Since the 1990s a revolution in the Management of Software Development projects started to emerge.
This was a reaction to the current management methodologies that were not able to cope with the nature, requirement and complexity of software development and were actually degrading the business value that the companies were delivering to their customers and putting them at risk.
This revolution resulted in the creation of new project management methodologies for the software development community such as XP Programming and Scrum to name a few.
In 2001, several members that helped build these different project management methods decided it was time for them to meet. Even though they were considered to be “competitors” their objective was to talk about their experiences, values, share a vision of where the software development was heading and how they could work together in making it a better place to be.
From this meeting the Agile Manifesto and Agile Alliance were borne.
So this is a bit about Agile. Now lets talk about Lean and how Agile maps to Lean, etc..etc..
Lean Principles had been successfully applied by manufacturing companies in Japan since the 1950s. These companies were outperforming competing companies around the world in quality, speed, price and overall effectiveness.
Of these companies Toyota is the most famous. It completely changed the product development market and created a revolution not only in its industry but also in the history of Management as a hole. It did this by applying Lean Thinking at its core.
By applying Lean Principles Toyota was able to achieve a culture of Continuous improvement which turned it into a system that is constantly innovating in every aspect of its business making it practically impossible for its competitors to copy its products and outperform them.
This led several western professionals, companies, educational institutes, to travel to Japan and learn from them. Several papers and books resulted from these trips and studies. One of the most famous books is called :
The Machine That Changed the World : The Story of Lean Production
Scrum is one of the most popular Agile methods and its principles can be traced to Lean Thinking.
Boris Gloger a respected member of the Agile Community posted a page were it maps Scrum Practices to Toyota´s 14 Management Principles:
For more info on the 14 Management Principles:
Scrum has been successfully implemented in other markets such as Game Development, Marketing and it was also the first method I learned about and that made me enthusiastic in experimenting this kind of methodology in the creation/production of Visual Effects for a TV Series.
Let´s look at some of the facts that led the Software Development professionals to search for management solutions outside their industry in order to find a solution that would better attend their specific projects requirements.
- projects kept increasing in complexity and scale,
- which led to a significant increase in the amount of professionals required to develop and maintain these products,
- tighter delivery time frames,
- projects going over budget,
- schedules constantly slipping,
- delivery dates in constant risk of being missed,
- professionals paying the bill by working very long hours and weekends,
- which led to the burn out and lack of engagement of professionals,
- which led to reduction in quality of the resulting products,
- which led to the delivered products not attending Client expectation,
- which led to reduced Client satisfaction and lack of trust in the Software Development Companies,
- which led to Software Development companies in Chaos,
- which led to Companies accepting low budgets and unrealistic time frames just so they could try to stay in business,
- which led Companies to look at emerging countries to add more professionals at a lower cost,
- which led to problems in managing more people not only locally but also abroad,
- which led the local Professionals to work even longer hours in fear of loosing their job to emerging countries,
- which led to reduction in enthusiasm on the professionals and drop in productivity,
- which led to ….
- a vicious cycle that doesn´t seem to end nor have a happy ending.
Does this sound similar? Are these some of the issues we are facing today in the VFX industry?
Many industries have gone or are going thru the similar situations and crisis:
American Auto Manufacturers in the 1950s, Software Development Companies in the 1990s and most recently Game Developing and now the Visual Effects industry.
There needs to be a change that will lead us to a more mature business and to develop a different and healthier relationship with our clients (Studios). We need to change from constant negotiation to greater collaboration.
It´s a great time to learn and implement new Management principles and methods that have greater synergy in dealing and handling complex projects as the ones involved in creative and knowledge work such as Visual Effects, Games and Software development markets. As mentioned on the previous Post, the current Management methods used in most of the VFX facilities today were inherited from Mass Production and they just don’t work with the kind of complexity and scale that Visual Effects projects have today.
That is the reason why I keep talking about Lean/Agile Principles and Kanban.
These principles focus on: quality, make the work transparent by allowing everyone to visualize the work that is being made and clearly see how it is progressing, eliminate activities that generate waste, focus on the work that adds real value to the client, empower the professionals doing the work, increase the team commitment and engagement, add significant gains in productivity, deliver projects on time and on budget, add quality to the product and increase customer satisfaction. Increasing customer satisfaction will generate trust between you and the client that is crucial in developing a relationship based on collaboration rather than constant negotiation.
Lean/Agile Principles are fundamental in making companies achieve a culture of continuous improvement and innovation. This is what will differentiate the best from the competition and will make the clients want to work with them.
Kanban is a great methodology that supports these companies to achieve the qualities and benefits above by making the work Flow from “concept to cash” like Mary Poppendieck – one of the Pioneers in implementing Lean/Agile in Product and Software development - says.
A very large percent of the current Lean/Agile content available is related to Software Development but while reading it is possible to understand how these principles can be implemented on Visual Effects projects.
Here is a video from Steve Denning on Radical Management. He describes how Agile principles developed by the Software Development community can offer significan benefits in other industries.
Lean principles can fit into any organization and by using methods such as Kanban it is possible to create a culture of continuous improvement and innovation and develop Agile companies.
Here is a link to Personal Kanban website which has texts and documents that provide a good introduction of Kanban and how it is also helping people be more effective:
There is a lot of free content accessible to everyone!
Have fun going thru the content! More soon :)
Francisco Lima
Visual Effects Supervisor
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