to use it for the Australia project, and I don’t think they’re talking about rugby!).
And suddenly, the blinders came off.
About the Speaker.
R. Scott Bonney is Director of Innovation, Knowledge Management, and Training for BizFlow Corporation. An experienced LSS Master Black Belt, PMP, and (compliments of Sanjiv and LitheSpeed) Certified Scrum Master, Scott has served as trusted advisor and chief strategist for Daniel Myung and BizFlow since 2013. Scott holds 5 professional certifications from the American Society for Quality, completed his post-graduate professional license in Education, and is currently a doctoral student at American Meridian University studying Quality Management Systems in Innovation and Education (class of 2016).
A 1990 graduate of the United States Naval Academy, Scott served as an Engineering Officer in the US Navy before becoming a Quality Engineer and Lean Six Sigma guru in the just-in-time, just-in-sequence automotive industry. An experienced and entertaining instructor, Scott has taught thousands of Green, Black, and Master Black Belts. During his four years as a government contractor with Northrop Grumman and six as a GS-15 out of the Pentagon, Scott facilitated the first Kaizen event in an Iraqi company in 2008, and Directed the theater of operations enterprise transformation teams for the US Army in Iraq and Kuwait in 2009 and 2010. He literally wrote the book on Lean Six Sigma training and certifications for the Department of the Navy and the Department of Defense before leaving government service to support the BizFlow transformation in 2013.
