This week was focused on delivering the message of lean and improving our processes at work. I had the opportunity to talk to two different groups. The first was our internal staff and senior personnel. I brought everyone into the conference room and discussed what lean meant to me and how I need their support in order to improve our organization. I made sure to stress that this is only a team effort, it is an all or nothing scenario. We can’t sort of improve, we have to have buy in and go head first. With lean and improving how we improve our value delivery I was able to incorporate DevOps a little more. I talked about focusing on our individual processes, finding the constraints and removing the waste. This lead into talking about automation. We have begun experimenting with automation software to see how we can leverage our already virtualized infrastructure. (More on this later).
The second group was actually our Commanding General and more of our internal staff. The General spent two hours with our group and literally sat at our conference table and said, “What do you want to talk about?” I had his undivided attention for about 30 minutes while I highlighted the one major constraint we have which is the divide in our workforce. I ask for his assistance in removing that barrier because until it is gone we will never have a true team. We need everyone participating in our lean effort. I also had the chance to talk about our DevOps and how we can shorten lead time to product delivery to accommodate the direction the United States Army says they want to go. Being a Commander I know he understands our message and supports our effort to deliver the best capability to the Soldiers that rely on the service we provide. At the end of the discussion I feel he was very receptive and supportive, I am grateful we had the chance to talk lean and DevOps with our Senior Officer in the organization.
Now from the most junior to the most senior have heard our message. The momentum is exhilarating!
The Lean Army 