Todd Little is CEO at Lean Kanban Inc., the leading provider of professional Kanban management training. He is also a Founder at Accelinnova, a leadership and agility consulting group. Previously he has held executive roles as Vice President of Product Development for IHS, and Director of Software and Technology for Landmark Graphics a division of Halliburton.He has been developing or leading the development of software for over 35 years. For the past 10+ years, Todd has been a frequent presenter at Agile and Software conferences around the globe. He is a founding member and past President of the Agile Leadership Network. He has served on the Board of Directors of both the Agile Alliance and the Agile Leadership Network, and was a co-founder and Conference chair for several of the Agile20XX conferences. Todd is a co-author of the book “Stand Back and Deliver: Accelerating Business Agility,” Addison Wesley.

Risky Business: Real Options for Business Agility

Enterprise projects are known to have challenges with uncertainty, risk, forecasting and commitment - and the most valuable projects often carry the most risk. Other industries also encounter risk and generate value by understanding and managing that risk effectively. Todd Little explores techniques used in a number of risky businesses - product development, oil and gas exploration, investment banking, medicine, weather forecasting, and gambling - and shares what those industries have done to manage uncertainty.

Exploring Little’s Law

Little’s Law is an elegant explanation of the relationship between throughput, WIP, and cycle time. In a stable environment it gives us a good understanding of the performance of the system. In this workshop we explore Little’s Law through theory and the experience of simulations. You will come away with a better understanding of Little’s Law and the core assumptions necessary for it to be applicable and useful in forecasting. Through the simulation we will experience why estimation of individual items is often not necessary in an environment where Little’s Law applies.

• The foundation of Little’s Law
• Core assumptions
• How to use it effectively