Lean Startup Conference 2015 – great to be back in SF!

Lovin that SF vibe

In November, I spent a week in California happily volunteering again at the Lean Startup conference in San Francisco [although going off message and running sometimes – sorry guys! ;$]

A key theme this year – and building upon last year – is how Lean Startup methods are being applied to existing organisations: aka ‘Lean Innovation’.

Steve Blank has recently been blogging about this quite extensively, and I’ve been investigating the theory and have also been doing delivery – which will be the subject of this and several future posts.

The cutting edge of Lean Startup – from Janice Fraser and Eric Ries

It was also fantastic to take in some of the latest theory (and praxis) relating to the Lean Startup framework. I was fortunate enough to be the Conference volunteer in two of the three session’s Janice Fraser delivered relating to Eric’s next book.

Link to GE FastWorks articles

FastWorks is GE’s implementation of the Lean Startup.

GE has: worked extensively with Eric Ries to adapt his insights to their environment; trained hundreds of employees to be FastWorks coaches (e.g. Ranjit Das, based in Leeds); and learned the lessons of using FastWorks right across their business.

This tweet sums up my experience of being present at Janice Semper’s talk:

Amazing to see a GE Leader @janiceLsemper talk about being comfortable with learning through failure. #leanstartup pic.twitter.com/CdoIJDTtEp
— Leys (@Lbos23) November 18, 2015

Leys Bostrom was kind enough to share the following links with me after Janice Semper’s talk:

• GE’s Culture Challenge After Welch and Immelt
• How GE Applies Lean Startup Practices
• General Electric Wants to Act Like a Startup
• Startup frame of mind
• GE Opens New Advanced Manufacturing Lab in Connecticut
• Why GE had to kill its annual performance reviews after more than three decades
• Startups … inside giant companies
• GE Makes a Big Bet on Manufacturing [subscription needed]

Photos

Here are some photos of my experience – it was great to meet some key players and really fun to bump into friends who had volunteered last year.

Enjoyable and interesting

It was great to assist with the Conference itself, and also to be involved with the site visits on the Thursday.

Some fascinating experiences, both at Pivotal Labs and Slack, in terms of what they do to attract the best people, manage them, and keep them happy.

Final thought – everyone I’ve met in San Francisco seems so open and friendly. An interesting city with a varied history, temperate climate, and right by the sea #lovely