Mary Poppendieck Advises New Zealand IT Leader

Mary Poppendieck Advises New Zealand IT Leaders on Creating a Lean Culture

Mary Poppendieck, speaking at an Equinox IT hosted executive breakfast event last Wednesday, advised Wellington senior IT leaders on how to create a lean culture that delivers valuable business outcomes.

Mary Poppendieck and husband Tom are international thought leaders and acclaimed authors on the topic of applying lean manufacturing principles to software development. They spent the week with Equinox IT last week delivering training courses and executive presentations in Wellington.
During the breakfast presentation Mary spoke about the need for simplicity, highlighting that with 64% of product features never or rarely used there were real opportunities to create more value from IT. Mary went on to challenge conventional IT delivery approaches where 30% or more of the time is spent on testing for defects or “hardening”. “Mistake proof the process” said Mary showing how top companies build quality in from the start resulting in less than 10% of time spent on testing for defects.

Mary positioned that by managing capacity and flow, rapid and reliable delivery can be achieved, citing Google who regularly and reliably deliver a new release of gmail twice a week. Mary finished her presentation talking about the need to hire capable and experienced people and building complete teams representing all of the functions necessary to deliver a product.

“It has been great to have Mary and Tom Poppendieck visit and work with Equinox IT to provide valuable ideas and inspiration for our clients” said Equinox IT Principal Consultant Anthony Boobier. “With the right teams, mind-set, and approaches it is possible to achieve significant improvements in the business outcomes delivered by organisations”.

Ends://

© Scoop Media